Subsidies in a Year my Error if it were one was pardonable So we parted I went to my Lord Duke and acquainted him with it lest I might have ill Offices done me for it to the King and the Prince Sic Deus beet me servum suum laborantem sub pressurà eorum qui semper voluerunt mala mihi So may God bless me his Servant labouring under the pressure of them who alway wished ill to me April 16. Friday My Conference with Fisher the Jesuit Printed came forth April 18. Sunday I Preached at Paul's Cross. April 27. Tuesday My very good Friend Dr. Linsell cut for the Stone Circiter horam nonam ante Meridiem About Nine a Clock in the Forenoon May 1. Saturday E. B. Marryed The Sign in Pisces May 5. Wednesday Ascension-Eve The King's Speech in the Banquetting House at Whitehall to the upper House of Parliament concerning the Hearing of the Lord Treasurer's Cause which was to begin the Friday following This day my Lord Duke of Buckingham came to Town with his Majesty Sick And continued Ill till Saturday May 22. May 13. Thursday Lionel Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer of England and Master of the Wards Censured in Parliament for Bribery and Extortion and Deceiving the King c. To lose his Offices To be ever disinabled to bear any Fined to the King in 50000 l. Imprisoned in the Tower during the King's Pleasure Never to sit again as a Peer in Parliament Not to come within the Verge of the Court. May 15. Saturday Whitson-Eve The Bill passed in Parliament for the King to have york-York-House in exchange for other Lands This was for the Lord Duke of Buckingham May 16. Whitsunday night I watched with my Lord Duke of Buckingham This was the first Fit that he could be perswaded to take orderly May 18. Tuesday night I watched with my Lord Duke of Buckingham he took this Fit very orderly May 19. Wednesday The Bishop of Norwich Samuel Harsnet was presented by the House of Commons to the Lords His Cause was referred by the House to my Lord's Grace of Canterbury and the High Commission May 22. Saturday My Lord Duke of Buckingham missed his Fit May 26. Wednesday He went with his Majesty to Greenwich May 28. Friday E. B. came to London He had not leisure to speak with me though I sent and offered to wait all opportunities till June 16 being Wednesday May 29. Saturday The first Session of Parliament ended And the Prorogation was to the Second of November June 6. Second Sunday after Trinity I Preached at Westminster June 8. Tuesday I went to New-Hall to my Lord Duke of Buckingham and came back to London on Friday June 11. June 16. Wednesday I took my lasting leave of E. B. The great dry Summer My Dream June 4. Wednesday night 1623. In this Dream was all contained that followed in the carriage of E. B. towards me and that Night R. B. Sickned to the Death May 29. Saturday night 1624. I was marvellously troubled with E. B. before they came to London That there was much declining to speak with me but yet at last I had Conference and took my lasting leave And this so fell out Respice ad Maij 28. See May 28. July 7. Wednesday night My Lord of Durham's quarrel about the trifling business of Fr. N. July 23. Friday I went to lye and keep House and Preach at my Livings held in Commendam Creek and Ibstock That Friday night at St. Albans I gave R. R. my Servant his first Interest in my Businesses of moment July 27. This I confirmed unto him the Wednesday Morning following at Stanford August 7. Saturday while I was at Long Whatton with my Brother my passion by Blood and my fear of a Stone in my Bladder August 8. Sunday I went and Preached at my Parsonage at Ibstock and set things in order there August 26. Thursday My Horse trod on my foot and lamed me which stayed me in the Country a week longer than I intended Septemb. 7. Tuesday I came to London Septemb 9. Thursday My Lord of Buckingham consulted with me about a Man that offered him a strange way of Cure for himself and his Brother At that time I delivered his Grace the Copies of the two little Books which he desired me to write out Septemb. 16. Thursday Prince Charles his grievous fall which he had in Hunting Septemb. 25. Saturday My Lord Duke's proposal about an Army and the Means and whether Sutton's Hospital might not c. Octob. 2. Saturday In the Evening at Mr. Windebanks my Ancient Servant Adam Torless fell into a Swoon and we had much ado to recover him but I thank God we did Octob. 10. Sunday I fell at Night in Passionem Iliacam which had almost put me into a Fever I continued ill fourteen days Octob. 13. Wednesday I delivered up my Answer about Sutton's Hospital Novemb. 21. Sunday I Preached at Westminster Decemb. 6. Munday There was a Referment made from his Majesty to my Lord's Grace of Canterbury My Lords of Durham and Rochester and my self to Hear and Order a Matter of Difference in the Church of Hereford concerning a Residentiaryship and the Lecturer's place which we that day Ordered Decemb. 13. Munday I received Letters from Brecknock that the Salt-Peter Man was dead and buried the Sunday before the Messenger came This Salt-Peter Man had digged in the Colledge-Church for his work bearing too bold upon his Commission The News of it came to me to London about Novemb. 26. I went to my Lord Keeper and had a Messenger sent to bring him up to answer that Sacrilegious abuse He prevented his punishment by Death Decemb. 21. Tuesday Fest. Sancti Thomae Mr. Crumpton had set out a Book called St Augustins Summe His Majesty found fault with divers passages in it He was put to recall some things in Writing He had Dedicated this Book to my Lord Duke of Buckingham My Lord sent him to me to overlook the Articles in which he had recalled and explained himself that I might see whether it were well done and fit to shew the King This day Mr Crumpton brought his Papers to me Decemb. 23. Thursday I delivered these Papers back to Mr. Crumpton The same day at York-House I gave my Lord Duke of Buckingham my Answer what I thought of these Papers The same day I delivered my Lord a little Tract about Doctrinal Puritaenism in some Ten Heads which his Grace had spoken to me that I would draw for him that he might be acquainted with them Decemb. 31. Friday His Majesty sent for me and delivered unto me Mr. Crumpton's Papers the second time after I had read them over to himself and commanded me to correct them as they might pass in the Doctrin of the Church of England Januar. 3. Munday I had made ready these Papers and waited upon my Lord Duke of Buckingham with them and he brought me to the King There I was about an hour and a
the whole matter I believe this Committee will prove the National Synod of England to the great dishonour of this Church And what else may follow upon it God knoweth March 22. Munday The Earl of Strafford's Trial began in Westminster-Hall and it continued till the end of April taking in the variation of the House of Commons who after a long Hearing drew a Bill of Attainder against him Anno 1641. March 25. Thursday A. Sh. performed his Promise to the uttermost May 1. Saturday The King came into the Upper-House and there declared before both Houses how diligently he had hearkned to all the Proceedings with the Earl of Strafford and found that his fault what-ever it was could not amount to High Tre ason That if it went by Bill it must pass by him and that he could not with his Con science find him Guilty nor would wrong his Conscience so fa r. But advised them to pro ceed by way of Misdemeanour and he would concur with them The same day after the King was gone a Letter was Read in the Upper-House from the Scots in which they did earnestly desire to be gone It was moved for a present Conference with the House of Commons about it The Debate about it was very short yet the Commons were risen beforehand Maij 12. Wednesday The Earl of Strafford beheaded upon Tower-Hill June 23. Wednesday I acquainted the King by my Lord of London that I would resign my Chancellorship of Oxford and why June 25. Friday I sent down my Resignation of the Chancellorship of Oxford to be published in Convocation July 1. Thursday This was done and the Earl of Pembroke chosen Chancellor by joint consent August 10. Tuesday The King went Post into Scotland the Parliament sitting and the Armies not yet dissolved Septemb. 23. Thursday Mr Adam Torles my Ancient Loving and Faithful Servant then my Steward after he had served me full forty two Years dyed to my great loss and grief Octob. 23. The Lords in Parliament Sequestred my Jurisdiction to my inferior Officers and Ordered that I should give no Benefice without acquainting them first to whom I would give it that so they might approve This Order was sent me on Tuesday Novemb. 2. in the Afternoon Novemb. 1. News came to the Parliament of the Troubles in Ireland the King being then in Scotland where there were Troubles enough also Novemb. 25. Thursday The King at his return from Scotland was sumptuously Entertained in London and great joy on all hands God prosper it Decemb. 30. Thursday The Arch-Bishop of York and eleven Bishops more sent to the Tower for High Treason for delivering a Petition and a Protestation into the House that this was not a free Parliament since they could not come to Vote there as they are bound without danger of their Lives Januar. 4. Tuesday His Majesty went into the House of Commons and demanded the Persons of Mr Denzill Hollis Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr John Pym Mr John Hampden and Mr William Stroude whom his Attorney had the day before together with the Lord Kimbolton Accused of High Treason upon seven Articles They had Information and were not then in the House they came in after and great stir was made about this Breach of the Priviledges of Parliament Febr. 6. Saturday Voted in the Lords House that the Bishops shall have no Votes there in Parliament The Commons had passed that Bill before Great Ringing for joy and Bonfires in some Parishes Febr. 11. Friday The Queen went from Greenwich toward Dover to go into Holland with her Daughter the Princess Mary who was lately Married to the Prince of Orange his Son But the true Cause was the present Discontents here The King accompanied her to the Sea Febr. 14. His Majesties Message to both Houses Printed by which he puts all into their Hands so God bless us Febr. 14. An Order came that the Twelve Bishops might put in Bail if they would and that they should have their Hearing upon Friday February 25 They went out of the Tower on Wednesday February 16 and were sent in again February 17 the House of Commons on Wednesday-night protesting against their coming forth because they were not in a Parliamentary way made acquainted with it Feb. 20. Sunday There came a tall Man to me under the Name of Mr Hunt He professed he was unknown to me but came he said to do me service in a great particular and prefaced it that he was not set on by any States-Man or any of the Parliament So he drew a Paper out of his Pocket and shewed me 4. Articles drawn against me to the Parliament all touching my near conversation with Priests and my Endeavours by them to subvert Religion in England He told me the Articles were not yet put into the House they were subscribed by one Willoughby who he said was a Priest but now come from them I asked him what Service it was he cou'd do me He said he looked for no advantage to himself I conceived hereupon this was a piece of Villany And bad him tell Willoughby he was a Villain and bid him put his Articles into the Parliament when he will So I went presently into my inner Chamber and told Mr Edward Hide and Mr Richard Cobb what had befallen me But after I was sorry at my Heart that my Indignation at this base Villany made me so hasty to send Hunt away and that I had not desir'd Mr Lieutenant to seize on him till he brought forth this Willoughby Feb. 25. Friday The Queen went to Sea for Holland and her Eldest Daughter the Princess Mary with her March 6. Sunday After Sermon as I was walking up and down my Chamber before Dinher without any Slip or Treading awry the Sinew of my Right Leg gave a great crack and brake asunder in the same place where I had broken it before Feb 5 〈◊〉 Orders about Stisted Anno 1642. It was two Months before I could go out of my Chamber On Sunday Maii 15 I made shift between my Man and my Staff to go to Church There one Mr Joslin Preached with Vehemency becoming Bedlam with Treason sufficient to hang him in any other State and with such particular Abuse to me that Women and Boys stood up in the Church to see how I could bear it I humbly thank God for my Patience All along things grew higher between the King and the Parliament God send a good Issue Maij 29. Four Ships came into the River with part of the Ammunition from Hull August 22. Munday the King set up his Standard at Nottingham August 24. The Parliament having committed Three Officers of the Ordinance and sent two new ones in the room This day they brake open all the Doors and possessed themselves of the Stores August 27. Saturday Earl of Southampton and Sir Jo. Culpepper sent from the King to have a Treaty for Peace refused unless the King would take down his Standard and recall his Proclamation which
made them Traytors Septemb. 1. Thursday Bishops Voted down and Deans and Chapters in the Lower House That Night Bonfires and Ringing all over the City Ordered cunningly by Pennington the new Lord Mayor About this time ante ult Aug. the Cathedral of Canterbury grosly Profaned Septemb. 9. Friday An Order from the House about the giving of Alhallows-Bread-street The Earl of Essex set forward towards the King Septemb. 10. Voted down in the upper House Dubitatur Octob. 15. Saturday Resolved upon the question that the Fines Rents and Profits of Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans and Chapters and of such notorious Delinquents who have taken up Arms against the Parliament or have been active in the Commission of Array shall be sequestred for the use and service of the Common-wealth Octob. 23. Sunday Keinton Field Octob. 24. Munday An Order from the House to keep but Two Servants speak with no Prisoner or other Person but in the presence of my Warder this common to other Prisoners Octob. 26. Wednesday Mr. Cook 's Relation to me of some Resolutions taken in the City c. Octob. 27. The Order of Octob. 24. not shewn me till Octob. 26. and I sent a Petition to the House for a Cook and a Butler Thursday October 28. This Order revoked Friday And this granted me Novemb. 2. Wednesday Night I Dreamed the Parliament was removed to Oxford the Church undone Some old Courtiers came in to see me and jeared I went to St. John's and there I found the Roof off from some parts of the Colledge and the Walls cleft and ready to fall down God be Merciful Novemb. 8. Seventy Eight Pounds of my Rents taken from my Controuler by Mr. Holland and Mr. Ashurst which they said was for Maintenance of the King's Children Novemb. 9. Wednesday Morning Five of the Clock Captain Brown and his Company entred my House at Lambeth to keep it for Publick Service and they made of it The Lords upon my Petition to them deny'd they knew of any such Order and so did the Committee yet such an Order there was and divers Lords hands to it but upon my Petition they made an Order that my Books should be secured and my Goods Novemb. 10. Some Lords went to the King about an Accommodation Novemb. 12. Saturday A Fight about Brainford Many slain of the Parliaments Forces and some taken Prisoners Such as would not serve the King were sent back with an Oath given them The Fight is said to begin casually about billotting Since this Voted in the House for no Accommodation but to go on and take all advantages Novemb. 16. Wednesday An Order to barr all Prisoners Men from speaking one with another or any other but in presence of the Warder nor go out without the Lieutenants leave And to barr them the Liberty of the Tower Novemb. 22. Tuesday Ordered That any one of them may go out to buy Provision Novemb. 24. Thursday The Souldiers at Lambeth House brake open the Chappel door and offered violence to the Organ but before much hurt was done the Captains heard of it and stayed them Decemb. 2. Friday Some of the King's Forces taken at Farnham About an hundred of them brought in Carts to London Ten Carts full their Legs bound They were sufficiently railed upon in the Streets Decemb. 19. Munday My Petition for Mr Coniers to have the Vicaridge of Horsham Before it came to be delivered the House had made an Order against him upon complaint from Horsham of his disorderly Life So Decemb. 21. St. Thomas's day I petitioned for my Chaplain Mr. William Brackstone Refused yet no Exception taken That day in the Morning my young dun 〈◊〉 were taken away by Warrant under the Hands of Sir John Evelyn Mr. Pim and Mr Martin Decemb. 23. Thursday Dr. Layton came with a Warrant from the House of Commons for the Keys of my House to be delivered to him and more Prisoners to be brought thither c. January 5. A final Order from both Houses for setling of Lambeth Prison c. Thursday All my Wood and Coals spent or to be spent there not reserving in the Order that I shall have any for my own use nor would that Motion be hearkned to January 6. Friday Epiphany Earl of Manchester's Letter from the House to give All-Hallowes-Bredstreet to Mr. Seaman January 26. Thursday The Bill passed the Lords House for Abolishing Episcopacy c. Feb. 3. Friday Dr. Heath came to perswade me to give Chartham to Mr. Corbet c. Febr. 14. Tuesday I received a Letter from his Majesty dated January 17. to give Chartham to Mr Reddinge or lapse it to him That Afternoon the Earl of Warwick came to me and brought me an Order of the House to give it to one Mr Culmer This Order bare date Febr 4 Febr. 25 Saturday Mr Culmer came to me about it I told him I had given my Lord my Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thursday St Cedd's day The Lord Brooke shot in the left Eye and killed in the place at Lichfeild going to give the Onset upon the Close of the Church he having ever been fierce against Bishops and Cathedrals His Bever up and armed to the Knees so that a Musket at that distance could have done him but little harm Thus was his Eye put out who about two Years since said he hoped to live to see at St Pauls not one Stone left upon another March 10. Friday This Night preceeding I dreamed a Warrant was come to free me and that I spake with the Lieutenant that my Warder might keep the Keys of my Lodging till I had got some place for my self and my Stuff since I could not go to Lambeth I waked and slept again and had the very same Dream a second time March 20. Munday The Lord of Northumberland Mr Pierpoint Sir John Holland Sir William Ermin and Mr Whitlock went from both Houses to Treat of Peace with his Majesty God of his Mercy bless it and us March 24. Friday One Mr Foord told me he is a Suffolk Man that there was a Plot to send me and Bishop Wrenn as Delinquents to New-England within fourteen days And that Wells a Minister that came thence offered wagers of it The Meeting was at Mr Barks a Merchant's House in Friday-street being this Foord's Son-in-Law I never saw Mr Foord before Anno 1643. March 28. Tuesday Another Order from the Lords to give Chartham to one Mr Edward Hudson My Answer as before April 11. Tuesday Another Order for the same and very peremptory This came to me April 12. whereupon I petitioned the House Thursday April 13. My former Answer being wilfully mistaken by Hudson That present day another Order very quick which was brought to me Friday April 14. I Petitioned the House again the same day with great submission but could not disobey the King April 12. Another peremptory Order to Collate Chartham on Mr Edw Corbet brought to me Saturday April 22. April 24. Munday I gave my Answer as before but in
Religion to let you know that their said Lordships have assigned and appointed you to attend on them as Assistant in that Committee And to let you know in general that their Lordships do intend to examine all Innovations in Doctrine or Discipline introduced into the Church without Law since the Reformation and if their Lordships shall in their Judgments find it behoveful for the good of the Church and State to Examine after that the degrees and perfection of the Reformation it self Which I am directed to intimate unto you that you may prepare your Thoughts Studies and Meditations accordingly Expecting their Lordships pleasure for the particular points as they shall arise and giving you to understand that their Lordships next sitting is upon Friday next in the Afternoon I recommend you to God's protection being Your very loving Friend and Brother Jo. Lincoln West Coll. 12 Martij 1640. To my very loving Friends and Brethren Dr. Brownrig Mr. Shute Dr. Featly Mr. Calamy Dr. Hacket Mr. White Dr. Westfield Mr. Marshal Dr. Burges What use will be made of this Committee for the present I shall expect but what it shall produce in future I dare not prophesie But it may be it will prove in time superiour to the National Synods of England And what that may work in this Church and State God knows I setled my self in my Lodging in the Tower where I yet am and pass my weary time as well as I can On Saturday Mar. 13. Divers Lords dined with the Lord Herbert Son to the Earl of Worcester at his new House by Fox-Hall in Lambeth As they came back after Dinner three young Lords were in a Boat together and St. Paul's Church was in their Eye Hereupon one of them said he was sorry for my Commitment if it were but for the building of St. Pauls which would go but slowly on there-while The Lord Brook who was one of the three replyed I hope one of us shall live to see no one stone left upon another of that building This was told and avowed by one of the Lords present And when I heard it I said now the Lord forbid and bless his poor Church in this Kingdom CAP. IX ON Munday Mar. 22. the Earl of Strafford's Tryal began in Westminster-Hall And it continued with some few Intermissions till the end of April The Earl got all the time a great deal of Reputation by his Patient yet Stout and clear Answers and changed many Understanding Mens Minds concerning him Insomuch that the great Lawyers of his Council affirmed there openly That there was no Treason appearing to them by any Law Upon this the House of Commons who were all the while present in a Body left the Hall and instead of leaving the whole Cause to the Judgment of the Lords in the ordinary Way of Parliaments betook themselves to their Legislative Power and so passed a Bill of Attainder against him and having none made a Law to take away his Life This Bill was denyed by two or three and fifty as able Men as any in the House of Commons But the Faction grew so hot that all their Names were Pasted up at the Exchange under the Title of Straffordians thereby to increase the Hatred of the People both against him and them and the Libels multiplyed This Bill went on with great haste and earnestness which the King observing and loth to lose so great and good a Servant his Majesty came into the House of Lords and there upon Saturday Maii 1. Declared unto both Houses how carefully he had heard and observed all the Charge against the Earl of Strafford for he was present at every Days Hearing and found that his Fault whatever it were could not amount to Treason And added That if they meant to proceed by Bill it must pass by him and that he could not in his Conscience find him guilty nor would ever wrong his Honour or his Conscience so far as to pass such a Bill or to that Effect But advised them to proceed by way of Misdemeanour and he would concur with them in any Sentence This displeased mightily and I verily think it hastened the Earl's Death And indeed to what end should the King come voluntarily to say this and there unless he would have abode by it whatever came And it had been far more Regal to reject the Bill when it had been brought to him his Conscience standing so as his Majesty openly professed it did than to make this Honourable Preface and let the Bill pass after The House of Commons and some Lords too it seems eagerly bent against the Earl of Strafford seeing by this the King 's bent grew more sharp and pursued the Bill the more violently In so much that within two or three Days after some Citizens of London and Prentices came down in Multitudes to the Parliament called there for Justice and pretended all Trade was stopp'd till Justice was done upon the Earl of Strafford Who brought on the People to this way I would not tell you if I did certainly know but wise Men see that plain enough without telling These People press upon the Lords in a way unknown in the English Government yea or in any setled Government in Christendom In conclusion they are taught to threaten the King and his Court in a strange Manner if they may not have speedy Justice The Bill comes up to the Lords when the House was none of the fullest but what made so many absent I know not and there it past And upon Sunday May 9. the King was so laid at and so frighted with these Bugbears that if Justice were not done and the Bill Passed for the Earl of Strafford's Execution the Multitude would come the Next Day and pull down White-Hall and God knows what might become of the King himself that these fears prevailing his Majesty gave way and the Bill passed and that Night late Sir Dudly Carlton one of the Clerks of the Council was sent to the Tower to give the Earl warning that he must prepare to Dye the Wednesday Morning following The Earl of Strafford received the Message of Death with great Courage yet Sweetness as Sir Dudly himself after told me On Munday Morning the Earl sent for the Lord Primate of Armagh to come to him He came and the same Day visited me and gave me very high Testimony of the Earl's Sufficiency and Resolution And among the rest this That he never knew any Lay-man in all his Life that so well and fully understood Matters of Divinity as the Earl did and that his Resolutions were as firm and as good In this Interim before the Day of his Death he made by his Friends two Suits to his Majesty The one that he might Dye privately within the Tower the other That his Death might be Respited till the Saturday that he might have a little more time to settle his Estate His Majesty sent these Requests to the Houses
terrifie Men of great Resolution and much Constancy they do in all Humility and Duty protest before your Majesty and the Peers of this most Honourable House of Parliament against all Votes Resolutions and Determinations and that they are in themselves null and of no effect which in their absence since the Twenty Seventh of this instant Month December 1641. have already passed and likewise against all such as shall hereafter pass in that most Honourable Assembly during such time of their forced and violented absence from the said most Honourable House Not denying but if their absenting of themselves were wilful and voluntary that most Noble House might proceed in all these Premises their absence and Protestation notwithstanding And humbly beseecheth your Most Excellent Majesty to command the Clerk of the House of Peers to enter this their Petition and Protestation in their Records They will ever pray God to bless and preserve c. Jo. Eborac Williams Geo. Hereford Coke Tho. Duresme Moorton Rob. Oxon Skinner Rob. Co. Lich. Wright Ma. Ely Wren Jos. Norwich Hall Godfr Glouc. Goodman Jo. Asaphen Owen Jo. Peterburg Towers Guil. Ba. Wells Pearce Mor. Llandaff Owen On Tuesday January 4. his Majesty went into the House of Commons some number of Gentlemen accompanyed him to the Door but no farther There he demanded the Persons of Mr. Denzil Hollis Sir Arthur Haselrigge Mr. Jo. Pymm Mr. Jo. Hampden and Mr. William Strode whom together with the Lord Kimbolton Sir Ed. Herbert his Majesty's Attorney General had the day before charged with High Treason in the Vpper House upon seven Articles of great consequence It seems they had information of the King 's coming and were slipt aside This made a mighty noise on all hands But the business was so carried that the House adjourned to sit in a Committee at Guild-Hall and after at the Grocer's-Hall Where things were so Ordered that within two or three days these Men were with great salutes of the People brought and in a manner guarded to the Committee and after to the House at Westminster and great stir made to and fro about the Accusation of these Men and the breach of the Priviledges of Parliament by his Majesty's coming thither in that manner Things were carried in a higher strain than ever before The King left the City and withdrew privately first to Hampton-Court after that to Windsor Many puttings on and puttings off concerning this and other great Affairs between the King and the House All which I leave to publick Records as not concerning this poor History Yet could not omit to say thus much in the general because much of the Church-business as well as the States and much of mine as well as the Churches will depend upon it CAP. XII UPon Thursday January 20. upon no Complaint that I know for I am sure I never deserved any in that kind there was an Order made in the Lords House to take away my Arms. They stood me in above Three Hundred Pounds I provided them for the Service of the State as Need might require I never employed any of them to any the least Disservice of it nor ever had thought to do Yet the Order is as follows both to my Disgrace to have them so taken from me and to my loss for though the Sheriffs of London be to take them upon Inventory yet of whom shall I demand them when they are out of their Office Die Jovis 20. Jan. 1641. IT is this Day Ordered by the Lords in Parliament That the Sheriffs of the City of London or either of them shall receive by inventory all such Ordnance and other Arms as belong to any private Persons which are to be kept to their Uses remaining now at Fox-Hall Canterbury-House the Arch-Bishop of York's House in Westminster and in the Bishop of Winchester's House a fit proportion of Arms being left at each Place for necessary Security thereof The said Sheriffs being to receive their Directions from a Committee lately appointed by the Parliament But the Intents of the Lords are and it is farther Ordered that such Ordnance and Arms as do belong to his Majesty shall be forthwith sent unto the King's Magazine in the Tower Upon Saturday Feb. 6. the Bill passed That the Bishops should have no Votes in Parliament nor have to do in Civil Affairs This was mightily strugled for almost all this Session and now obtained The Bishops have ever had this in Right and Possession ever since there was any use of Parliaments in England which the antientest Family of the Nobility which now sit there and thrust them out cannot say There was great Joy upon the Passing of this Bill in both Houses and in some Parishes of London Ringing and Bonfires The King gave way to this Bill and so that is setled And if it after prove that the King and Kingdom have Joy in it it is well But it may be that the Effects of this Eclipse may work farther than is yet thought on and the Blackness of it darken the Temporal Lords Power more than is yet feared And here I must tell you two Things The one that for the compassing of their ends in this Bill the nowbecome-usual Art was pursued and the People came in Multitudes and Clamour'd for the outing of the Bishops and the Popish Lords Votes so they were still joyned out of the House Insomuch that not the People of London only but Petitioners were brought out of divers Counties with Petitions either sent unto them or framed ready for them here against they came and they in every Petition for preservation of the Priviledges of Parliament desired the taking away of the Bishops and the Popish Lords Votes out of the House as if it were a common Grievance The other That now the Bishops have their Votes taken away by Act of Parliament you shall not see in haste any Bill at all Pass for taking away the Votes of the Popish Lords which will infer this as well as some other things That these were joyned together to make the Bishops more odious to the People as if they were Popishly affected themselves and to no other end The Court removed from Windsor to Hampton-Court and on Thurs-Day Febr. 10. The King and Queen came to Greenwich and on Friday Febr. 11. they went from thence toward Dover the Queen resolving to go into Holland with her young Daughter the Princess Mary who the Year before was Married to the Prince of Aurange his Son But the true Cause of this intended Journey was to be out of the Fears Discontents and Dangers as she conceived of the present Times And doubtless her Discontents were many and great and what her Dangers might have been by staying or may be by going God alone knows His Majesty while he was upon that Journey sent a Message to both Houses This was Printed Febr. 14. By this the King puts all
The same day it was Ordered by the Honourable House of Commons that Mr Glyn Mr. Whitlock Mr. Hill or any two of them should take care for the securing of the Publick Library belonging to the See of Canterbury the Books Writings Evidences and Goods in Lambeth-House and to take the Keys into their Custody And a Reference to the Committee to prepare an Ordinance for the regulating of Lambeth-House for a Prison in the manner as Winchester-House is regulated And upon Jan. 5. a final Order from both Houses came for the setling of Lambeth Prison In which Order it was included that all my Wood and Coal then in the House should remain there for the use of the Souldiers And when Motion was made that I might have some to the Tower for my own necessary use it would not be hearkned to There was then in the House above two hundred pounds worth of Wood and Coal which was mine The next day I received a Letter from the Earl of Manchester commanding me in the Name of the House to give All-Hallows-Bredstreet to 〈◊〉 Seaman This I was no way moved at because I had before expressed my self to my Lord of Northumberland that I would give this Benefice out of my Respects to his Lordship to Mr. Seaman his Chaplain Yet I cannot but observe that though this was made known to the Earl of Manchester yet he would not forbear his Letter that the Benefice might be given by Order and not seem to come from any Courtesie of mine to that Honourable Person CAP. XVII ON Thursday January 26. the Bill passed in the Lords House for abolishing of Episcopacy God be merciful to this sinking Church By this time the Rectory of Chartham in Kent was fallen void by the Death of the Dean of Canterbury and in my Gift It was a very good Benefice and I saw it would create me much trouble in the Collating of it The first onset upon me for it was by Dr. Heath and it was to give it to Mr. Edward Corbet of Merton-College of which House Dr. Heath had formerly been Very earnest he was with me and told me the Lord General was earnest for him and that it would be carried from me if I did it not willingly which I were better do My Answer was I could not help that But Mr. Corbet had many ways disserved me in Oxford and that certainly I would never give it him So we parted And though I could not be jealous of Dr. Heath yet neither could I take it well And on Tuesday Feb. 14. I received a Letter from his Majesty bearing Date January 17. in which Letters the King Commands me to give Chartham to one Mr. Reading a Man of good Note in the Church or if I were otherwise Commanded by Parliament not to give then to Lapse it to him that he might give it I returned a present Answer by word of Mouth and by the same Messenger that I would either give or Lapse the Benefice as his Majesties Gracious Letters required of me I was now in a fine Case between the King and the Parliament One I was sure to offend Yet these Letters of the King 's came happily in one respect For that very Afternoon the Earl of Warwick came to me to the Tower and after a few fair words bestowed on me drew out an Order of Parliament to give Chartham to one Mr. Culmer who his Lordship said was a very worthy Man and perhaps I might have believed his Lordship had I not known the contrary But I well knew him to be ignorant and with his Ignorance one of the most daring Schismaticks in all that Country This Order of Parliament bare Date Febr. 4. but was not shewed me till then My Answer to my Lord was that I had received a Letter from his Majesty which required me to give that Benefice to another Man or else Lapse it to him and therefore humbly desired his Lordship to do me good Offices in the Honourable House considering in what difficulties I was and how many great Livings I had given by Orders of Parliament and none at the King's Command till now So we parted After this Mr. Culmer came to me about the Benefice and protested his Conformity to the Church I think the Man forgot that I knew both him and his ways I told him I had given my Lord of Warwick my Answer But Mr. Culmer rested not so But got a Servant of mine down the Stairs to him and there was very earnest with him to know whether it were not possible to work me to give him Chartham And then out of the abundance of his honesty and worthiness offer'd my Servant a Hundred and Fifty Pound to procure him the Benefice And added that he should have no cause to distrust him for he should have the Money presently paid him This is as worthy a piece of Symony as need to be And but that the Earl of Warwick is a Man of Honour and unfit to stoop to such base Courses it is enough to make a Man think Mr. Culmer would have been very thankful to his Lordship for so much pains as to come to the Tower and solicit for him The Earl of Warwick at his next opportunity in the House told the Lords that whereas they had made an Order that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury should give Chartham to Mr. Culmer a very worthy Preacher he had been with me himself about it and that I pretended Letters from the King and refused to obey their Order This was like to have stirred great Heat against me but that a Lord stood up and doubted of the Order Putting them in Mind that the Lord General was ingaged for this Benefice for Mr. Corbet and had left the Care of it upon himself and some other Lords in his absence Hereupon there was inquiry made when and how that Order passed for Culmer and it was found to be slipped out at a very empty House So the Earl of Warwick excused the Matter that he knew not of the Lord General 's purpose and so the Business slept and never awaked more for Culmer The Lord Brook was now in Action A bitter Enemy he was to the Church and her Government by Bishops On March 2 he was going to give Onset upon the Close of the Cathedral at Lichfield And as he was taking view of the place from a Window in a House opposite to the Close and his Bever up so that a Musket at such a distance could have done him but little harm yet was he Shot in the left Eye and killed Dead in the place without speaking one word Whence I shall observe three things First that this great and known Enemy to Cathedral-Churches died thus fearfully in the Assault of a Cathedral A fearful manner of Death in such a Quarrel Secondly that this happened upon Saint Chads Day of which Saint the Cathedral bears the Name Thirdly that this Lord coming from Dinner about
But the matter was passed over and Mr. Strowd not so much as checked This it may be was thought seasonable by some to hearten on the Violence of the Earl of Pembroke The Business not long heard on Friday was put off again to Munday Decemb. 2. and the House of Lords put into a Committee to examine Particulars by their Notes The Earl of Northumberland on the Wool-Sack during the Debate which continued more or less some Days Where their own Notes failed they called to Mr. Brown Clerk of their House for his But at last finding him very ready and quick for any thing that was Charged against me but loth to be known what Answer I gave to any Point some Lords observed it And it did after appear that the Notes which he put to the Lords were not the Notes which himself took but that he had a Copy given him whether by Mr. Pryn or any other I know not and I was informed that the Earl of Warwick had another Copy of the very same This is marvellous Just and Honourable in that Earl And most Christian-like in Mr. Brown It may be he learned it out of the Notes which his Father-in-Law takes at Sermons Upon Munday December 16. there was the Times considered a very full House of Lords about Twenty present and my Business largely debated and ready to come to the Question I wish with all my Heart it had while the House was so full But the Earl of Pembroke fell again into his wonted violence And asked the Lords what they stuck at And added what shall we think the House of Commons had no Conscience in passing this Ordinance Yes they knew well enough what they did One of the Wits hearing this Excellent Passage of the Earl's Protested If ever he lived to see a Parliament in Bedlam this Prudent Earl should be Speaker if he were able to procure him the Place In the mean time this Unhappy Clamour of his put the Business off again to the next day being Tuesday Then there were but fourteen Lords in the House My Business was assumed and proposed in three Questions and I was Voted Guilty of the Fact in all three Namely Guilty of endeavouring to Subvert the Laws To Overthrow the Protestant Religion And that I was an Enemy to Parliaments Then it being put to the Judges whether this were Treason or no the Judges unanimously declared that nothing which was charged against me was Treason by any known and established Law of the Land with many things to and fro concerning this Business On Tuesday Christmas-Eve the Lords had a Conference with the Commons about it In which they declared that they had diligently weighed all things that were charged against me but could not by any one of them or all find me guilty of Treason And therefore desired that the Argument made by my Councel might be Answered And if it could be made appear unto them by any Law to be Treason they would then proceed farther as in Honour and Justice they should find fit Then came Christmas-day the last Wednesday in the Month and a most Solemn Fast kept on it with as Solemn an Ordinance for the due observance of this Fast and against the manner of keeping of that day in former Superstitious Times A Fast never before heard of in Christendom After this Conference Mr. Serjeant Wild speaking freely to some Friends about this Business told them he wonder'd the Lords should so much distrust their Judgments as to desire a Conference about it To see how good Wits agree Surely I believe he was of the Earl of Pembroke's Councel or the Earl of his they jump so together It seems in these Mens Opinions the House of Commons can neither Err in Conscience nor Judgment Howsoever that House thought it fit the Lords should be satisfied that I was by Law guilty of High Treason And to that end sent up a Committee Jan 2. 1644. to make proof of it to their Lordships At this Meeting two Judges were present Justice Reeves and Judge Bacon The Managers of the business against me were three Lawyers Mr Brown Serjeant Wild and Mr Nicolas Neither my self nor any of my Councel there What this will effect upon the Lords Time must discover as it doth the effects of other Eclipses And thus far I had proceeded in this sad History by Jan 3 1644. The rest shall follow as it comes to my Knowledge H W Next day the Arch-Bishop receiving the News that the Bill of Attainder had passed in the House of Lords broke off his History and prepared himself for Death I shall therefore supply the History from the Accounts of Mr Rushworth and Dr Heylin A short Supplement to the preceeding History taken from the Historical Collections of John Rushworth par 3 vol 2 p 834. THE Reasons of the Commons for the Attainder of the Arch-Bishop were at a Conference Jan. 2. by Serjeant Wild Mr. Brown and Mr. Nicolas communicated to the Lords who thereupon on the 4th of January passed the Ordinance of Attainder whereby it was Ordained that he should suffer Death as in Cases of High Treason And on the 6th of January it was Ordered by both Houses that he should suffer accordingly on Friday the 10th But on the 7th the Lords at a Conference acquainted the Commons with a Letter and Petition from the Arch-Bishop and a Pardon to him from the King dated the 12th of April 19 Car. of which he desired the benefit but the same was over-ruled and rejected His Petition was that in case he must Die Dr Stern Dr Heywood and Dr Martin might be permitted to be with him before and at his Death to Administer Comfort to his Soul and that the manner of his Execution might be altered to Beheading To which the Lords agreed but the Commons then refused both only granted that Dr. Stern and Mr. Marshal and Mr. Palmer should go to him and one or both of the latter to be constantly present whilst Dr. Stern was with him But the next day upon another Petition of his setting forth Reasons from his being a Divine a Bishop one that had had the Honour to sit in the House of Peers and of the King 's Most Honourable Privy-Council c. Praying in those regards not to be exposed to such an Ignominious Death the Commons consented to remit the rest of the Sentence and that he should suffer Death by being Beheaded Accordingly on the 10th of January he was conducted from the Tower to the Scaffold on Tower-Hill where being arrived holding a Paper in his Hand he spake to the People as followeth Then followeth the Arch-Bishop's Speech and Prayer and other Circumstances of his Execution verbatim as they were Printed in a Pamphlet of three Sheets in 4to London 1644. A Larger Supplement to the preceeding History taken out of Dr Heylin's Cyprianus Anglicus or his Life of Arch-Bishop Laud. Pag 527 c. THE Bill of Attainder
shortly to follow and therewith give to the Publick what farther Account of them I shall then judge necessary The Originals both Diary and History I intend at my Death to leave to St John's Colledge in Oxford where the Authour the Arch-Bishop was bred to which place he ever bore so great a Love and where his Body now remaineth Which Intention of mine I chose here to mention that the 〈◊〉 and Fellows of that Colledge may hereafter if they shall think so 〈◊〉 demand them from my Executors To conclude although Private and Personal Matters or Affections ought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be admitted to accompany a Work of such a publick Nature yet I cannot forbear to say that it is an inexpressible satisfaction to me that in the Edition of this Work I have been able to serve the Illustrious Author of it and my most Reverend Deceased Patron and the Church of England at the same time And more particularly that I account it the most Fortunate Transaction of my whole Life to have contributed herein to the vindication of the Memory and the Cause of that most Excellent Prelate and Blessed Martyr to whom I have always paid a more especial Veneration ever since I was able to form any Judgment in these matters as firmly believing him to have taken up and prosecuted the best and most effectual Method although then in great measure unsuccessful through the malignity of the Times and to have had the Noblest the most Zealous and most sincere Intentions therein towards Re-establishing the Beauty the Honour and the Force of Religion in that part of the Catholick Church the Church of England to the Service of which I have entirely devoted my Life my Labours and my Fortunes Feb 2. 1693 4. Hen. Wharton THE CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME ARch-Bishop Laud's Diary of his Life wrote by himself and published from the Original Pag. 1 His Account of matters of Piety and Charity projected to be done by himself 68 His large History of his own Troubles and Tryal divided into CHAPTERS 71 CAP. I. An Account of his first Accusation and Commitment 73 CAP. II. Of the Original Causes and Occasions of his Troubles 75 CAP. III. The Articles exhibited against him to the Parliament by the Scottish Commissioners with an Answer to them 87 CAP. IV. The Additional Charge of the Scots exhibited against him with an Answer to it 137 CAP. V. An Account of what passed in relation to him or his Cause from his Commitment to Febr. 26. 〈◊〉 144 CAP. VI. An Account of what Passed at the Bar of the House of Lords when the Commons brought up their Charge against him 148 CAP. VII The first Articles of the Commons exhibited against him with an Answer to them 〈◊〉 CAP. VIII An Account of his Commitment to the Tower and what passed 〈◊〉 thence to March 13. 〈◊〉 174 CAP. IX Of what passed from thence to May 1. 1641. Pag. 176 CAP. X. Of what passed from thence to September 23. 1641. 181 CAP. XI Of what passed from thence to January 4. 〈◊〉 183 CAP. XII Of what passed from thence to February 24 〈◊〉 187 CAP. XIII Of what passed from thence to March 6 〈◊〉 190 CAP. XIV Of what passed from thence to March 24. 〈◊〉 192 CAP. XV. Of what passed from thence to May 16. 1642 194 CAP. XVI Of what passed from thence to January 6. 〈◊〉 196 CAP. XVII Of what passed from thence to May 27. 1643. 200 CAP. XVIII Of the Search made upon him in the Tower and his Papers taken away from him May 31. 1643. 205 CAP. XIX Of what passed from thence to October 3. 1643. 207 CAP. XX. Of what passed from thence to March 9. 1643 4. 211 CAP. XXI An Account of the Preliminaries and Preparation to his Tryal which began March 12 〈◊〉 216 CAP. XXII An account of his First Day 's Tryal March 12. 1643 4. 220 CAP. XXIII Of the Second Day 's Tryal March 13 〈◊〉 229 CAP. XXIV Of the Third Day 's Tryal March 16. 〈◊〉 242 CAP. XXV Of the Fourth Day 's Tryal March 18. 1643 4. 244 CAP. XXVI Of the Fifth Day 's Tryal March 22. 1643 4. 260 CAP. XXVII Of the Sixth Day 's Tryal March 28 1644. 270 CAP. XXVIII Of the Preparation to the Seventh Day 's Tryal 280 CAP. XXIX Of the Seventh Day 's Tryal Apr. 16. 1644. 282 CAP. XXX Of the Eighth Day 's Tryal May 4. 1644. 292 CAP. XXXI 〈◊〉 the Ninth Day 's Tryal May 16. 1644. 301 CAP. XXXII Of the Tenth Day 's Tryal May 20. 1644. 310 CAP. XXXIII Of the Eleventh Day 's Tryal May 27. 1644. Pag. 317 CAP. XXXIV Of the Twelfth Day 's Tryal June 6. 1644. 329 CAP. XXXV Of the Thirteenth Day 's Tryal June 11. 1644. 338 CAP. XXXVI Of the Fourteenth Day 's Tryal June 14. 1644. 347 CAP. XXXVII Of the Fifteenth Day 's Tryal June 20. 1644. 354 CAP. XXXVIII Of the Sixteenth Day 's Tryal June 27. 1644. 390 CAP. XXXIX Of the Seventeenth Day 's Tryal July 5. 1644. 366 CAP. XL. Of the Eighteenth Day 's Tryal July 17. 1644. 374 CAP. XLI Of the Nineteenth Day 's Tryal July 24. 1644. 389 CAP. XLII Of the Twentieth Day 's Tryal July 29. 1644. 400 CAP. XLIII The Arch-Bishop's Recapitulation of his Defence made at the Bar of the House of Lords Sept. 2. 1644. 412 CAP. XLIV The Plea or Defence made for the Arch-Bishop by his Councel at the Bar of the House of Lords Octob. 11. 1644. 422 CAP. XLV The Arch-Bishop's Defence of himself at the Bar of the House of Commons Novemb. 11. 1644. 432 CAP. XLVI An Account of what passed from thence in both Houses to his Condemnation Jan. 4. 〈◊〉 441 A short Account of the Arch-Bishop's Condemnation Suffering taken from Mr. Rushworth's Collections 443 A larger Account of the same and of the manner of his Suffering taken from Dr. Heylin's Life of him 444 The Arch-Bishop's Speech made upon the Scaffold Jan 10 〈◊〉 with his Prayers and behaviour there 447 The Arch-Bishop's Last Will and Testament 454 Nine Passages taken out of the Arch-Bishop's Conference with Fisher the Jesuit referr'd to in the preceding History 458 Twelve Passages out of other Printed Books referr'd to in the preceding History and Tryal 461 The Arch-Bishop's large Answer to the Speech of the Lord Say and Seal touching the Liturgy Pag. 470 The Arch-Bishop's Annual Accounts of his Province presented to the King with the King 's Apostils or Marginal Notes upon them 515 The King's Instructions sent to Arch-Bishop Abbot in the Year 1629. 517 Arch-Bishop Abbot's Account of his Province to the King for the Year 1632. 519 The Kings Instructions sent to Arch-Bishop Laud in the Year 1634. 520 A Memorial of the Arch-Bishop's Account of his Province to the King for the Year 1635. 523 A Note of Arch-Bishop Sancroft and a Letter to him about the same 524 Arch-Bishop Laud's Account of his Province to the King for the Year 1633. 525 His Account for the
Ordained him and John Mitchel Priests March 23. I Preached at White-Hall Anno 1623. March 31. I received Letters from my Lord of Buckingham out of Spain April 9. I received Letters from my Lord of Buckingham out of Spain April 13. Easter-day I Preached at Westminster April 26. I Ordained John Burrough Master of Arts Deacon and Priest May 3 and 16. My Speech with B. E. and the taking off my Jealousies about the great business June 1. Whitsunday I Preached at St. Brides June 13. I received Letters from the Duke of Buckingham out of Spain June 15. R. B. died at Stony Stratford which what it will work with B. E. God in Heaven knoweth and be merciful unto me July 6. I Preached at Westminster July 15. St. Swythin A very fair day till towards 5 at Night Then great extremity of Thunder and Lightning Much hurt done The Lanthorn at St. James's House blasted The Vane bearing the Prince's Arms beaten to pieces The Prince then in Spain It was Tuesday and their St. James's day Stilo Novo Aug. 17. I received Letters from the Duke of Buckingham out of Spain Aug. 31. I Preached at Sunninge with my Lord of Bristol Septemb. 8. I was at Bromley and heard of the unfortunate passage between my Friends there Octob. 3. Friday I was with my Lord Keeper to whom I found some had done me very ill Offices And he was very jealous of L. B's Favour Octob. 5. The Prince and the Duke of Buckingham landed at Portsmouth from Spain Octob. 6. Munday they came to London The greatest expression of Joy by all sorts of People that ever I saw Octob. 20. I Ordained Thomas Blackiston Batch of Arts Deacon Octob. 26. The fall of an House while Drewrye the Jesuit was Preaching in the Black-Fryars About 100 slain It was in their Account Novemb. 5. Octob. 31. I acquainted my Lord Duke of Buckingham with that which passed between the Lord Keeper and me Novemb. 12. Wednesday night a most grievous Fire in Bread-street in London Alderman Cocking's House with others burnt down Novemb. 18. Tuesday night the Duke of Buckingham Entertained the two Spanish Embassadors Don Diego de Mendoza the Extraordinary and Don Carolo 's Columnas the Ordinary and Mexia I think his Name was Ambassador from the Arch-Dukes One of the Extraordinary Ambassadors of Spain Marquess Iniioca came not because Mendoza and he could not agree upon Precedency His Majesty and the Prince were there The Bishop of London and my self waited upon the King Decemb. 14. Sunday night I did Dream that the Lord Keeper was dead that I passed by one of his Men that was about a Monument for him that I heard him say his lower Lip was infinitely swelled and fallen and he rotten already This Dream did trouble me Decemb. 15. On Munday Morning I went about business to my Lord Duke of Buckingham We had Speech in the Shield-Gallery at White-Hall There I found that the Lord Keeper had strangely forgotten himself to him and I think was dead in his Affections Decemb. 21. I Preached at Westminster Decemb. 27. St. John's day I was with my Lord Duke of Buckingham I found that all went not right with the Lord Keeper c. He sent to speak with me because he was to Receive the next day Decemb. 30. I adventured to tell my Lord Duke of Buckingham of the Opinion generally held touching the Commission of sending Sir Edward Coke and some others into Ireland before the intended Parliament Januar. 3. I received my Writ to appear in Parliament Febr. 12. following Januar. 10. I received a Command under Seal from my Lord of London to warn for the Convocation Januar. 10. I was with my Lord Duke of Buckingham and shewed him the state of the Book Printed about the Visitation of the Church and what was like to ensue upon it Januar. 11. I was with his Majesty to shew him the Epistle that was to be Printed before the Conference between me and Fisher the Jesuit Maij 24. 1622. which he was pleased to approve The King brake with me about the Book Printed then of the Visitation of the Church He was hard of belief that A. B. C. was the Author of it My Lord Keeper met with me in the with-drawing-Chamber and quarrelled me gratis Januar. 12. I sent the Summons down into the Country to the Clergy for their appearance at the Convocation Januar. 14. I acquainted my Lord Duke of Buckingham with that which passed on the Sunday before between the Lord Keeper and me Januar. 16. I was all day with Doctor W. about my Papers of the Conference and making them ready for the Press Here is left a large void space in the Original to insert the Occurrences of the Eight following Days which space was never filled up Januar. 25. Dies Solis erat Ego solus nescio quâ tristitiâ languens Premebat anxium invidia J. L. odium gratuitum Sumpsi in manus Testamentum Novum Groeco idiomate pensum diei ordine lecturus Caput autem mihi occurrit ad Hebr. XIII Ibi statim occurrit mihi moerenti metuentique illud Davidis Psal. 56. Dominus mihi Adjutor non timebo quid faciat mihi homo Exemplum mihi putavi propositum sub eo Scuto quis non tutus Protege me O Dominus Deus meus Januar. 31. Commissio emissa sub magno Sigillo Angliae me inter alios Judicem Delegatum constituit in Causa Dilapidationis inter Rev. in Christo Patrem Richard Neile Dominum Episcopum Dunelm Franciscum James Filium Haeredem Praedecessoris Huic Commissioni inservivi ab horâ secundâ 〈◊〉 ad quintam Dies erat Saturni Locus Camera magna ubi Legum Doctores simul convivant vulgò dictus Doctors Commons Februar 1. Dies solis erat Astiti Illust. Principi Carolo Prandenti Hilaristum admodum sibi conviva multa obiter cum suis. Inter caetera se si necessitas aliquod genus 〈◊〉 imponeret Juristam esse non posse Subjunxit Rationes Nequeo inquit malam causam defendere nec in bonâ succumbere Sic in majoribus succedas in aeternum faustus Serenissime Princeps Februar 4. Dies Mercurij erat Colloquium cum Fishero Jesuitâ habitum Maij 24. 1622. Jussu Sereniss Regis Jacobi Scriptis mandatum Regi ipsi antea perlectum typis excudendum hodiè traditur cum Approbatione Episcopi London Nunquam ante-hac sub praelo Laboravi Nullus Controversor Et ita oro amet beetque animam meam Deus ut ego benè ad gloriam nominis ejus sopitas cupio conorque Ecclesiae nunquam satis deflendas distractiones Invisi hodiè Ducissam Buckinghamiae Ostendit mihi illa 〈◊〉 Faemina Precum formulam Hanc ei in manus dedit alia mihi nè de Nomine nota Mulier Perlegi Mediocra omnia nihil egregium nisi quòd Poesi similior canebat Januar. 25. It was Sunday I was alone and languishing with I know not what
to my Hands to the State and there left them to do what they pleased in it But that for which they were Sentenced was a Book Written by Mr. Burton and Printed and sent by himself to the Lords sitting in Council and a Letany and other Scandalous things scattered and avowed by Dr. 〈◊〉 and things of like nature by Mr. Pryn. And he was thought to deserve less Favour than the rest because he had been censured before in that great Court for gross abuses of the Queens Gracious Majesty and the Government in his Book Intituled Histriomastix This Censure being past upon these Men though I did no more than is before mentioned yet they and that Faction continued all manner of Malice against me And I had Libel upon Libel scattered in the Streets and pasted upon Posts And upon Friday July 7. 1637. a Note was brought to me of a short Libel pasted on the Cross in Cheapside that the Arch-Wolf of Canterbury had his Hand in persecuting the Saints and shedding the Blood of the Martyrs Now what kind of Saints and Martyrs these were may appear by their Libellous Writings Courses with which Saints and Martyrs were never acquainted And most certain it is that howsoever the Times went then or go now yet in Queen Elizabeth's Time Penry was Hanged and Vdal Condemned and Dyed in Prison for less than is contained in Mr. Burton's Book as will be evident to any Man that compares their Writings together And these Saints would have lost their Lives had they done that against any other State Christian which they did against this And I have yet one of the desperatest Libels by me that hath ordinarily been seen which was sealed up in form of a Letter and sent to me by Mr. Pryn with his Name to it And but that it is exceeding long and from the present business I would here have inserted it To return then The Faction of the Brownists and these three Saints with their Adherents for they were now set at Liberty by the House of Commons and brought into London in great Triumph filled the Press almost Daily with Ballads and Libels full of all manner of Scurrility and more Untruth both against my Person and my Calling These were cried about London-streets and brought many of them to Westminster and given into divers Lords Hands and into the Hands of the Gentlemen of the House of Commons And yet no Order taken by either House to suppress the Printing of such known and shameless Lyes as most of them contained A thing which many sober Men found much fault withall and which I believe hath hardly been seen or suffered in any Civil Common-wealth Christian or other But when I saw the Houses of Parliament so regardless of their own Honour to suffer these base and Barbarous Courses against an Innocent Man and as then not so much as Charged in general I thought fit to arm my self with Patience and endure that which I could not help And by God's Blessing I did so though it grieved me much more for my Calling than for my Person And this spreading of Libellous Base Pamphlets continues to this Day without controul and how long it will continue to the Shame of the Nation I cannot tell While I was thus committed to Mr. Maxwell I found I was by the course of the House to pay in Fees for my Dyet and Custody Twenty Nobles a day This grew very heavy For I was stayed there full ten weeks before so much as any General Charge was brought up by the House of Commons against me which in that time came to Four Hundred Sixty Six Pound Thirteen Shillings and Four Pence And Mr. Maxwell had it all without any Abatement In the mean time on Munday December 21. upon a Petition of Sir Robert Howard I was Condemned to pay Five Hundred Pounds unto him for false Imprisonment And the Lords Order was so strict that I was commanded to pay him the Money presently or give Security to pay it in a very short time I payed it to satisfie the Command of the House but was not therein so well advised as I might have been being Committed for Treason Now the Cause of Sir Robert Howard was this He fell in League with the Lady Viscountess Purbeck The Lord Viscount Purbeck being in some weakness and distemper the Lady used him at her pleasure and betook her self in a manner wholly to Sir Robert Howard and had a Son by him She was delivered of this Child in a Clandestine way under the Name of Mistress Wright These things came to be known and she was brought into the High-Commission and there after a Legal Proceeding was found guilty of Adultery and Sentenced to do Pennance Many of the great Lords of the Kingdom being present in Court and agreeing in the Sentence Upon this Sentence she withdrew her self to avoid the Penance This Sentence passed at london-London-House in Bishop Mountain's time Novemb. 19. An. Dom. 1627. I was then present as Bishop of Bath and Wells After this when the Storm was somewhat over Sir Robert Howard conveyed her to his House at ....... in Shropshire where she Lived avowedly with him some Years and had by him ... Children At last they grew to that open boldness that he brought her up to London and lodged her in Westminster This was so near the Court and in so open view that the King and the Lords took notice of it as a thing full of Impudence that they should so publickly adventure to outface the Justice of the Realm in so fowl a business And one day as I came of course to wait on his Majesty he took me aside and told me of it being then Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and added that it was a great Reproach to the Church and Nation and that I neglected my Duty in case I did not take order for it I made answer she was the Wife of a Peer of the Realm and that without his leave I could not attach her but that now I knew his Majesty's pleasure I would do my best to have her taken and brought to Penance according to the Sentence against her The next day I had the good hap to apprehend both Her and Sir Robert and by Order of the High-Commission-Court Imprisoned her in the Gate-House and him in the Fleet. This was as far as I remember upon a Wednesday and the Sunday sevennight after was thought upon her to bring to Penance She was much troubled at it and so was he And therefore in the middle of the week following Sir Robert dealt with some of his Friends and among the rest with one Sir ....... of Hampshire who with Mony corrupted the Turn-Key of the Prison so they call him and conveyed the Lady forth and after that into France in Man's Apparel as that Knight himself hath since made his boast This was told me the Morning after the escape And you must think the good Fellowship of the Town was
ever any Man played me But he failed in his hopes and his Petition was cast out of the Lords House to try his Right at Law which was all that was asked by Dr Merricke Yet upon the earnestness of the then Lord Bishop of Lincoln and now Arch-Bishop of York the Lords Sequestred my Jurisdiction and put it into the Hands of my Inferiour Officers and added in the Order that I should dispose of neither Benefice nor any other thing but I should first acquaint them with it The Order follows in haec verba Die Sab. 23. Octob. 1641. IT is Ordered by the Lords in Parliament that the Jurisdiction of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury shall be Sequestred until he shall be Convicted or Acquitted of the Charge of High Treason against him and the same in the mean time to be Executed by his Inferiour Officers And farther concerning those Ecclesiastical Benefices Promotions or Dignities that are in his disposing he shall present to this House the Names of such Persons as shall be Nominated by him for the same to be Approved of first by this House before they be Collated or Instituted Jo. Browne Cler. Parliam c. For my Jurisdiction I Thank God I never knowingly abused it And of the other Restraint about the giving of my Benefices I cannot but think it very hard in two respects The one is that I should be put to Name to them before I give that which by Law is mine to give In the mean time they cry out of the violation of the Propriety which each Subject hath in his Goods and yet I must not give my own So also they condemn Arbitrary Government and yet press upon me an Arbitrary Order against Law The other is that if in Obedience to this Order I shall Nominate any Man to them be he never so worthy for Life and Learning yet if upon Misinformation or otherwise the House should refuse him I should not only not do him the good I intended but blast him for all the remainder of his Life And whensoever he shall seek for any other Preferment that shall be laid unto him that he was thought unworthy by the High Court of Parliament Yet how to ease my self against this Order I know not This day Novemb. 1. News came to the Parliament of the Rebellion in Ireland The King being then in Scotland where there were Troubles enough also The Irish pretended the Scots Example and hoped they should get their Liberties and the Freedom of their Religion as well as they But that Rebellion is grown fierce and strong and what end that War will have God knows A happy one God of his Mercy send For this Nation is in many difficulties at once and we have drawn them all upon our selves But this belongs not to my Story Only this I shall add which is the Judgment of all Prudent Men that I speak with both of Ireland and England that if the Earl of Strafford had Lived and not been blasted in his Honour and Service no Rebellion had been stirring there And if this be so 't is a soar Account must be given for his Blood If either that Kingdom be upon this occasion quite lost from the Crown of England or not recover'd without great Expence both of Treasure and Blood On Thursday Novemb. 25. the King returning from Scotland entred into London was received with great State and Joy and Sumptuously Entertained This made divers Men think there would have been a Turn in the present Business And what it might have proved if the King would have presently and vigorously set himself to vindicate his own Just Power and leave them their Antient and Just Priviledges is not I think hard to judge But he let it cool and gave that which is truly the Malignant Faction but call others so time to underwork him and bring the City round and all ran then stronger in the same Current than ever it did So God of his Mercy bless all On Thursday Decemb. 30. the Lord Arch-Bishop of York and Eleven other Bishops were sent to the 〈◊〉 for High Treason and two other Bishops Duresme and Coventry and Litchfield to Mr. Maxwell's for setting their Hands to a Petition and delivering of it with a Protestation that this was not a free Parliament since they who had Antient Right there could not come to give their Votes as they ought without danger of their Lives For by this time it was grown common that the Multitude came down in heaps if either the Lords or the King denyed any thing which the House of Commons affected But how it came to pass that these Multitudes should come down in such disorder and yet be sent back and dissolved so easily at a word or beck of some Men let the World judge The Petition and Protestation which the Bishops delivered in was as follows and perchance it was unseasonably delivered and perhaps some Words in it might have been better spared but the Treason and peradventure that 's my Ignorance I cannot find in it The Petition and Protestation of Twelve Bishops for which they were Accused of High-Treason by the House of Commons and Committed by the Lords to the Black-Rod THat whereas the Petitioners are called upon by several and respective Writs under great Penalties to Attend in Parliament and have a clear and indubitable Right to Vote in Bills and all other Matters whatsoever debated in Parliament by the Antient Customs Laws and Statutes of this Realm and are to be protected by your Majesty quietly to attend and prosecute that great Service They humbly remonstrate and protest before God your Majesty and the Noble Peers now Assembled in Parliament that as they have an indubitable Right to Sit and Vote in the House of Lords so they if they may be protected from force and violence are most ready and willing to perform that Duty accordingly and that they do abominate all Actions and Opinions tending to Popery or any inclination to the Malignant Party or any other side and Party whatsoever to the which their own Reasons and Consciences shall not adhere But whereas they have been at several times violently Menaced Affronted and Assaulted by multitudes of People in coming to perform their Service to that Honourable House and lately chased away and put in danger of their Lives and find no Redress or Protection upon sundry Complaints made to both Houses in that particular They likewise protest before your Majesty and that Noble House of Peers that saving to themselves all their Rights and Interests of Sitting and Voting in your House at other times they dare not sit to Vote in the House of Peers unless your Majesty shall further secure them from all Affronts Indignities and Danger in the Premises Lastly whereas their fears are not built upon Fancies and Conceipts but upon such Grounds and Objects as may well
Stisted in Essex was fallen void and in my Gift The E of Warwick was an earnest Suitor to me for it for one Mr Clark I delayed having Six Months time by Law to dispose of my Benefices During this delay Mr Richard Howlett a Batchelour of Divinity and a Man of very good worth a Dean in Ireland was by the Rebels there turned out of all he had and forced for safety of his Life to come with his Wife and Children into England His Wife was my near Kinswoman At their coming over I was forced to relieve them else they might have begged Hereupon I resolved in my self to give Stisted to Mr Howlett and to gratifie Mr Clark with something after Nothing doubting but that the Parliament would readily give way in such a case of Necessity for so worthy a Man as Mr Howlett was known to be While these things were in my Thoughts two other great Benefices fell into my disposal Bocking and Lachingdon both in Essex Presently the Parishioners Petition me They of Bocking for Dr Gawden a Chaplain of the Earl of Warwick's They of Lachingdon that they might chuse their own Minister I gave a fair Answer to both but reserved my self Then I was pressed with Letters from the Earl of Warwick for Dr Gawden My Answer was I could not gratifie Dr Gawden with Bocking and Mr Clark with Stisted Then Dr Gawden brings me a very earnest Letter but very Honourable from the Earl of Hertford When I saw my self thus pressed I resolved to name fit Men to all three Benefices presently and see how the Parliament would be pleased to deal with me Before I did this I thought fit to make a fair Offer to the Earl of Warwick who by Dr Gawden's intreaty came to me to the Tower I freely told his Lordship my Resolution which was that at the desire of his Lordship and my Honourable Friend the Lord Marquess of Hertford I would give Bocking to Dr Gawden Lachingdon to Mr Howlett in regard of his Alliance to me and his present Necessities and Stisted to Mr Newested to whom I was pre-ingaged by Promise to my Ancient worthy Friend Sir Tho Rowe whom Mr Newested had served in his Embassages seven Years and for Mr Clark he should have the next Benefice which fell in my Gift for his Lordship's sake His Lordship seemed to be very much taken with this Offer of mine and promised me and gave me his Hand upon it that he would do me all the kindness he could that these my Nominations might pass with the Lords Upon this I rested and according to my Promise Petitioned the Lords as is expressed Upon the Reading of this Petition the Lords Order'd me presently to Collate Bocking upon Dr Gawden which I did the Order being brought unto me the next Day But for the other two the Lords took time to consider The Earl of Warwick was then present in the House and as I am informed said little or nothing This made me fear the worst And therefore I advised Mr Howlett to get a full Certificate of the Lord Primate of Armagh both for Life and Learning and attend with it at the Parliament to make the best Friends for himself The Business stuck still At last he met with the Lord Kimbolton who presently made all Weather fair for him And upon his Lordships motion to the House an Order passed for Mr Howlett to have Lachingdon The Motive this Mr Howlett was Fellow of Sidney College in Cambridge and Tutor at that time to two Sons of the Lord Mountague the Lord Kimbolton's Uncle At which time also the Lord Kimbolton himself was a Student in the same College and knew the Person and worth of Mr Howlett This his Lordship Honourably now remembred else it might have gone hard with Mr Howlett's Necessities So upon the Order thus obtained I Collated Lachingdon upon him After this the Earl of Warwick went Lord Admiral to Sea by appointment of the Parliament And forthwith I was served with another Order to give Stisted to Mr Clark Hereupon I Petitioned again and set forth my Resolutions and Ingagements to Sir Tho Rowe And Dr Gawden having told me that the Earl of Warwick had left that Business for me in trust with the Lord Roberts I made bold to write to his Lordship and intreat his lawful Favour The Lord Roberts denied that any such Order or Care of that Business was left with him nor would he meddle in it but referred me to the Lord Kimbolton who still followed the Business close for Mr Clark By all which it appeared to me that the Earl of Warwick had forgotten his Promise to me to say no more Soon after I received another Order to give Stisted to Mr Clark To this I answered again by Petition but with like Success For another Order came forth Peremptorily to Command me to give Stisted to Mr Clark But it so fell out that this Order was not brought to me till Ten Days after the Date I sent my Councel to attend the Lords that I might not fall into Contempt The Business was not then called on and by the Sixteenth of the same Month Stisted fell in Lapse to His Majesty So I lost the giving of the Benefice and some body else their Ends upon me CAP. XVI ON May 15. Sunday I made a shift between my Man and my Staff to go to Church There Preached one Mr Joslin His Text Judge 5 23. Curse ye Meroz c. To pass over what was strangely Evil thoroughout his Sermon his Personal Abuse of me was so foul and so palpable that Women and Boys stood up in the Church to see how I could bear it And this was my first Welcome into the Church after my long Lameness But I humbly thank God for it I bare his Virulence patiently and so it vanished As did much other of like Nature which I bare both before and after this God forgive them After this I had some quietness most Particulars lying dead out of several respects unknown to me But all things grew higher and higher between the King and the Parliament to the great Dammage and Distraction of the Kingdom God of his Mercy send a speedy and a blessed Issue and preserve his Majesty the Kingdom and this poor Church from Ruin But I much fear our Sins are ripe for a very great if not a final Judgment Friday August the 19. Captain Royden and his Company by Order of Parliament came about seven of the Clock in the Evening to my House at Lambeth to take away my Arms. They stayed there all Night and searched every Room and where any Key was not ready brake open Doors And the next Morning they carried my Arms away in Carts to Guild-Hall London and I was sufficiently abused all the way by the People as my Arms passed They gave out in London there were Arms for Ten Thousand Men whereas there was not enough for
Worthily Received Another passage taken out of my Speech was That due Reverence be given to God and to his Altar Hence Mr. Nicolas infers again This Reverence is one joint Act therefore 't is Divine to the Altar as well as to God and so Idolatry First the very next words in my Speech are that this Reverence to the Altar comes far short of Divine Worship What can prevent an Objection if such plain words cannot Secondly having thus plainly expressed it he may infer too if he will that I do not then Worship God For this Reverence is one joint Act but 't is confessed that 't is not Divine Worship to the Altar and therefore not to God But Thirdly this Gentleman by his Favour understands not the Mysteries which lye hid in many parts of Divinity In this for one For when this Reverence is performed 't is to God as to the Creator and so Divine But 't is only toward not to the Altar and so far short And though in outward performance it be one joint Act yet that which is not separated is and must be distinguished one from the other To make a good Work acceptable to God there must be both Faith and Charity They cannot be separated one from the other what shall they not therefore be distinguished He that speaks saith St. Aug. by one joint Act sends out his Voice and his Word separated they cannot be shall not they be distinguished therefore But I have lived long enough and taken pains to small purpose if Mr. Nicolas or any Lay-Man else at his by and leisure Hours from a busie Profession shall be able to Teach me in that which I have laboured all my Life And God bless the poor Bishops and Clergy of England if falling into a Storm as I now am they must have such Judges as Mr. Nicolas The Fourth Charge Is the Licensing of Sales and other Books which had Popery in them by my Chaplain Dr. Haywood 1. To this Mr. Pryn who is the single witness says That he tender'd a Bill to the then Lord Keeper against my Chaplain for Licensing this Book and that his Lordship refused it If the Lord Keeper Coventry refused his Bill I believe were he living he would assign just Cause why he did it But whatever Cause he had it concerns not me that he rejected the Bill Mr. Pryn says farther That this Book of Sales was Printed heretofore but purged first by Dr. James but Licensed now by Dr. Haywood not according to that Purgation but with all the Points of Popery in For this he produces Mr. Oaks whose Son printed it And says farther That his Correcter at the Press found fault with some passages and thereupon he was sent to Dr. Haywood who returned answer as they say That if he Licensed it he would justifie it And that his Son told him this First My Lords this Under-Testimony of Mr. Oakes produced by Mr. Pryn is nothing but a Hearsay from his Son who is now dead and cannot be Examined and while he was living ran away and would not be Examined Secondly this was a most notable piece of Villany practised against my Chaplain and thorough his sides against me It was thus My Lords Whether the Bill were rejected or no I cannot tell but the Complaint of Printing this Book came publickly into the Star-Chamber And then was the first time that ever I heard of it I then humbly desired their Lordships that Dr. Haywood might answer whatever he had done amiss either there or where they pleased The Court presently commanded Mr. Atturny Bankes to call all Parties before him examine them thoroughly and then give his Account what he found that the Court might proceed farther according to Justice Dr. Haywood appeared and shewed Mr. Atturney how he had Corrected Sales in all Popish Points before he Licensed it But young Oakes and he which brought Sales to be Licensed who was then thought to be some Jesuited Recusant and as I remember Lodged for that time of Printing in Oakes his House ran both away or hid their Heads and would not be found And this was a meer Plot of this Recusant if not Priest to have Sales Printed with all his Points of Popery in him to work mischief to my Chaplain and my self And young Oakes was in all likelihood well payed for his pains This Account Mr. Atturney brought into that Court and this Relation Dr. Haywood who I obtained might be after sent for attested at this Barr. One Circumstance my old decayed Memory mistook For I thought and so at first told the Lords that for this Clamor raised upon him in this way I did soon after dismiss him my House But after I found that he was gone out of my House before Howsoever I left him without any Mediation to the Justice of the Court. And here I may not forget that which I then observed to the Lords that whereas 't is urged that many Points of Popery have passed the Press 't is no wonder if such Art be used as was here to get out Sales And this farther is observable that all these Quotations of Popish Opinions mentioned here to fill up the noise are out of four or five Books at the most of which more are out of this Sales than all the rest And called in he was as soon as known Which Mr. Brown in the Summ of his Charge acknowledges 2. After Sales the next Instance was in a Book Intituled Christ's Epistle to the Devout Reader Four particular Points were urged out of this But neither I nor my Chaplains had ought to do with it For it was Licensed at London House by Dr. Weeks Nor was there ever any complaint brought to me to have it called in Nor was any such Proof so much as offer'd 3. The Third Instance was of a Book called the Female Glory where Mr. Pryn who is single again said that Dr. Heylin answered Mr. Burton and justified all the Passages in this Book And added that this was by my direction But upon my Motion at the Barr concerning the boldness of this Oath Mr. Pryn recalled himself and said that I appointed him to answer Mr. Burton But it is one thing to appoint him to answer Mr. Burton And another to direct him to justifie all passages in the Female Glory 4. The Fourth Instance was in a Letter sent to me from one Croxton a young Divine in Ireland He was bred in St. John's College in Oxford At the Lord Mount-Norris his Intreaty I sent Croxton into Ireland to be his Chaplain If he miscarried there I could not help it nor hinder his writing of a Letter to me nor preseribe what he should write in it But to my remembrance I never heard of any Miscarriage of his in matter of Religion And whether he be living or dead I know not That Letter indeed hath a Cross at the top of it But then was another Letter of his shewed without a Cross in which
own Innocency I would desert my Defence before I would indure such Language in such an Honourable Presence Hereupon some Lords shewed their dislike and wished him to leave and pursue the Evidence Mr. Brown in summing up the Charge made this a great matter The denial of the Pope to be Antichrist But I did not deny it nor declare any Opinion of my own And many Protestants and those very Learned are of Opinion that he is not 'T is true I did not I cannot approve foul Language in Controversies Nor do I think that the calling of the Pope Antichrist did ever yet Convert an Understanding Papist And sure I am Gabriel Powel's Peremptoriness to say no worse in this Point did the Church of England no Good no Honour in Foreign parts For there he affirms That he is as certain that the Pope is Antichrist as that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Redeemer of the World As for the thing it self I left it free to all Men to think as their Judgment guided them As appears by the Licensing of Dr. Featly's Sermons where he proves the Pope in his Opinion to be Antichrist Where he calls him also the Whore of Babylon Which surely I should never have suffer'd to be Printed had I been her Pander And for Bishop Hall I only told him what King James had said and left him to make what use he pleased of it The Third Charge was out of a Paper which Bishop Hall about the time when he wrote his Book in defence of Episcopacy sent unto me containing divers Propositions concerning Episcopal Government In which either he or I or both say for that Circumstance I remember not That Church-Government by Bishops is not alterable by Humane Law To this I answer'd that Bishops might be regulated and limited by Human Laws in those things which are but Incidents to their Calling But their Calling so far as it is Jure Divino by Divine Right cannot be taken away They charge farther that I say this is the Doctrine of the Church of England And so I think it is For Bishop Bilson set out a Book in the Queen's time Intituled The Perpetual Government And if the Government by Bishops be Perpetual as he there very Learnedly proves thorough the whole Book it will be hard for any Christian Nation to out it Nor is this his Judgment alone but of the whole Church of England For in the Preface to the Book of Ordination are these words From the Apostles time there have been three Orders of Ministers in the Church of Christ Bishops Priests and Deacons Where 't is evident that in the Judgment of the Church of England Episcopacy is a different not Degree only but Order from Priesthood and so hath been reputed from the Apostles times And this was then Read to the Lords And the Law of England is as full for it as the Church For the Statute in the eighth of the Queen absolutely confirms all and every part of this Book of Ordination Where also the Law calls it The high Estate of Prelacy And Calvin if my old Memory do not fail me upon those words of St. John As my Father sent me so send I you c. says thus upon that place Eandem illis imponit Personam ac idem Juris assignat And if our Saviour Christ put the same Person upon the Apostles and assigned to them the same Right which his Father gave him it will prove a sour work to throw their Successors the Bishops out of the Church after Sixteen Hundred Years continuance And in the mean time cry out against Innovation For either Christ gave this Power to his Apostles only and that will make the Gospel a Thing Temporary and confined to the Apostles Times Or else he gave the same Power though not with such Eminent Gifts to their Successors also to propagate the same Gospel to the end of the World as St. Paul tells us he did Ephes. 4. Now all the Primitive Church all along gives Bishops to be the Apostles Successors and then it would be well thought on what Right any Christian State hath be their Absolute Power what it will to turn Bishops out of that Right in the Church which Christ hath given them The Fourth Charge was an Alteration made in a Brief for a third Collection for the distressed Ministers and others in the Palatinat The Queen of Bohemia was pleased to do me the Honour to write to me about this and because two Collections had been before her Majesty desired that this third might be only in London and some few Shires about it I out of my desire to relieve those distressed Protestants and to express my Duty to the Queen became an humble Suitor to his Majesty that this Collection also might go thorough England as the rest had done And 't is acknowledged by all that this I did Now the Witnesses which Accuse me for some Circumstances in this business are two 1. The First is Mr. Wakerly He says that Mr. Ruly who was employed by the Queen of Bohemia about this Collection was roughly used by me upon occasion of this Clause put into the Brief and which he says I caused to be altered This first is a bold Oath for Mr. Wakerly was not present but Swears upon Hearsay Secondly what kindness I shewed him and the Business is mentioned before and if for this kindness he had been practising with Mr. Wakerly about the Brief as I had probable Reason to suspect I cannot much be blamed if I altered my Countenance towards him and my Speech too which yet these Witnesses for the other agrees in this have no Reason to call rough Carriage only upon Mr. Ruly's unthankful Report He says That these words the Antichristian Yoak were 〈◊〉 out First this is more than I remember and the Briefs I had not to compare nor is there any necessity that two Briefs coming for the same thing with some Years distance between should agree in every Phrase or Circumstance Secondly if I did except against this passage it was partly because of the fore-recited Judgment of King James of which I thought his Son King Charles ought to be tender And partly because it could move nothing but Scorn in the common Adversary that we should offer to determine such a Controversie by a Broad Seal I remember well since I had the Honour to sit in this House the naming of Tithes to be due Jure Divino cast out the Bill A Prudent Lord asking the Peers whether they meant to determine that question by an Act of Parliament The other part of the Clause which they say was altered was the Religion which we with them profess Whence they infer because with them was left out that I would not acknowledge them of the same Religion which follows not For we may be and are of the same Religion and yet agree not with them in those Opinions in
traduce no Man's Justice First because they depend upon an If If the Parliament-Man there mentioned told me Truth that such a Resolution was taken And Secondly because it can be no Justice in any Men be the Sentence never so moderate in it self to take up a Resolution what Sentence shall pass before Answer given or Charge put in For else a Man may be punished first and tryed after which is contrary to all Rules of Justice And therefore if such a Resolution were taken as I believe not I might well say that which followed after Then was produced a Paper concerning the Subsidies or Aids which had been given in divers Parliaments in which it is said at the beginning of it that Magna Charta had an obscure Birth and was Fostered by an Ill Nurse I believe that no Man that knows Mr. Nicolas thinks that he spakes softly upon this No he spake loud enough What Laws would I spare that spake thus of Magna Charta First here is no Proof offered that this Paper is my Collection but only that it is in my Hand By which Argument as is said before I may be made the Author of any thing And so may any Scholar that is able and willing to inform himself Secondly the main Draught of that Paper is not in my Hand though some Notes upon it be Thirdly there are Littleton and other Lawyers quoted in that Paper Authors which I never read Nor is this now any disgrace to Magna Charta that it had an obscure Birth For say the Difficulties of the times brought it obscurely forth that 's no blemish to the Credit and Honour to which it hath for many Ages attained Not only their Laws but the greatest Empires that have been in the World some of them have had obscure beginnings Witness the Roman Empire Fourthly what if our Stories agree upon it that it had an obscure Birth and a worse Nurse What if some Law Books which Mr. Nicolas never read and those of good account use almost the same Words of Magna Charta which are in that Paper Shall the same Words be History and Law in them and Treason in me And somewhat certainly there is in it that Mr. Brown when he gave his Summary Charge against me First to the Lords and after in the House of Commons quite omitted this Particular Sure I believe he found nothing was in the Paper but known Truth and so passed it over else he would never have denyed a Vindicaton to Magna Charta After all this Mr. Nicolas concludes with a Dream which he says was mine The Dream he says was that I should come to greater Preferment in the Church and Power in the State than any Man of my Birth and Calling had done before me but that in the end I should be Hanged First my Lords if I had had any such Dream 't is no Proof of any thing against me Dreams are not in the Power of him that hath them but in the unruliness of the Phansie which in broken sleeps wanders which way it pleases and shapes what it pleaseth But this Dream is brought in as the Fall of my Picture was to make me a Scorn to your Lordships and the People And to try whether any thing will yet at last break my Patience This Dream is Reported here according to Mr. Pryn's Edition of my Diary somewhat different from that which Mr. Pryn Printed in a former Book of his but the beginning and the end agree From Mr. Pryn Culmer hath taken and Printed it And Mr. Pryn confessed before the Lords that one Mr. Badger an Attorney at Law a Kinsman of mine told it him The Truth my Lords is this This Badger Married a near Kinswoman of mine he was a notorious Separatist and so nearer in Affection to Mr. Pryn than to me in Alliance This Man came one day to me to Lambeth and told me privately which was more Manners than usually the Bold Man had that he heard I had such a Dream when I was Young in Oxford I protested to him there was no such thing and that some Malicious Fellow or other had set him on work to come and Abuse me to my Face He seemed satisfied but going to Visit Mr. Pryn then in the Tower he told it him and Mr. Pryn without further Proof Prints it in the next Book he set out When I saw it in Print and found that some in Court took notice of it I resolved to acquaint his Majesty how I was used and meeting with the Earl of Pembroke then Lord Chamberlain and my great Friend as he pretended the King being not then come forth of his Chamber I told his Lordship how I was used and when the King came forth I told it him also But the Earl of Pembroke then present in the House and called up by them for a Witness forgetting the Circumstances but remembring the thing took it upon his Honour that I said nothing of Mr. Pryn's Printing it but that I told him absolutely I had this Dream Now God forgive his Lordship I was much troubled in my self to hear him take it upon his Dishonour for so it was and yet unwilling knowing his Violence to contest with him in that place and in my Condition and observing what Spleen he hath lately shewed against me I stood a little still to gather up my self When Mr. Nicolas before I could make any reply fell on with great earnestness and told the Lords that the forepart of my Dream was found true to the great hurt both of Church and State and that he hoped they would now make good the latter That I might be Hanged To which I Answer'd That I had not forgotten our Saviour's Prediction St. John 16. That in the World we should be sure to meet with affliction Nor his Prayer Father forgive these Men for they know not what they do St. Luke 23. No nor is that out of my Memory which St. Paul speaks 1 Cor. 4. De Humano Die But for the Publick with this I shall conclude God of his Infinite Mercy Bless the King and his People with Love and Peace and Piety and Plenty which is the worst I ever wished or endeavoured whatsoever it shall please God shall become of me to whose Blessed Will and Pleasure in all Humility I submit my self And here ended this last day of my Tryal But before I went from the Bar I made three Motions to the Lords The one That I might have a day to make a Recapitulation of this long and various Charge or of the chief Heads of it that it might appear in a Body together The other That after this my Councel might have a day to speak to all Points of Law incident to my Cause The third That they would be pleased to remember that I had pleaded the Act of Oblivion to the Thirteenth Original Article Mr. Nicolas said they would acquaint their House with it And the Lords
promised to take all into Consideration And so I was dismissed Sine Die But here I may not go off from this Dream so since Mr. Pryn hath Printed it at the end of my Diary Where he shamelesly says This Dream was Attested from my own Mouth at my Tryal in the Lords House For I have set down all that pass'd exactly Nor did I then give any Attestation to it only before I could gather up my self to Answer the Earl of Pembroke in a fitting manner and not to hurt my self Mr. Nicolas fell upon me with that Unchristian bitterness as diverted me from the Earl to Answer him But once for all and to satisfie any Man that desires it That is all true which I have here set down concerning this Dream and upon my Christianity and hope of future Salvation I never had this Dream nor any like it nor did I ever tell it this Lord or any other any other way than in Relation to Badger and Pryn as is before related And surely if I had had such a Dream I should not have had so little Discretion as to tell it any Man least of all to pour it into that Sieve the Earl of Pembroke For that which follows and wherein his Charity and Words are almost the same with those of Mr. Nicolas I give him the same Answer and forgiving him all his most Unchristian and Insatiable Malice against me leave my self in the Hands of God not in his I Received an Order from the Lords that if I had a mind to make a Recapitulation as I had formerly desired of my long and various Charge I should provide my self for it against Munday next this Order came upon Friday and that I should give in my Answer the next Morning what I meant to do The next day in Obedience to this Order I gave in my Answer which was Humble Thanks that I might have liberty to make it referring the day to their Honourable Consideration with this that Munday next was a very short time for such a Collection Upon this Answer an Order was presently made that I should provide to make my Recapitulation upon Munday September the Second And about this time the certain day I know not it was Resolved in the House of Commons that according to my Plea I should enjoy the benefit of the Act of Oblivion and not be put to Answer the Thirteenth Original Article concerning the Scottish Business And truly I bless God for it I did not desire the benefit of that Act for any Sense of Guiltiness which I had in my self but in Consideration of the Times and the Malice of the now Potent Faction which being implacable towards me I could not think it Wisdom to lay by any such Power as might help to secure me Yet in the former part of this History when I had good Reason to think I should not be called to Answer such General Articles I have set down my Answer to each of them as much as Generals can be Answer'd And thereby I hope my Innocency will appear to this Thirteenth Article also Then came Munday Sept. 2. and according to the Order of the Lords I made the Recapitulation of my whole Cause in matters of greatest Moment in this form following But so soon as I came to the Bar I saw every Lord present with a New Thin Book in Folio in a blue Coat I heard that Morning that Mr. Pryn had Printed my Diary and Published it to the World to disgrace me Some Notes of his own are made upon it The first and the last are two desperate Untruths beside some others This was the Book then in the Lords Hands and I assure my self that time picked for it that the sight of it might damp me and disinable me to speak I confess I was a little troubled at it But after I had gathered up my self and looked up to God I went on to the Business of the Day and thus I spake CAP. XLIII My Recapitulation Mr. Lords my Hearing began March 12. 1643 4. and continued to the end of July In this time I was heard before your Lordships with much Honour and Patience Twenty Days and sent back without Hearing by reason of your Lordships greater Employments Twelve Days The rest were taken up with providing the Charge against me And now my Lords being come near an end I am by your Grace and Favour and the leave of these Gentlemen of the Honourable House of Commons to represent to your Lordships and your Memories a brief Summ of my Answers to this long and various Charge In which I shall not only endeavour but perform also all possible Brevity And as with much Thankfulness I acknowledge my self bound to your Lordships for your Patience So I cannot doubt but that I shall be as much obliged for your Justice in what I am innocent from Crime and for your Clemency in what the common Frailty of Mankind hath made me Err. And I Humbly desire your Lordships to look upon the whole Business with Honourable Care of my Calling of my Age of my long Imprisonment of my Sufferings in my Estate and of my Patience in and through this whole Affliction The Sequestration having been upon my Estate above Two Years In which notwithstanding I may not omit to give Thanks for the Relief which my Petitions found for my present necessities in this time of my Hearing at your Honourable Hands 1. First then I humbly desire your Lordships to remember the generality and by occasion of that the incertainty of almost every Article charged upon me which hath cast me into great streights all along in making my Defence 2. Next That your Lordships will be pleased to consider what a short space upon each Days Hearing hath been allowed me to make my Answer to the many Charges in each several Day laid against me Indeed some Days scarce time enough to peruse the Evidence much less to make and then to review and weigh my Answers Especially considering to my greatest Grief that such a Charge should be brought up against me from so Great and Honourable a Body as the Commons of England In regard of which and all other sad Occasions I at first did and do still in all Humility desire that in all Particulars concerning Law my Councel may be heard before your Lordships proceed to Sentence and that a Day may be assigned for my Councel accordingly 3. Thirdly I heartily pray also that it may be taken into your Honourable Consideration how I have all manner of ways been sifted to the very Bran for that what e're it amounts to which stands in Charge against me 1 The Key and use of my Study at Lambeth Books and Papers taken from me 2 A Search upon me at the Tower made by Mr. Pryn and One and Twenty Bundles of Papers prepared for my Defence taken from me and not Three Bundles restored to me again This Search made before any Particular Articles
of the Arch-Bishop passed in the House of Commons November 13. 1644. But yet the Business was not done for the Lords stuck at it Some of which having not extinguished all the Sparks of Humanity began to find themselves Compassionate of his Condition not knowing how soon it should or might be made their own if once disfavoured by the Grandees of that Potent Faction For the Ordinance having been Transmitted to the House of Peers and the House of Peers deliberating somewhat long upon it it was Voted on December 4. That all Books Writings and Evidences which concerned the Tryal should be brought before the Lords in Parliament to the end that they might seriously and distinctly consider of all Particulars amongst themselves as they came before them But meaning to make sure work of it they had in the mean time after no small Evaporations of Heat and Passion prepared an Ordinance which they sent up unto the Lords importing the displacing of them from all those Places of Power and Command which they had in the Army Which being found too weak to hold they fall upon another and a likelier Project which was to bring the Lords to sit in the Commons House where they were sure they should be inconsiderable both for Power and Number And to effect the same with more speed and certainty they had recourse to their Old Arts drawing down Watkins with his General Muster of Subscriptions and putting a Petition into his Hands to be tendred by him to the Houses that is themselves Wherein it was required amongst other things That they should vigorously proceed unto the Punishment of all Delinquents and that for the more quick dispatch of Publick Business of State the Lords would please to Vote and Sit together with the Commons On such uncertain Terms such a ticklish Tenure did they then hold their Place and Power in Parliament who so officiously complied with the House of Commons in depriving the Bishops of their Vote and the Church's Birth-Right And this was it which helped them in that time of need And yet not thinking this device sufficient to fright their Lordships to a present compliance Strowd was sent up with a Message from the House of Commons to let them know That the Londoners would shortly bring a Petition with 20000 Hands to obtain that Ordinance By which stale and common Stratagem they wrought so far on some weak Spirits the rest withdrawing themselves as formerly in the Case of the Earl of Strafford that in a thin and slender House not above six or seven in number it was pass'd at last The day before they pass'd the Ordinance for Establishing their New Directory which in effect was nothing but a total Abolition of the Common-Prayer-Book and thereby shewed unto the World how little hopes they had of setling their new Form of Worship if the Foundation of it were not laid in the Blood of this Famous Prelate who had so stoutly stood up for it against all Novellism and Faction in the whole course of his Life It was certified by some Letters to Oxon and so reported in the Mercurius Aulicus of the following Week That the Lord Bruce but better known by the Name of the Earl of Elgin was one of the Number of those few Lords which had Voted to the Sentence of his Condemnation The others which concurred in that fatal Sentence being the Earls of Kent Pembroke Salisbury and Bullingbrook together with the Lord North and the Lord Gray of Wark But whatsoever may be said of the other six I have been advertised lately from a very good Hand that the said Lord Bruce hath frequently disclaimed that Action and solemnly professed his detestation of the whole Proceedings as most abhorrent from his Nature and contrary to his known Affections as well unto his Majesty's Service as the Peace and Preservation of the Church of England This Ordinance was no sooner passed but it revived many of those Discourses which had before been made on the like occasion in the Business of the Earl of Strafford Here we have a new-found Treason never known before nor declared such by any of his Majesty's Justices nor ever brought to be considered of by the King and his Parliament but only Voted to be such by some of those Members which sate at Westminster who were resolved to have it so for their private Ends. The first Example of this kind the first that ever suffered Death by the Shot of an Ordinance as himself very well observed in his Dying Speech upon the Scaffold though purposely omitted in Hind's Printed Copy to which now he hastneth For the passing of the Ordinance being signified to him by the then Lieutenant of the Tower he neither entertained the News with a Stoical Apathy nor wailed his Fate with weak and Womanish Lamentations to which Extreams most Men are carried in this Case but heard it with so even and so smooth a Temper as shewed he neither was ashamed to Live nor afraid to Die The time between the Sentence and Execution he spent in Prayers and Applications to the Lord his God having obtained though not without some difficulty a Chaplain of his own to Attend upon him and to assist him in the work of his Preparation though little Preparation needed to receive that Blow which could not but be welcome because long expected On the Evening before his Passover the Night before the dismal Combat betwixt him and Death after he had refreshed his Spirits with a moderate Supper he betook himself unto his Rest and Slept very soundly till the time came in which his Servants were appointed to Attend his Rising A most assured sign of a Soul prepared The fatal Morning being come he first applied himself to his private Prayers and so continued till Pennington and others of their Publick Officers came to conduct him to the Scaffold which he ascended with so brave a Courage such a chearful Countenance as if he had mounted rather to behold a Triumph than be made a Sacrifice and came not there to Die but to be Translated And though some Rude and Uncivil People Reviled him as he pass'd along with opprobrious Language as loth to let him go to the Grave in Peace yet it never discomposed his Thoughts nor disturb'd his Patience For he had profited so well in the School of Christ that when he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed his Cause to him that Judgeth Righteously And as he did not fear the Frowns so neither did he covet the Applause of the Vulgar Herd and therefore rather chose to read what he had to speak unto the People than to affect the ostentation either of Memory or Wit in that dreadful Agony Whether with greater Magnanimity than Prudence I can hardly say As for the matter of his Speech besides what did concern himself and his own Purgation his great care was to clear his Majesty and the Church of England from
sadness I was much concerned at the Envy and undeserved Hatred born to me by the Lord Keeper I took into my Hands the Greek Testament that I might Read the portion of the day I lighted upon the XIII Chapter to the Hebrews wherein that of David Psal. 56. occurred to me then grieving and fearing The Lord is my helper I will not fear what man can do unto me I thought an Example was 〈◊〉 to me and who is not safe under that Shield Protect me O Lord my God Januar. 31. A Commission passed under the Broad Seal of England constituted me among others a Judge Delegate in a Suit of Dilapidation between the Rev. Father in God Richard Neile Lord Bishop of Durham and Francis James Son and Heir of his Predecessor I attended the Execution of this Commission from Two to Five a Clock in the Afternoon on Saturday in the great Chamber at Doctors Commons Februar 1. Sunday I stood by the most Illustrious Prince Charles at Dinner He was then very merry and talked occasionally of many things with his Attendants Among other things he said that if he were necessitated to take any particular Profession of Life he could not be a Lawyer adding his Reasons I cannot saith he defend a bad nor yield in a good Cause May you ever hold this Resolution and succeed most Serene Prince in Matters of greater moment for ever prosperous Februar 4. Wednesday my Conference held with Fisher the Jesuit May 24. 1622. and put in writing at the Command of King James having been before Read to the King was this day put into the Press being Licensed by the Bishop of London I had not hitherto appeared in Print I am no Controvertist May God so Love and Bless my Soul as I desire and endeavour that all the never to be enough deplored distractions of the Church may be composed happily and to the Glory of his Name This day I waited on the Duchess of Buckingham That Excellent Lady who is Goodness it self shewed me a Form of Devotions which another Woman unknown to me had put into her Hands I Read it All was mean in it nothing extraordinary unless that it was more like to Poetry Febr. 6. Friday my Lord Duke of Buckingham told me of the Reconciliation the day before made with the Lord Keeper Febr. 10. Shrove-Tuesday at the Commons Sentence in my Lord of Durham's Case Febr. 12. Thursday the Parliament was to begin but was put off to Monday the 16 of February Febr. 15. Sunday I Assisted at the Consecration of Dr Harmer Bishop of St. Asaph Febr. 16. Dies Lunae erat Dux Richmondiae subitâ Paralysi correptus mortuus est Hoc fatum rejecit Parliamentum in 19 Februarii Febr. 16. Munday The Duke of Richmond being seized suddenly with the Palsie died This accident put off the Parliament to the 19 of February Februar 18. Wednesday my Lord Duke of Buckingham told me of the Reconciliation and Submission of my Lord Keeper and that it was confessed unto him that his Favour to me was a chief Cause Invidia quo tendis c. At ille de novo foedus pepigit Februar 19. Thursday The Parliament began Februar 20. Friday The Convocation began Februar 22. Will. Fulwell Mr. of Arts of Qu. Coll. in Cambridge made Deacon Februar 24. Tuesday The Duke of Buckingham's Relation of the Negotiation with Spain about the Prince's Marriage to both Houses of Parliament Febr. 29. Sunday In the Evening the Duke of Buckingham's Coach overthrown between Exeter-House and the Savoy The Spanish Embassador lay there No Omen I hope more than that they thought to Soyl him Secretary Conway was in the Coach with him Mr. Bond came into the help and told it me March 7. Mid-Lent-Sunday I Preached at White-Hall March 14. Passion-Sunday I Preached at Westminster March 17. Lord Keeper his Complementing with me Will. Fulwell made Priest March 22. Munday Dismal day The Accident of my Lord of Rutland giving Not Content to the Form consented to in the Parliament House being the only Voice dissenting March 23. Tuesday The Censure of Morley Waterhouse and the Printer about the Petition against my Lord Keeper That Afternoon the King declared to the Committee that he would send a Messenger presently into Spain to signifie to that King that his Parliament advised him to break off the Treaties of the Match and the Palatinate and to give his Reasons of it and so proceed to recover the Palatinate as he might Bonfires made in the City by the forwardness of the People for Joy that we should break with Spain O quoties tenuit me illud Psal. LXVII 31. Dissipa gentes quae bella volunt Sed spero quia coacti March 24. Wednesday Initium Regis Jacobi The Earl of Oxford practising a Tilt fell and brake his Arm. That Night inter horas 6. 7. a great Eclipse of the Moon March 25. Thursday The Recess of the Parliament for a Week Anno 1624. March 26. Good-Friday Viscouut Mansfeild running at Tilt to practice with the shock of the meeting his Horse weaker or resty tumbled over and over and brake his own neck in the place the Lord had no great harm Should not this day have other Imployment March 27. Saturday Easter-Even my Speech with my Lord Duke of Buckingham about a course to ease the Church in times of Payment of the Subsidy now to be given His Promise to prepare both the King and the Prince March 28. Easter-day Richard Earl of Dorset died being well and merry in the Parliament House on Wednesday the 24. Quà m nihil est vita Hominis Miserere nostri Deus His Grand-father Thomas Earl of Dorset died suddenly at the Council-Table His Grand-mother rose well and was dead before Dinner His Father Robert lay not above two days And now this Man Sir Edward Sackvill ...... March 29. Easter-Munday I went and acquainted my Lord Keeper with what I had said to my Lord Duke He approved it and said it was the best Office that was done for the Church this Seven Years And so said my Lord of Durham They perswaded me to go and acquaint my Lord's Grace of Canterbury with what I had done I went His Grace was very angry Asked what I had to do to make any Suit for the Church Told me never any Bishop attempted the like at any time nor would any but my self have done it That I had given the Church such a wound in speaking to any Lord of the Laity about it as I could never make whole again That if my Lord Duke did fully understand what I had done he would never indure me to come near him again I answered I thought I had done a very good Office for the Church and so did my Betters think If his Grace thought otherwise I was sorry I had offended him And I hoped being done out of a good Mind for the support of many poor Vicars abroad in the Country who must needs sink under Three
maintained and Practised in all other Reformed Churches unless these Men be so strait Laced as not to admit the Churches of Sweden and Denmark and indeed all or most of the Lutherans to be Reformed Churches For in Sweden they retain both the Thing and the Name and the Governours of their Churches are and are called Bishops And among the other Lutherans the Thing is retained though not the Name For instead of Bishops they are called Superintendents and instead of Archbishops General Superintendents And yet even here too these Names differ more in sound than in sense For Bishop is the same in Greek that Superintendent is in Latin Nor is this change very well liked by the Learned Howsoever Luther since he would change the Name did yet very wisely that he would leave the Thing and make choice of such a name as was not altogether unknown to the Ancient Church For St. Augustine mentions it as plainly and as fully as any of these As for the Eminency which they say their Kirk of Scotland had amongst them I envy it not but God bless it so that it may deserve Eminence and have it And now we are come to the close of all in which their desire is expressed This also we represent to your Lordships most serious Consideration That not only the Fire-brands may be removed but the Fire may be provided against that there be no more Combustion afterwards Decemb. 15. 1640. Ad. Blayer Their request is That not only the Bishops whom they are pleased to call the Fire-brands which indeed themselves and their Adherents are but the Office or Episcopacy it self which they call the Fire may be provided against That there may be no combustion after This I as heartily wish as any Man can but see as little cause to hope for For what hope can there be against after-Combustion while the Fire which they themselves have kindled while they call other Men Incendiaries burns on still and is like to fasten upon the very Foundations to the eating of them out Yet I desire here that the Justice and the Indifferency of these Men may be well considered and that in two things The one in the Cause it self For Episcopacy is settled by Law here Nay it is many ways woven into the Laws and Customs of this Realm And their great Complaint is that their Presbyteries which they say are established by their Law were offer'd to be supprest So they are angry that their Presbyteries should be touch'd against their Law but Episcopacy must be destroyed though it be never so much against our Law The other piece of their Justice is Personal to me For here at one and the same time and in this one and the same Charge they do by Consequences lay load on me as if I had invaded their Laws while they invade ours avowedly and dare present this their Invasion as well as that by Arms in full and open Parliament of England to have their Will in the one and their Reward for the other Now if these two Forms of Ecclesiastical Government by Episcopacy and by Presbyteries be inconsistent under one Monarch as they themselves here confess then I were I at liberty would humbly beseech the Lords to consider First whether these men have any shew or colour of Justice in this their demand Secondly whether that Form of Church-Government which hath come down from the Apostles continued to this Day is established by the Laws and usage of this Kingdom ever since it was Christian be not fitter for them to embrace and settle than that Form which is but of Yesterday and hath no acquaintance at all with our Laws nor is agreeable with Monarchy And lastly when the Bishops are taken away and a Parity the Mother of confusion made in the Church and the Church-Lands Sacrilegiously made a Prey which I have long feared is not the least Aim of too many whether then the Temporal Lords shall not follow after And whether their Honour will not then soon appear too great and their Means too full till a Lex Agraria will pass upon them and lay them level with them whom some of them Favour too much And when these things are considered God Bless them whom it most concerns to lay it to Heart betimes if Time be not slipped already Here having answer'd to all which the Scots have laid in against me I would have the Scotch Service inserted and Printed The Book lyes by me very exactly translated into Latin And so I hope this Tract shall be CAP. V. AND now having answered and I hope sufficiently to all the Particulars in the Charge of the Scots against me I must return to the History again as I left it Where I told you the House of Commons were very angry with the late Canons and joyning this Accusation of the Scots to such Articles as they in their Committee had framed against me upon Decemb. 18. 1640. they accused me of High Treason †as is before expressed and I was committed to Custody to Mr. James Maxwell the Officer of the Vpper House When they had lodg'd me here I was follow'd with sharpness in both Houses upon all Occasions of any Complaint made against the proceedings at Council-Table Star-Chamber High-Commission or any place or thing in which I had ought to do Nothing omitted by some cunning Agents which might increase the Rage and Hatred of the People against me The chief Instruments herein were the Brownists and they which adhered unto them who were highly offended with me because I hindred and Punished as by Law I might their Conventicles and Separation from the Church of England And though I pitied them as God knows from my very Heart yet because necessity of Government forc'd me to some Punishment their Malignity never gave me over Among and above the rest there were three Men Mr. Henry Burton a Minister Benificed in Friday-street in London Dr. John Bastwick a Phisician and Mr. William Pryn a Common Lawyer who were censured Junii 14. 1637. in the Star-Chamber for notorious Libels Printed and Published by them against the Hierarchy of the Church They were then and there Sentenced to stand in the Pillory and lose their Ears and because they should not stay farther to infect London they were sent away by Order of that Court Mr. Burton to Garnsey Dr. Bastwick to Silly and Mr. Pryn to Jersy In the giving of this Sentence I spake my Conscience and was after commanded to Print my Speech But I gave no Vote because they had fallen so personally upon me that I doubted many Men might think Spleen and not Justice led me to it Nor was it my Counsel that advised their sending into those remote Parts The Brownists and the preciser Part of the Kingdom were netled at this and the Anger turned upon me tho' I were the Patient all along For they had published most venomous Libels against me and I did but shew such as came
Answer was returned to the first That the People would not besatisfied nor believe he was Dead unless they saw him Dye publickly And to the second That time enough was given already and that if any farther delay were used the People would think Justice should not be done at all and resort thither again in Multitudes to the hazzard of Publick Peace The Earl made these two Suits and in the mean time one Offer was made to him It was this That if he would employ his Power and Credit with the King for the taking of Episcopacy out of the Church he should yet have his Life His Christian Answer was very Heroical Namely That he would not buy his Life at so dear a rate The Man that sent him this Message was his Brother-in-Law Mr. Denzill Hollis one of the great Leading Men in the House of Commons And my Lord Primate of Armagh avowed this from the Earl of Strafford's own Mouth And as he was of too Generous a Spirit to lye basely so being in preparing of himself to leave the World it cannot be thought he would with a Dying-Mouth bely his Brother These Answers being returned the Earl prepared himself And upon Wednesday Morning about Ten of the Clock being May the Twelfth he was Beheaded on the Tower-Hill many Thousands beholding him The Speech which he made at his End was a great Testimony of his Religion and Piety and was then Printed And in their Judgment who were Men of Worth and some upon some near the Scaffold and saw him Dye he made a Patient and Pious and Couragious end insomuch that some doubted whether his Death had more of the Roman or the Christian in it it was so full of both And notwithstanding this hard Fate which fell upon him he is dead with more Honour than any of them will gain who hunted after his Life Thus ended the Wiseest the Stoutest and every way the Ablest Subject that this Nation hath bred these many Years The only Imperfections which he had that were known to me were his want of Bodily Health and a Carelesness or rather Roughness not to oblige any And his Mishaps in this last Action were that he groan'd under the Publick Envy of the Nobles served a Mild and a Gracious Prince who knew not how to be or be made great and trusted false perfidious and cowardly Men in the Northern Imployment though he had many Doubts put to him about it This Day was after called by divers Homicidium Comitis Straffordiae the Day of the Murder of Strafford Because when Malice it self could find no Law to put him to Death they made a Law of purpose for it God forgive all and be Merciful The Earl being thus laid low and his great Services done in Ireland made part of his Accusation I cannot but observe two things The one That upon Sunday Morning before Francis Earl of Bedford having about a Month before lost his second Son in whom he most Joyed Dyed the Small Pox striking up into his Brain This Lord was one of the Main Plotters of Strafford's Death And I know where he with other Lords before the Parliament Sat down resolved to have his Blood But God would not let him Live to take Joy therein but cut him off in the Morning whereas the Bill for the Earl of Strafford's Death was not Signed till Night The other is That at this time the Parliament tender'd two and but two Bills to the King to Sign This to cut off Strafford's Head was one and the other was that this Parliament should neither be Dissolved nor Adjourned but by the consent of both Houses in which what he cut off from himself Time will better shew than I can God Bless the King and his Royal Issue I told you before the People came in a Tumultuous Way to call for Justice And half an Eye may see how and by whom they were set on In the mean time let me tell you farther that this Art being once begun without Consideration of the Danger or Care of the Dishonour of such Proceedings whensoever there was any thing proposed in the House of Commons which it was thought the Lords would stick at or the King not grant by and by the Rabble came about the Houses and called for this and that Justice as they were prompted God Bless the Government of this Kingdom or all is lost I must tell you farther that from the time that the Earl of Strafford was first brought to his Answer in Westminster-Hall the bitter and fierce Libels of the factious People came daily out to keep up and increase the Peoples Hate against him And though they were full of most notorious Untruths yet coming from that Party were swallowed and believed by the most Among divers others they spread one in which they delivered to the World that the Earl of Strafford drawing near to his End when he saw no Remedy but he must Dye fell into great and passionate Expressions against me That I and my Counsels had been the Ruine of him and his House and that he cursed me bitterly Now as this is most false in it self so am I most able to make it appear so For his Lordship being to Suffer on the Wednesday Morning did upon Tuesday in the Afternoon desire the Lord Primate of Armagh then with him to come to me and desire me that I would not fail to be in my Chamber Window at the open Casement the next Morning when he was to pass by it as he went to Execution that though he might not speak with me yet he might see me and take his last leave of me I sent him word I would and did so And the next Morning as he passed by he turned towards me and took the Solemnest leave that I think was ever by any at distance taken one of another and this in the sight of the Earl of Newport then Lord Constable of the Tower the Lord Primate of Armagh the Earl of Cleveland the Lieutenant of the Tower and divers other Knights and Gentlemen of Worth Besides though during the time of both our Restraints and the nearness of our Lodgings we held no Intercourse each with other yet Sir William Balfore then Lieutenant of the Tower told me often what frequent and great expressions of Love the Earl made to me Which cannot stand with that base Slander which the lewd Libel vented But I leave that Honourable Person in his Grave and while I live shall Honour his Memory But must here a little go back For May the first after the King had declared his Conscience and his Judgment concerning the Earl of Strafford's Offences to both Houses as is before set down and was gone away a Letter was read in the Vpper House from the Scots in which their Army did earnestly desire to be gone It was moved to have a present Conference with the Commons about it and the Debate was very short many Lords being desirous
Gifts were great but that I perverted them all And that I was guilty of Treason in the highest Altitude These were the Liveries which he liberally gave me but I had no mind to wear them And yet I might not desire him to wear this Cloth himself considering where I then stood and in what Condition This Treason in the Altitude he said was in my Endeavour to alter the Religion established by Law and to subvert the Laws themselves And that to effect these I left no way unattempted For Religion he told the Lords That I laboured a Reconciliation with Rome That I maintained Popish and Arminian Opinions That I suffered Transubstantiation Justification by Merits Purgatory and what not to be openly Preached all over the Kingdom That I induced Superstitious Ceremonies as Consecrations of Churches and Chalices and Pictures of Christ in Glass-Windows That I gave liberty to the Prophanation of the Lords-day That I held Intelligence with Cardinals and Priests and endeavoured to ascend to Papal Dignity Offers being made me to be a Cardinal And for the Laws he was altogether as Wild in his Assertions as he was before for Religion And if he have no more true sense of Religion than he hath knowledge in the Law though it be his Profession I think he may offer both long enough to Sale before he find a Chapman for either And here he told the Lords That I held the same Method for this which I did for Religion And surely that was to uphold both had the Kingdom been so happy as to believe me But he affirmed with great Confidence That I caused Sermons to be Preached in Court to set the Kings Prerogative above the Law and Books to be Printed to the same effect That my Actions were according to these Then he fell upon the Canons and discharged them upon me Then that I might be guilty enough if his bare Word could make me so he Charged upon me the Benevolence the Loan the Ship-money the Illegal pulling down of Buildings Inclosures saying that as Antichrist sets himself above all that is called God so I laboured to set the King above all that is called Law And after a tedious stir he concluded his Speech with this That I was like Naaman the Syrian a great Person he confessed but a Leper So ended this Noble Celeustes I was much troubled to see my self in such an Honourable Assembly made so vile Yet seeing all Mens Eyes upon me I recollected my self and humbly desired of the Lords two things One that they would expect Proof before they give up their Belief to these loud but loose Assertions Especially since it is an easie thing for Men so resolved to Conviciate instead of Accusing when as the Rule given by Optatus holds firm Quum intenditur Crimen when a Crime is objected especially so high a Crime as this Charged on me 't is necessary that the Proof be manifest which yet against me is none at all The other that their Lordships would give me leave not to Answer this Gentleman's Particulars for that I shall defer till I hear his Proofs but to speak some few things concerning my self and this grievous Impeachment brought up against me Which being yielded unto me I then spake as follows My Lords my being in this Place and in this Condition recalls to my memory that which I long since read in Seneca Tormentum est etiamsi absolutus quis fuerit Causam dixisse 'T is not a grief only no 't is no less than a Torment for an ingenuous Man to plead Criminally much more Capitally at such a Bar as this yea though it should so fall out that he be absolved The great truth of this I find at present in my self And so much the more because I am a Christian And not that only but in Holy Orders And not so only but by Gods Grace and Goodness preferred to the greatest Place this Church affords and yet now brought Causam dicere to Plead and for no less than Life at this Great Bar. And whatsoever the World thinks of me and they have been taught to think more ill than I humbly thank Christ for it I was ever acquainted with Yet my Lords this I find Tormentum est 't is no less than Torment to me to appear in this Place to such an Accusation Nay my Lords give me leave I beseech you to speak plain Truth No Sentence that can justly pass upon me and other I will never fear from your Lordships can go so near me as Causam dixisse to have pleaded for my self upon this occasion and in this Place For as for the Sentence I thank God for it I am at St. Paul's Ward If I have committed any thing worthy of death I refuse not to die For I bless God I have so spent my time as that I am neither ashamed to live nor afraid to die Nor can the World be more weary of me than I am of it For seeing the Malignity which hath been raised against me by some Men I have carried my Life in my Hands these divers years past But yet my Lords if none of these things whereof these Men accuse me merit Death by Law though I may not in this Case and from this Bar appeal unto Caesar yet to your Lordships Justice and Integrity I both may and do Appeal not doubting but that God of his Goodness will preserve my Innocency And as Job in the midst of his Affliction said to his mistaken Friends so shall I to my Accusers God forbid I should justifie you till I Dye I will not remove my Integrity from me I will hold it fast and not let it go my Heart shall not reproach me as long as I live My Lords I see by the Articles and have now heard from this Gentleman that the Charge against me is divided into two main Heads the Laws of the Land and the Religion by those Laws established For the Laws first I think I may safely say I have been to my Understanding as strict an Observer of them all the Days of my Life so far as they concern me as any Man hath and since I came into Place I have followed them and been as much guided by them as any Man that sat where I had the Honour to sit And for this I am sorry I have lost the Witness of the Lord Keeper Coventry and of some other Persons of Honour since Dead And the Learned Councel at Law which attended frequently at the Council Table can Witness some of them that in References to that Board and in Debates arising at the Board I was usually for that part of the Cause where I found Law to be And if the Councel desired to have their Clyents Cause referred to the Law well I might move in some Cases for Charity or Conscience to have admittance but to the Law I left them if thither they would go And
's no Proof at all but his Belief Lastly here can be no Treason but against Dedham or Sherman that I can discover The next to Sherman comes in my great Friend Alderman Atkins and he Testifies That when he was brought to the Council-Table about the Ship-Money none was so violent against him as I was and that this Pressure for Ship-Money was before the Judges had given Sentence for the King And that at another time I pressed him hard to lend Money the King being present At which time he conceived that I favoured Alderman Harrison for Country sake because himself was Committed and not the other To this I must confess I did use to be Serious and Zealous too in his Majesty's Service but not with any the least intention to violate Law And if this here instanced were before the Judgment given for the King yet it was long after the Judges had put the Legality of it under their Hands And I for my part could not conceive the Judges would put that under their Hands to be Law which should after be found unlawful Therefore in this as I Erred with Honourable Company at the Council-Table so both they and I had as we thought sufficient Guides to lead us As for the 〈◊〉 which he puts upon me in preserving my Country-man Alderman Harrison from Prison First he himself durst not affirm it upon his Oath but says only that he Conceives I favoured him but his Conceit is no Proof Secondly if I had favoured him and done him that Office 't is far short of Treason But the Truth is Alderman Harrison gave a modest and a civil Answer but this Man was Rough even to Unmannerliness and so far as I remember was Committed for that And whereas he says I Pressed him hard to lend Money and that none was so violent as I he is much mistaken For of all Men in that Fraternity I durst never Press him hard for any thing least of all for Money For I knew not what Stuffing might fly out of so full a Cushion as afterwards 't is said did when being a Colonel he was pressed but not hard in a little Skirmishing in Finsbury-Fields Then it was urged that I aggravated a Crime against Alderman Chambers and told him that if the King had many such Chambers he would have never a Chamber to Rest in That in the Case of Tunnage and Poundage he laboured to take Bread from the King And that I Pressed upon him in the Business of Coat and Conduct-Money To this I gave this Answer That by the Affection Mr. Chambers then shewed the King I had some Reason to think he desired so many Chambers to his use that if the King had many such Subjects he might want a Chamber for himself or to that effect And the violence of his Carriage in that Honourable Assembly gave just Occasion to other Men to think so But as for the Business of Tunnage and Poundage and of Coat and Conduct-Money I conceived both were Lawful on the King's part And I was led into this Opinion by the express Judgment of some Lords present and the Silence of others in that behalf none of the great Lawyers at the Table contradicting either And no Witness to this but Alderman Chambers himself The sixth Particular was That I urged the business of Ship-Money upon Alderman Adams To this my Answer was That I never pressed the Ship-Money but as other Lords did at the Council-Table nor upon other grounds Nor doth Alderman Adams say any more than that he was pressed to this payment by me and others And to me it seems strange and will I hope to all Men else that this and the like should be a common Act of the Lords at the Council-Table but should be High-Treason in no body but in me And howsoever if it be Treason 't is against three Aldermen Atkins Chambers and Adams The Seventh Particular was that I was so violent about the slighting of the King's Proclamations as that I said A Proclamation was of as great force or equal to a Statute-Law And that I compared the King to the Stone spoken of in the Gospel That whosoever falls upon it shall be broken but upon whomsoever it falls it will grind him to powder And for this they brought three Witnesses Mr. Griffin and Tho. Wood and Rich. Hayles 1. This was in the Case of the Soap-business and the two Witnesses were Soap-boylers They and their Company slighted all the Proclamations which the King set out and all the Lords in the Star-Chamber were much offended as I conceive they had great Reason to be at the great and open daring of that whole Company And whatsoever Sentence passed upon them in that whole Business was given by the Court of Star-Chamber not by me For the Words First these Men have good Memories that can punctually being plain ordinary Men Swear Words spoken full Twelve Years since And yet as good as their Memory is they Swear doubtfully touching the time as that the Words were spoken in May 1632 or 33. 2. Secondly my Lords 't is impossible these Words should be spoken by me For I think no Man in this Honourable Presence thinks me so ignorant as that I should not know the vast difference that is between an Act of Parliament and a Proclamation Neither can these Gentlemen which press the Evidence think me so wilfully foolish so to speak considering they accuse me here for a Cunning Delinquent So God forgive these Men the Falshood and the Malice of this Oath 3. For the Words spoken of the Stone in Scripture 't is so long since I cannot recal whether I said it or no Nor have I any great Reason to believe these Angry Witnesses in their own Cause But if by way of Allusion I did apply that place to the King and them 't is far enough from Treason And let them and their like take heed lest it prove true upon themselves For seldom do Subjects fall upon their King but in the end they are broken and if it so happen that he falls upon them they are ground to powder And Salomon taught me this Answer where he says The Anger of a King is Death And yet I would not be mistaken For I do not conceive this is spoken of a King and his Natural Anger though it be good Wisdom to stir as little Passion in Kings as may be but of his Legal Anger According to which if the Stone roul strictly few Men can so Live but for something or other they may be in danger of grinding 4. And for these Soap-boylers they have little cause to be so vehement against me For if the Sentence passed against them in the Star-Chamber were in any thing illegal though it were done by that Court and not by me yet I alone so soon as I heard but muttering of it was the only means of resetling them and their Trade which none of all the Lords
Church as appeared in the taking down of his House was broken or pared away to make room for the uncleanness to pass into the Vault And surely were I to sit again in the High-Commission I should give my Vote to Censure this Prophanation But himself confesses he paid but Thirty Pound of it which was too little for such an Offence And besides my Lords this was the Act of the High-Commission and cannot be charged singly upon me And I cannot forbear to add thus much more That the Bishop and Dean and Chapter whoever they were did ill to give way to these Buildings and to increase their Rents by a Sacrilegious Revenue No Law that I know giving way to Build upon Consecrated Ground as that Church-Yard is But howsoever the present Tenants being not in Dolo I ever thought fit they should have Recompence for their Estates and they had it The next Charge was about the Shops of the Goldsmiths in Cheapside and Lumbard-street An Order was made at the Council-Table Novemb. 12. 1634. That within Six Months the Goldsmiths should provide themselves Shops there and no where else till all those Shops were furnished And this under a Penalty and to give Bond. These two were the ancient Places for Goldsmiths only Time out of Mind And it was thought fit by the Lords for the Beauty of the Place and the Honour of the City to have these Places furnished as they were wont and not to have other Trades mixed among them Beside it concerned all Mens Safety For if any Plate were stoln the enquiry after it might be made with more ease and speed Whereas if the Goldsmiths might dwell here and there and keep their Shops in every by-place of the City stoln Plate might easily be made off and never heard of But howsoever if in this Order there were any thing amiss it was the Order of the Council-Table not mine And far enough off from Treason as I conceive 1. Upon this Charge there were two Instances The first is Mr Bartley who said his House was taken from him by Order to the Lord Mayor 1637. That my Hand was to the Order That he was Imprisoned Six Months and recovered 600. l. Damages of Sir Ed. Bromfield That after this he was Committed to Flamsted a Messenger belonging to the High Commission about Dr. Bastwick's and Mr. Burton's Books That after this he was sent for to the Council and there heard my Voice only That when he desired some help Sir Tho. Ailsbury's Man told him he were as good take a Bear by the Tooth That all this was for his entertaining a Man that came out of Scotland and lastly That Dr. Haywood my Chaplain had Licensed a Popish Book To which I gave this Answer That if the Lord Mayor put him from his house by Order from the Lords being a Stationer among the Goldsmiths then it was not done by me And though my Hand were to the Order yet not mine alone and I hope my Hand there subscribed no more Treason than other Lords Hands did And if he did recover 600 l. against Sir Ed. Bromfield who I think was the Lord Mayor spoken of surely he was a Gainer by the Business And whereas he says he was after seized again and Committed to Flamsted about the Books Named If he were as was informed a great Vender of those and such like Books less could not be done to him than to call him to Answer He says farther that he was sent for to the Council-Table and there he heard my Voice only against him It may be so and without all fault of mine For that heavy Office was usually put upon me and the Lord Keeper to deliver the Sense of the Board to such as were called thither and Examined there And by this Means if any sour or displeasing Sentence passed how just soever it mattered not it was taken as our own and the Envy of it fell on us And that this was so many Lords here present know well He adds what Sir Thomas Ailsbury's Man said when he would have Petitioned again But since Mr. Bartley is single here and in his own Cause why doth he rest upon a Hearsay of Sir Thomas Ailsbury's Man Why was not this Man Examined to make out the Proof And if this Man did so far abuse me as to speak such Words of me shall I be Abused first and then have that Abuse made a Charge That he was troubled thus for a Scotchman's coming to him is nothing so nor is any Proof offered Though then the Troubles were begun in Scotland and therefore if this had any relation to that Business I pleaded again the Act of Oblivion For that of Dr. Haywood I shall give my Answer in a more proper Place for 't is objected again 2. The second Instance was in Mr Manning's Case He speaks also of the Order of the Council Novemb. 12. 1634. That the Goldsmiths in their Book make an Order upon it June 15. 1635. That they which obey not should be suspended I think 't is meant from use of their Trade That when some intreated them to Obedience I should say This Board is not so Weak but that it can Command or to that effect For the Council's Order it was theirs not mine For the Order which the Company of Goldsmiths made upon it It was their own Act I had nothing to do with it For the Words If I did speak them which is more than I remember he is single that Swears them and in his own Cause But my Lords I must needs say whether I spake it then or not most true it is that the Council-Table is very weak indeed if it cannot Command in things of Decency and for Safety of the Subject and where there is no Law to the contrary And this was then my Answer The Third Charge of this Day was That I forced Men to lend Money to the Church of St Pauls And Mrs Moore was called upon But this was deserted The next Charge was concerning a long and tedious Suit between Rich and Poole about the Parsonage of North-Cerny in Glocestershire That Rich was turned out after three Years Possession by a Reference procured by Poole to the Lord Keeper Coventry and my self And that I did in a manner Act the whole Business at the Reference That Letters were sent from the Council to Sir William Masters one of the Patrons to see Poole Instituted and to Imprison Rich if he refused Obedience That after by the Lord Marshal's procurement there was another Reference obtained to thirteen Lords who awarded for Rich. I was never more weary of any Business in my Life than I was of this Reference And I was so far from Acting the whole Business as that I did nothing but as the Lord Keeper directed the Cause was so entangled with Quare Impedits and many other Businesses of Law Our Judgments upon full Hearing went with Poole and we certified accordingly And upon this it may
be the Letters mentioned were sent down for Poole And if the Lord Keeper that now is then his Majesty's Solicitor could not or durst not meddle but gave back his Fee as was farther urged his Lordship is living to tell the Cause himself for here was none set down though it were urged as if he did it because I was a Referree And in the mean time this is but a bare Report concerning him If the thirteen Lords to whom it was after referred were of another Opinion that was nothing to us who without any touch of Corruption did as our Knowledge and Conscience guided us And my Lords it seems this Title was very doubtful for after all this it came into this Parliament was referred to a Committee where Mr. Rich was very willing to compound the Business And well he might for I was since certified by a Gentleman a Lawyer that understood well and was at the Hearing of that Cause that it was one of the foulest Causes on Rich's side that ever he heard And out of this I took the Summ of my Answer which I gave to Mr. Browne when he Summed up my Charge The Witnesses to this Charge were Mr. Rich his Brother and my good Friend Mr. Talboys But this latter witnesses nothing but that he heard me say that Poole's Behaviour was unfit so there I checked the one Party And that upon some words given me by Rich I should say do you throw dirt in my face And why might I not ask this Question if his words deserved it So upon the Matter here is Rich single in his Brother's Case and nothing throughout that looks like Treason Here I had a snap given me that I slighted the Evidence whereas they as 't was said did not urge these Particulars as Treason but as things tending to the violation of Law and should be found to make Treason in the Result The Truth is I did then think within my self that such Evidence might very well be slighted in an Accusation of Treason But I thought better to forbear and so in my continued patience expected the next Charge Which was Mr Foxlie's Imprisonment about Popish Books That he was tender'd the Oath ex Officio then brought before the Council and imprisoned again by a Warrant under my Hand and others and my Hand first to the Warrant his Wife not suffer'd to come to him till he was sick that the chief Cause of all this was the Impropriations because he desired to Name the Men for the Feoffment My Lords This Man confesses he was called in question about Popish-Books but expressing no more I cannot tell what to make of it nor can I tell how to Accuse him of Popish Books For I cannot tell which is least his Understanding of them or his Love to them And for tendring him the Oath ex Officio that was the usual proceeding in that Court When he was brought before the Lords of the Council he says the Warrant for his Imprisonment was under my Hand and others This was according to course So the Commitment of him was by the Lords not by me But my Hand was first so was it in all things else to which I was to set it And the restraint of his Wife from coming to him was by the same Order of the Lords And upon her Petition when her Husband was sick both of them confess she had admittance But whereas he says The chief Cause of his Commitment was the Feoffment he is much mistaken Himself says before it was about Popish Books This I am sure of the Feoffment was not so much as mentioned against him Though he freely confesses that he got twelve Men to undertake that Feoffment which was a great deal more power than he could take to himself by Law And his Wife speaks not one word to the Cause of his Imprisonment So he is single and in his own Cause and no Treason unless it be against Mr. Foxlye The next Charge of this day was Mr Vassall's Imprisonment And to save Repetition I shall weave all the circumstances of Aggravation and my Answer together First he is single in all both Substance and Circumstance Secondly he says that he conceives I was the cause of his Imprisonment But his Conceit is no proof He says again that I said at the Council-Table whither he was called Why sit we here if we be not able to Judge It may be my Lords I said so I remember not now but if I did say so it was of such things only as were fit and proper for that Honourable Board to judge of Then he Charged me that I should there say That he did eat the Bread out of the King's Childrens Mouths and that if he were in another Country he would be Hang'd for it I doubt this Gentleman has borrowed some of Sir Hen. Vane's Memory But I remember no such thing Yet if I did say it it was no Treason For if I did say he might be Hang'd for the like in some other Country it was because the Laws and Customs of other Countries and this of ours differ in many things So that by this Speech he was to thank the Law of the Land for his preservation notwithstanding his opposition against Majesty which where the Laws were not so favourable to the Subject would not be indured He says He was fain to deposite 300 l. into the Hand of Sir Abra. Dawes and that it was taken out the next day But he says withal it was done by a Decree at the Council-Board and I hope I shall not be held Author of all Decrees which passed there He says that I called him Sirrah A high Crime if I did so High Treason at least But sure this Gentleman's Spleen swell'd up Sir into Sirrah For that is no Language of mine to meaner Men than Mr. Vassal is The main of this Charge is Words and those if utter'd hasty not Treasonable And as M. Lepidus spake in the Case of C. Lutorius Priscus Vana à scelestis dicta à maleficiis differunt vain things differ from wicked and words from malicious deeds and let any Man else be sifted as I have been for all the time I have been a Bishop which is now upon the point of Twenty and three Years and I doubt not but as high Words as these will be heard fallen from him upon less occasion and of greater Personages than Mr. Vassal is Besides Mr. Vassal at the end of his Testimony desired the Lords he might have Reparation which altogether in Law infirms that which he Testified After this followed a Charge about a Grant passed from his Majesty to one Mr. Smith The difference was between Mrs. Burrill and him As far as I can recall it was thus The King had made a Grant to Mr. Burrill in his Life time of a Wharf or something else belonging to the Thames Mr. Smith conceals this and gets a Grant from his Majesty over the Head of the
the Warrants The next Witness concerning this Charge was Tho. Edwards He says That three Hampers of Mr. Pryn's Books were taken out of his House whither it seems they were conveyed for Safety and no Warrant shewed to take them The weaker Man he to let his Friends Books go so But this Witness hath not one Word of me 4. The next Witness was William Wickens he says he knew of no Warrant neither but that License was given by the Sheriffs about Six Years since Here 's never a Word concerning me nor am I to Answer for the Sheriffs Act. And whereas it is an Aggravation in the Charge That all Mr. Pryn's Books were sold Tho. Edwards says there were but Three Hampers of them and this Witness says he bought them for Two and Thirty Pounds And these neither by Number nor Price could be half of Mr. Pryn's Books if I have heard Truth of his Library 5. After this Man's Testimony comes Mr. Pryn himself in his own Cause He made a long relation of the Business and full of Bitterness against me This I doubt not was purposely done to represent me as Odious as he could to the Lords and the Hearers But I shall assume nothing to my self that was done by Order of the Court of Star-Chamber Whatsoever was done there by Common Consent was their Act not mine and if any Treason be in it they are as guilty as I for Treason admits no Accessories Nor will I meddle with the Language God forgive him that and what ever else he hath done against me Only I shall answer to all such particulars of his as seem to touch upon my self 1 First then he says he brought a Prohibition An. 1629. and that was the Ground of my Hatred against him For Prohibitions I shall Answer when they are Charged But as I remember not this so I bare him no Hatred and bearing him none it could not be for that Cause Nor doth he so much as offer to prove it was 2 Next he says I gave Direction to Mr. Attorney Noy and that Dr. Heylin drew some Informations for him Dr. Heylin was well acquainted with Mr. Attorney but how long or upon what grounds I know not Nor did I give Mr. Attorney any direction What Dr. Heylin did if he did any thing is nothing to me unless I set him on which is not Proved nor Sworn 3 He farther says That Mr. Attorney read his Book twice over and said that he found nothing amiss in it I know not what Mr. Attorney said to him nor what he may say of Mr. Attorney now he is dead This I am sure of and 't is well known to some of your Lordships he said far otherwise in open Court 4 He says That his Book was Licensed to the Press and after that seized and that the Messenger told him it was done by me This was done by Warrant of the High Commission not by me Nor doth he offer any Proof against me but that the Messenger told him so which is a bare Hearsay and no Proof 5 Then he says That there was another Order given about his Business and that I did it But he brings no Proof for this but that Mr. Ingram the then Keeper of the Fleet told him so But this is as bare a Hearsay as the former and Mr. Ingram not produced to make out the Proof 6 Then he says He writ me a Letter and that I sent it to Mr. Attorney to have him yet farther proceeded against 'T is true my Lords he did Write unto me but whether it were a Letter or a Libel I leave other Men to Judge This Letter I did send to Mr. Attorney but only to let him see how I was used not to have any farther proceeding against him But Mr. Attorny was so moved at the sight of it that when he saw me next he told me he would call him Ore tenus for it Therefore it seems somewhat was very much amiss in it call the Writing what you will 7 He says Mr. Attorney thought he had not kept the Letter but he was deceived for he had it But how was Mr. Attorney deceived I 'le tell your Lordships what himself told me When Mr. Attorney saw that I would not agree to any farther Prosecution he sent for Mr. Pryn shewed him the Letter and thought after he had Read it to give him some good Counsel to desist from that Libelling Humour of his But Mr. Pryn after he had got the Letter into his Hands went to the Window as if he meant to read it and while Mr. Attorney was otherwise busied he tare it into small Pieces and threw it out at the Window and then said unto him This shall never rise in Judgment against me Now he confesses he hath the Letter still and that Mr. Attorney was deceived Belike he tare some other Paper for it and put the Letter in his Pocket But that you may see the Honesty of this Man and what Conscience he makes of that which he speaks upon his Oath Here he says he had the Letter still and that Mr. Attorney was deceived And yet after this when he sets out his Breviate of my Life he confesses in an unsavoury Marginal Note That he Tare it Mr. Attorney having need of such a Paper And for this Breviate of his if God lend me Life and Strength to end this first I shall discover to the World the Base and Malicious Slanders with which it is fraught 8 He went on and said There was an Order made against him when Term was done so that he could have no Remedy This is directly against the Court and their Order not against me 9 Then he cites out of the Epistle before my Speech in the Star-Chamber that I Censured him for having his Hand in the Pamphlets of those times and yet was doubtful of it The Words are For I doubt his Pen is in all the Pamphlets But first 't is acknowledged I gave no Vote at all in his Censure And if I did not Judicially Censure him then sure I was not doubtful and yet Censured Secondly he was Censured upon his own Pamphlet And his Hand was certainly in his own what doubt soever I might make of it's being in theirs And Thirdly if the Words be extended to their Pamphlets also that 's nothing to prove I doubted of the Justness of the Sentence For the Words are not I doubt his Pen is in all those Pamphlets of Mr. Burton and Dr. Bastwick but in all the Pamphlets whether their Libels or any others so I might be doubtful of the one and yet certain enough of the other 10 And whereas he adds That he was joyntly Charged with Dr. Bastwick and Mr. Burton yet could not be suffered to speak together for a joynt Answer and that his Cross Bill was refused All this was done by the Court of Star-Chamber not by me And your Lordships know well the Lord Keeper managed the Affairs of that Court not
I. 11 Then he says That at last Mr. Holt came to him but was threatned that very Afternoon for it But he doth not tell your Lordships by whom and for my part more than civil giving him the time of the Day I never spake with him in all my Life 12 He tells your Lordships next how he passed through Coventry to which I have spoken already and how through Chester and how some Chester men were used concerning him and his entertainment But my Lords whatsoever was done in this was by the High-Commission at York and if any thing be therein amiss they must answer that did it 13 Lastly he spake of sending Sir William Balfore to me and some other like Particulars Of all which there is no Proof but a bare Relation what Mr. Hungerford Mr. Ingram and Sir William Balfore said which is all Hearsay and makes no Evidence unless they were present to Witness what is said And here give me leave to observe that Mr. Pryn hath in this Charge woven together all that he cou'd say concerning both Causes for which he was Censured For in the third Particular he speaks of his Book for which he was first Censured and in the Ninth and Tenth of his Cross-Bill and the like which were in his second Cause 6. The sixth Witness was Mr. Burton a Party too For that which he said agreeable to Mr. Pryn it received the same Answer And he added nothing new but that his Wife was kept from him by Warrant from the Lords And if it was by the Lords Order then was it not by me And when it was replyed that till he was Sentenced to Garnsey his Wife had access to him Mr. Burton answered Yea but my Lords she was not suffered to be with me at Nights At which the Lords fell a Laughing and there ended his Charge 7. The last Witness was Mrs. Bastwick And she also said nothing different from Mr. Pryn but that she was kept from her Husband and that she Petitioned the Lords about it But of me in particular not one Word And though Mr. Brown in his last Reply upon me said The Time of these Mens Censure was the noted Time of the Oppression of the Subjects Liberty yet I shall crave leave to say of these Men as S. Augustin once said of two great Donatists in his time who it seems had received some Sentence and afterwards a return not altogether unlike these Men They were Felicianus and Pretextatus of those thus S. Augustin If these Men were Innocent why were they so Condemned And if they were Guilty why were they with such Honour returned and received This applies it self And here I am willing to put the Reader in Mind too that Mr. Brown drawing up an exact Summ of my Charge and pressing it hard against me to my Remembrance and I think my Notes could not have slipped it passed by this Charge concerning Mr. Pryn and I cannot but think he had some Reason for it This tedious Charge being over the World ran round and I was brought back again to another Charge about demolishing the Houses at St Pauls and here three Witnesses more came against me 1. The first was Mr. Bently He said there were above Sixty Houses pulled down I Answered I know not the number but if there were so many the Recompence given was sufficient for more He said farther That there was Twenty Yards between the Church and some of the Houses There were very few if any such let him look to his Oath but then some were close upon the Wall of the Church And suppose all had been Twenty Yards distant that was not room enough to bring in and Lodge Materials for the Repair and to turn the Carriages And here again I made mention of my Salvo before desired for the Record of Ed. 3. touching the like Buildings and their Demolition 2. The second Witness was Mr. Goare For the Sixty Houses as was before testified I gave the same Answer as also that the Act of the Council-Table cannot be said to be my Act. For St. Gregory's Church they were not left without a Place for Divine Service as he would fain have it thought For they were assigned to a part of Christ-Church till another Church might be built for them And for the pulling down of St. Gregory's 't is well known to divers of that Parish that I was not so much as one of the Referees to whose view and consideration it was referred But the Truth is this Man Rented the Parsonage-House and had a good Penniworth of it to gain by his Under-Tenant The going down of that House troubles him and not the Church 3. The Third Witness Walter Biggs says nothing different from the two former but that I said I was opposed for the pulling down of the Houses Whence it was inferred that it was my Act because I was opposed But my Lords I hope I might say I was Opposed without any Offence or without taking the Order of the Council-Table to my self For 't is well known the Work of that Repair under God was mine and I took no indirect no oppressing Way to it nor can I now be ashamed of that which in future times in despight of the present Malice will be my Honour So that the Care of the Work lying upon me I might well say I was opposed though the Opposition went higher against the Orders of the Lords The last Charge of this Day was about the putting down of two Brewers in Westminster because the Excessive and Noysom Smoak from thence much annoyed the King's House Gardens and Park at St. James These two were Mr Bond and Mr Arnold 1. For Mr. Bond he begins with somewhat that I should say at the Council-Table As Namely that he must Seal a Bond of two Thousand Pounds to Brew no more with Sea-Coal Now this argues if I did so speak that it was in delivering to him the Sense of the Board which Office as I have before expressed and is well known was usually put upon me if I were present And your Lordships may here again see what Envy hath followed me upon that which I could not decline He says farther that upon this Mr. Attorney Banks proceeded against him in the Exchequer That there upon some occasion the Lord Chief Baron should say ye are wise Witnesses for the King That his Councel were forbid to Plead and so a Verdict passed for the King All this is nothing to me I was neither Chief Baron nor Witness nor one of the Jury that gave the Verdict He says he was informed that there was an Order of Council made that no Man should put up a Petition for him But himself doth not so much as mention that this Order was procured by me And it is but a Report that no Petition might be delivered for him and none of them that told him so produced for proof So he scandalizes the Lords by Hearsay Next he says
a poor Evasion was this Were there no other Lawyers for him because Mr. Solicitor was for me The Truth is all that ever I did in this Business was not only with the Knowledge but by the Advice of my Councel which were Mr. Solicitor Littleton and Mr. Herbert At last this Gentleman submitted himself and the Cause and if as he says Dr. Eden perswaded him to it that 's nothing to me As for the Fine I referred the moderation of it wholly to my Councel They pitched upon Sixteen Hundred Pounds and gave such Days of Payment as that a good part is yet unpaid And this Summ was little above one Years Rent For the Parsonage is known to be well worth Thirteen Hundred Pound a Year if not more And after the Business was setled my Lord Wimbleton came to me and gave me great Thanks for preserving this Gentleman being as he said his Kinsman whom he confessed it was in my Power to ruin For the raising of the Rent Sixty Pounds it was to add Means to the several Curats to the Chappels of Ease And I had no Reason to suffer Sir Ralph Ashton to go away with so much Profit and leave the Curats both upon my Conscience and my Purse And for his Fine to St Pauls I gave him all the Ease I could But since his Son will force it from me he was accused of Adultery with divers Women and confessed all And whither that Fine went and by what Authority I have already shewed And thus much more my Lords at Mr. Bridgman's Intreaty I turned this Lease into Lives again without Fine But since I have this Reward for it I wish with all my Heart I had not done it For I am confident in such a Case of Right your Lordships would have left me to the Law and more I wou'd not have asked And I think this though intreated into it was my greatest Error in the Business 6. The last Instance was about the conversion of some Money to St. Pauls out of Administrations By Name Two Thousand Pounds taken out of Wimark's Estate and Five Hundred out of Mr. Gray's First whatsoever was done in this kind I have the Broad-Seal to Warrant it And for Mr. Wimark's Estate all was done according to Law and all care taken for his Kindred And if I had not stired in the Business Four Men all Strangers to his Kindred would have made themselves by a broken Will Executors and swept all away from the Kindred Secondly for Mr. Gray's Estate after as Odious an expression of it as could be made and as void of Truth as need to be the Proceedings were confessed to be Orderly and Legal and the Charge deserted Then there was a fling at Sir Charles Caesar's getting of the Mastership of the Rolls for Money and that I was his means for it And so it was thence inferred That I sold Places of Judicature or helped to sell them For this they produced a Paper under my Hand But when they had thrown all the Dirt they could upon me they say they did only shew what Probabilities they had for it and what Reason they had to lay it in the end of the Fourth Original Article and so deserted it And well they might For I never had more Hand in this Business than that when he came to me about it I told him plainly as things then stood that Place was not like to go without more Money than I thought any Wise Man would give for it Nor doth the Paper mentioned say any more but that I informed the Lord Treasurer what had passed between us CAP. XXVIII THis day ended I was Ordered to appear again April 4. 1644. And received a Note from the Committee under Serjeant Wild's Hand dated April 1. That they meant to proceed next upon the Fifth and Sixth Original Articles and upon the Ninth Additional which follow in haec verba The Fifth Original He hath Trayterously caused a Book of Canons to be Composed and Published and those Canons to be put in Execution without any lawful Warrant and Authority in that behalf in which pretended Canons many Matters are contained contrary to the King's Prerogative to the Fundamental Laws and Statutes of this Realm to the Right of Parliament to the Propriety and Liberty of the Subjects and Matters tending to Sedition and of dangerous Consequence and to the Establishment of a vast unlawful and presumptus Power in himself and his Successors Many of the which Canons by the practice of the said Arch-Bishop were surreptitiously passed in the late Convocation without due consideration and debate others by fear and compulsion were Subscribed unto by the Prelats and Clerks there assembled which had never been Voted and Passed in the Convocation as they ought to have been And the said Arch-Bishop hath contrived and endeavoured to assure and confirm the Vnlawful and Exorbitant Power which he hath Vsurped and Exercised over his Majesty's Subjects by a Wicked and Vngodly Oath in one of the said pretended Canons injoyned to be taken by all the Clergy and many of the Layety of this Kingdom The Sixth Original He hath Trayterously assumed to himself a Papal and Tyrannical Power both in Ecclesiastical and Temporal Matters over his Majesty's Subjects in this Realm of England and in other places to the Disherison of the Crown Dishonour of his Majesty and Derogation of his Supream Authority in Ecclesiastical Matters And the said Arch-Bishop claims the King 's Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as incident to his Episcopal and Archiepiscopal Office in this Kingdom and doth deny the same to be derived from the Crown of England which he hath accordingly exercised to the high contempt of his Royal Majesty and to the destruction of divers of the King's Liege People in their Persons and Estates The Ninth Additional Article That in or about the Month of May 1641. presently after the dissolution of the last Parliament the said Arch-Bishop for the ends and purposes aforesaid caused a Synod or Convocation of the Clergy to be held for the several Provinces of Canterbury and York wherein were made and established by his Means and procurement divers Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical contrary to the Laws of this Realm the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and Liberty and Property of the Subject tending also to Sedition and of dangerous Consequence And amongst other things the said Arch-Bishop caused a most Dangerous and Illegal Oath to be therein made and contrived the Tenor whereof followeth in these words That I A. B. do Swear that I do approve the Doctrine and Discipline or Government Established in the Church of England as containing all things necessary to Salvation And that I will not endeavour by my self or any other directly or indirectly to bring in any Popish Doctrine contrary to that which is so Established Nor will I ever give my consent to alter the Government of this Church by Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans and Arch-Deacons c. as it
stands now Established and as by right it ought to stand nor yet ever to subject it to the Usurpations and Superstitions of the See of Rome And all these things I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and Swear according to the plain and common Sense and Understanding of the same Words without any Equivocation or Mental Evasion or secret Reservation whatsoever And this I do heartily willingly and truly upon the Faith of a Christian So help me God in Jesus Christ. Which Oath the said Arch-Bishop himself did take and caused divers other Ministers of the Church to take the same upon pain of Suspension and Deprivation of their Livings and other severe Penalties and did also cause Godfrey then Bishop of Gloucester to be committed to Prison for refusing to Subscribe to the said Canons and to take the said Oath and afterward the said Bishop submitting himself to take the said Oath he was set at Liberty On Thursday April 4. I was again brought to the House made a sufficient scorn and gazing-stock to the People and after I had waited some hours was sent back by Reason of other Business unheard But Order'd to appear again Munday April 8. Then I appeared again and was used by the basest of the People as before I did not appear any day but it cost me six or seven Pound I grew into want This made my Councel and other Friends to perswade me the next time I had admittance to speak to move the Lords again for some necessary Allowance notwithstanding my former Petition had been rejected This Advice I meant to have followed that day But after some Hours Attendance I was sent back again unheard and Order'd to come again on Thursday April 11. This day I did not come to the House a Warrant being sent to the Tower which stayed me till Tuesday April 16. CAP. XXIX The Seventh Day of my Hearing THen I appeared and as I remember here Mr. Maynard left off save that now and then he interposed both in the Reply and otherwise and Mr. Nicolas a Man of another Temper undertook the managing of the Evidence And the first Charge was concerning the late Canons which he said were against Law to sit the Parliament being Dissolved No my Lords nothing against Law that I know For we were called to Sit in Convocation by a different Writ from that which called us as Bishops to the Parliament And we could not rise till his Majesty sent us another Writ to discharge us and this is well known to the Judges and the other Lawyers here present So we continued sitting though the Parliament rose Nor was this sitting continued by any Advice or Desire of mine For I humbly desired a Writ to dissolve us But the best Councel then present both of Judges and other Lawyers assured the King we might Legally sit And here is a Copy attested under their Hands Then he urged out of my Diary at May 29. 1640. That I acknowledged there were Seventeen Canons made which I did hope would be useful to the Church 'T is true my Lords I did hope so And had I not hoped it I would never have passed my Consent unto them And when I writ this there was nothing done or said against them And if by any Inadvertency or Humane Frailty any thing Erroneous or Unfit have slipped into those Canons I humbly beseech your Lordships to remember it is an Article of the Church of England that General Councils may Err and therefore this National Synod may mistake And that since if any Error be it is not Wilful it may be rectified and in Charity passed by For the Bishop of Gloucester's refusing to Subscribe the Canons and take the Oath Which is here said by the Council but no Proof offered The Truth is this He first pretended to avoid his Subscription that we could not sit the Parliament risen He was Satisfied in this by the Judges Hands Then he pretended the Oath But that which stuck in his Stomach was the Canon about the suppressing of the growth of Popery For coming over to me to Lambeth about that Business he told me he would be torn with Wild Horses before he would Subscribe that Canon I gave him the best Advice I could but his Carriage was such when he came into the Convocation that I was forced to charge him openly with it and he as freely acknowledged it As there is plentiful Proof of Bishops and other Divines then present And for his Lordship's being after put to take the Oath which was also urged it was thus I took my self bound to accquaint his Majesty with this Proceeding of my Lord of Gloucester's and did so But all that was after done about his Commitment first and his Release after when he had taken the Oath was done openly at a full Council-Table and his Majesty present and can no way be charged upon me as my Act. For it was my Duty to let his Majesty know it to prevent farther Danger then also discovered But I am here to defend my self not to accuse any Man else Next he urged that I had Interlined the Original Copy of the Canons with my own Hand But this is clearly a mistake if not a wilful one For perusing the Place I find the Interlining is not in my Hand but my Hand is to it as I humbly conceive it was fit it should And the Words are in the Ratification of the Canons and therefore were necessarily to be in the Original howsoever slipped in the writing of them As for the Oath so bitterly spoken of at the Bar and in the Articles either it was made according to Law or else we were wholly mis-led by President and that such as was never excepted against For in the Canons made in King James his Time there was an Oath made against Symonie and an Oath for Church-Wardens and an Oath about Licences for Marriages and an Oath for Judges in Ecclesiastical Courts And some of these Oaths as dangerous as this is acounted to be And all these established by no other Authority than these late were And yet neither those Canons nor those Oaths were ever declared Illegal by any ensuing Parliament nor the Makers of them accused of any Crime much less of Treason So that we had in this Synod unblamed President for what we did as touching our Power of doing it But after all this he said he would pass these things by that is when he had made them as Odious as he could and would Charge nothing upon me but the Votes of both Houses namely That these Canons contain Matters contrary to the King's Prerogative to the Fundamental Laws of the Realm to the Rights of Parliaments to the Propriety and Liberty of the Subject and Matters tending to Sedition and of dangerous Consequence So these Votes of the Honourable Houses made so long after and therefore cannot well be an Evidence against the
just Grievances is not the least Cause of my present Condition In which my Case though not my Abilities is somewhat like Cicero's For having now for many Years defended the Publick State of the Church and the Private of many Church-Men as he had done many Citizens when he by prevailing Factions came into danger himself ejus Salutem defendit nemo no Man took care to defend him that had defended so many which yet I speak not to impute any thing to Men of my own Calling who I presume would have lent me their just Defence to their Power had not the same Storm which drove against my Life driven them into Corners to preserve themselves The First Instance was in Mr. Shervil's Case in which Mr. John Steevens tells what I said to the Councel Pleading in the Star-Chamber which was that they should take care not to cause the Laws of the Church and the Kingdom to clash one against another I see my Lords nothing that I spake was let fall nor can I remember every Speech that passed from me he may be happy that can But if I did speak these Words I know no Crime in them It was a good Caveat to the Councel for ought I know For surely the Laws of Church and State in England would agree well enough together if some did not set them at Odds. And if I did farther say to the then Lord Keeper as 't is Charged that some Clergy-Men had sat as high as he and might again which I do not believe I said yet if I did 't is a known Truth For the Lord Coventry then Lord Keeper did immediately succeed the Lord Bishop of Lincoln in that Office But though I dare say I said not thus to the Lord Keeper whose Moderation gave me no Cause to be so round with him yet to the Councel at the Bar I remember well upon just occasion given that I spake to this Effect That they would forbear too much depressing of the Clergy either in their Reputation or Maintenance in regard it was not impossible that their Profession now as high as ours once was may fall to be as low as ours now is If the Professors set themselves against the Church as some of late are known to have done And that the sinking of the Church would be found the ready way to it The Second Instance was about calling some Justices of the Peace into the High-Commission about a Sessions kept at 〈◊〉 1. The First Witness for this for Three were produced was Mr. Jo. Steevens He says That the Isle where the Sessions were kept was joyned to the Church If it were not now a part of the Chuch yet doubtless being within the Church-Yard it was Consecrated Ground He says That Sessions were kept there heretofore And I say the more often the worse He says That I procured the calling of them into the High-Commission But he proves no one of these Things but by the Report of Sir Rob Cook of Gloucestershire a Party in this Cause He says again that They had the Bishop's License to keep Sessions there But the Proof of this also is no more than that Sir Rob. Cook told him so So all this hitherto is Hearsay Then he says the 88. Canon of the Church of England was urged in the Commission Court which seems to give leave in the close of the Canon that Temporal Courts or Leets may be kept in Church or Church-Yard First that Clause in the end of the Canon is referred to the Ringing of Bells not to the Profanations mentioned in the former part of that Canon Nor is it probable the Minister and Church-Wardens should have Power to give such leave when no Canon gives such Power to the Bishop himself And were it so here 's no Proof offered that the Minister and Church-Wardens did give leave And suppose some Temporal Courts might upon urgent Occasion be kept in the Church with leave yet that is no Warrant for Sessions where there may be Tryal for Blood He says farther That the Civilians quoted an Old Canon of the Pope's and that that prevailed against the Canon of Our Church and Sentence given against them All those Canons which the Civilians urged are Law in England where nothing is contrary to the Law of God or the Law of the Land or the King's Prerogative Royal And to keep off Profanation from Churches is none of these Besides were all this true which is urged the Act was the High-Commissions not mine Nor is there any thing in it that looks toward Treason 2. The Second Witness is Mr. Edward Steevens He confesses that the Sentence was given by the High-Commission and that I had but my single Vote in it And for the Place it self he says The Place where the Sessions were kept was separated from the Isle of the Church by a Wall Breast-high which is an evident Proof that it was formerly a Part of that Church and continued yet under the same Roof 3. The Third Witness is Mr. Talboyes who it seems will not be out of any thing which may seem to hurt me He says The Parish held it no part of the Church Why are not some of them examined but this Man's Report from them admitted They thought no harm he says and got a License But why did they get a License if their own Conscience did not prompt them that something was Irregular in that Business He says he was informed the Sessions had been twice kept there before And I say under your Lordships Favour the oftner the worse But why is not his Informer produced that there might be Proof and not Hearsay Upon this I said so he concludes That I would make a President against keeping it any more If I did say so the Cause deserved it Men in this Age growing so Bold with Churches as if Profanation of them were no Fault at all The Third Instance concerned Sir Tho. Dacres a Justice of Peace in Middlesex and his Warrant for Punishing some disorderly Drinking The Witnesses the two Church Wardens Colliar and Wilson two plain Men but of great Memories For this Business was when I was Bishop of London and yet they agree in every Circumstance in every Word though so many Years since Well what say they It seems Dr. Duck then my Chancellor had Cited these Church-Wardens into my Court Therefore either there was or at least to his Judgment there seemed to be somwhat done in that business against the Jurisdiction of the Church They say then That the Court ended Dr. Duck brought them to me And what then Here is a Cause by their own confession depending in the Ecclesiastical Court Dr. Duck in the King's Quarters where I cannot fetch him to Testifie no means left me to know what the Proceedings were and I have good cause to think that were all the Merits of the Cause open before your Lordships you would say Sir Tho. Dacres did not all according to
would be made of them then that last Remedy but never till then This last Passage Mr. Brown insisted upon The taking of good Books from the People But as I have answered there was no such thing done or intended only a Word spoken to make busie Men see how they abused themselves and the Church by misunderstanding and misapplying that which was written for the good of both Lastly it was urged He said that the Communion-Table must stand Altarwise that Strangers which come and look into these Churches might not see such a Disproportion The Holy Table standing one way in the Mother-Church and quite otherwise in the Parochial annexed And truly to see this could be no Commendation of the Discipline of the Church of England But howsoever Mr. Clarke the other Witness with Wyan and agreeing with him in the most says plainly that it was the Lord of Arundel that spake this not I And that he was seconded in it by the Lord Weston then Lord Treasurer not by me The last Charge of this Day was a passage out of one Mr Shelford's Book p. 20 21. That they must take the Reverend Prelates for their Examples c. And Mr. Pryn Witnessed the like was in the Missal p. 256. Mr. Shelford is a meer Stranger to me his Book I never read if he have said any thing Unjust or Untrue let him answer for himself As for the like to that which he says being in the Missal though that be but a weak Argument yet let him salve it Here this Day ending I was put off to Saturday June 1. And then again put off to Thursday June 6. which held CAP. XXXIV My Twelfth Day of Hearing THis Day Serjeant Wild instead of beginning with a new Charge made another long Reply to my Answers of the former Day Whether he found that his former Reply made at the time was weak and so reputed I cannot tell But another he made as full of premeditated Weakness as the former was of sudden Mr. Pryn I think perceived it and was often at his Ear but Mr. Serjeant was little less than angry and would on I knew I was to make no Answer to any Reply and so took no Notes Indeed holding it all as it was that is either nothing or nothing to the purpose This tedious Reply ended Then came on the First Charge about the Window of Coloured Glass set up in the New Chappel at Westminster It was the History of the coming down of the Holy-Ghost upon the Apostles This was Charged to be done by me and at my Cost The Witnesses Mr. Brown imployed in setting up the Window and Mr Sutton the Glasier These Men say that Dr Newell Sub-Dean of Westminster gave Order for the Window and the setting of it up but they know not at whose Cost nor was any Order given from me So here 's nothing Charged upon me And if it were I know nothing amiss in the Window As for the Kings Arms being taken down as they say Let them answer that did it Though I believe that the King's Arms standing alone in a white Window was not taken down out of any ill meaning but only out of necessity to make way for the History The Second Charge was the Picture of the Blessed Virgin set upon a New-Built Door at S Marys in Oxford Here Alderman Nixon says That some Passengers put off their Hats and as he supposes to that Picture But my Lords his Supposal is no Proof He says that the next day he saw it But what did he see Nothing but the putting off the Hat For he could not see why or to what unless they which put off told it They might put off to some Acquaintance that passed by He farther says he saw a Man in that Porch upon his Knees and he thinks praying but he cannot say to that But then if the Malice he hath long born me would have suffer'd him he might have stayed till he knew to whom he was Praying for till then 't is no Evidence He says he thinks that I Countenanced the setting of it up because it was done by Bishop Owen But Mr Bromfeeld who did that Work gave Testimony to the Lords that I had nothing to do in it He says there was an Image set up at Carfax Church but pulled down again by Mr Widdows Vicar there But this hath no relation at all to me This Picture of the Blessed Virgin was twice mentioned before And Sir Nath Brent could say nothing to it but Hearsay And Mr Corbet did not so much as hear of any Abuse And now Alderman Nixon says he saw Hats put off but the wise Man knows not to what Nor is there any shew of Proof offer'd that I had any Hand or Approbation in the setting of it up Or that ever any Complaint was made to me of any Abuse to it or dislike of it And yet Mr. Brown when he gave the Summ of the Charge against me insisted upon this also as some great Fault of mine which I cannot yet see In the next Charge Mr. Serjeant is gone back again to White-Hall as in the former to Oxford The Witnesses are Mrs. Charnock and her Daughter They say they went being at Court into the Chappel and it seems a Woman with them that was a Papist And that while they were there Dr. Brown one of the King's Chaplains came in Bowed toward the Communion-Table and then at the Altar kneeled down to his Prayers I do not know of any Fault Dr. Brown committed either in doing Reverence to God or Praying and there And yet if he had committed any Fault I hope I shall not answer for him I was not then Dean of the Chappel nor did any ever complain to me They say that two Strangers came into the Chappel at the same time and saw what Dr. Brown did and said thereupon that sure we did not differ much and should be of one Religion shortly And that the Woman which was with these Witnesses told them they were Priests First this can no way Relate to me for neither did these Women complain to me of it nor any from them Secondly if these two Men were Priests and did say as is Testified are we ever a whit the nearer them in Religion Indeed if all the difference between Rome and us consisted in outward Reverence and no Points of Doctrine some Argument might hence be drawn but the Points of Doctrine being so many and great put stop enough to that Thirdly if Recusants Priests especially did so speak might it not be said in Cunning to Discountenance all External Worship in the Service of God that so they may have opportunity to make more Proselytes And 't is no small Advantage to my knowledge which they have this way made And this was the Answer which I gave Mr. Brown when he Charged this upon me in the House of Commons Here before they went any farther Mr. Serjeant Wilde
for that 2. Yet the Second Witness Mr. Tomlyns says also that I did justifie this Picture God forgive him the Malice or Ignorance of this Oath be it which it will He might have been as wary as Mr. Caril and added as he remembers For so many Years since as this Hearing was he may easily mistake But if I did say any such thing why are not my own Papers here produced against me I had that written which I then spake and the Paper was in my Study with the rest and came for ought I know into their Hands which follow the Charge against me I ask again why is not this Paper produced Out of all doubt it would had there appeared any such thing in it He says also that I said then that if the Idol of Jupiter were set up yet it were not lawful to pull it down in a Popular Tumult but by Order and Authority I did say so or to that effect indeed and must say it still For I find in St. Augustin almost the very words And Bishop Davenant a Man very Learned 〈◊〉 this place of St. Augustin and approves it And they both prove this Doctrine from Deut. 12. Where the Command given for destroying of the Idols when they came into the Land of Canaan was not left at large to the People but setled in Moses the chief Magistrate and his Power And according to this Rule the Temple of AEsculapius though then grown very Scandalous was not pulled down but by 〈◊〉 Command Which place I then shewed the Lords But this Witness added that Mr Sherfeild had Authority to do this from the Vestry If he had that 's as good as none for by the Laws of England there is yet no power given them for that or any thing else And all that Vestries do is by usurpation or consent of the Parish but reaches not this The Bishop of the Diocess had been fitter to be consulted herein than the Vestry Here as if these Witnesses had not said enough Mr Nicolas offered himself to be a Witness And told the Lords he was present at the Hearing of this Cause and that four Witnesses came in clear that the Picture broken down was the Picture of God the Father and that yet the Sentence of the Court passed against Mr Sherfeild First if this be so it concludes against the Sentence given in the Star-Chamber not against me and he calls it here the Sentence of the Court. Secondly be it that it were undoubtedly the Picture of God the Father yet he ought to have taken Authority along with him and not to go about it with violence which he did and fell and brake his Leg in the Business Thirdly by his own description of the Picture it seems to me to be some old Fabulous Picture out of a Legend and not one of God the Father For he then told the Lords it was a Picture of an Old Man with a Budget by his side out of which he was plucking Adam and Eve And I believe no Man ever saw God the Father so Pictured any where Lastly let me observe how Mr Nicolas takes all parts upon him wherein he may hope to do me mischief The Sixth Charge was concerning a Bible that was Printed with Pictures and sold. The Witness Mr Walsal a Stationer Who says That this Bible was Licensed by Dr Weeks my Lord of London's Chaplain not mine so thus far it concerns not me Yes says Mr. Brown in his last Reply For it appears in a List of my Chaplains under my own Hand that Dr Weeks was one 'T is true when I was Bishop of Bath and Wells he was mine but my Lord of London had him from me so soon as ever he was Bishop And was his not mine when he Licensed that Book And Mr. Brown knew that I answer'd it thus to the Lords He says that I gave him direction that they should not be sold openly upon the Stalls but only to discreet Men that knew how to use them The Case was this As I was at Prayers in the King's Chappel I there saw one of them in Mrs. Kirk's Hand She was far enough from any affection to Rome And this being the first knowledge I had of it many were vented and sold before I could prevent it Upon this I sent for one whether to this Witness or another I cannot say and acquainted the Lords of the Council with it and craved their direction what should be done It was there Ordered that I should forbid the open Sale of them upon their Stalls but not otherwise to Learned and Discreet Men. And when I would have had this Order stricter no Man stuck to me but Mr Secretary Cook So according to this Order I gave direction to Mr Walsal as he witnesses Here Mr. Maynard replyed that I ought to have withstood this Order in regard it was every way faulty For said he either these Pictures were good or bad And if they were good why should they not be Sold openly upon the Stalls to all that would buy And if they were bad why should they be Sold privately to any To this Reply I was not suffer'd to Answer But when I heard Mr. Brown charge this Bible with Pictures against me then I answer'd the thing as before and took occasion thereby to answer this Dilemma thus Namely that this kind of Argument concludes not but in things Necessary and where no Medium can be given For where a Medium can be given the Horns of this Argument are too weak to hurt And so 't is here For Pictures in themselves are things indifferent not simply good nor simply bad but as they are used And therefore they were not to be sold to all comers because they may be abused and become evil and yet might be sold to Learned and Discreet Men who might turn them to good And that Images are things indifferent of themselves is granted in the Homilies which are against the very Peril of Idolatry He said there was some inconvenient Pictures among them as the Assumption and the Dove Be it so the Book was not Licensed by me or mine And yet as I then shewed the Lords they were not so strict at Amsterdam against these Pictures For the Book which Mr. Walsal shewed me was Printed and sent thence before it was Printed here Besides our old English Bibles in the beginning of the Queen were full of Pictures and no fault found As for that which is added at the Bar that one of these Bibles was found in Secretary Windebank's Trunk and another in Sir John Lambs That 's nothing to me The last Charge of this day was that something about Images was Expunged out of Dr Featly's Sermons by my Chaplain Dr Bray before they could be suffer'd to be Printed But first he himself confesses that I told him he might Print them so nothing were in them contrary to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England
that Troubles him S Luc 22. Then they urged my Predecessor Arch-Bishop Parker That he found Fault with the Consecration of New Churches I answered then upon Memory that he did not find fault simply with Consecrations of Churches but only with the Superstitious Ceremonies used therein And this since upon perusal of the Place I find to be true For after he had in some sort Commended the Popes for taking away some gross and superstitious Purgations he adds that yet for want of Piety or Prudence their later Pontifical and Missal-Books did outgo the Ancient In Multitudine Ceremoniarum peragendi Difficultate Taedio 〈◊〉 amentiâ So these were the things he found fault with not the Consecration it self which he could not well do himself being then a Consecrated Bishop 2. The Second Witness was Mr. Hope He says That he agrees with the former Witness and saw all and the throwing up of the Dust c. Since he agrees with the former Witness I give him the same Answer Yet with this Observation upon him and his Oath The former Witness says that at the beginning of this Action I took Dust and threw it up This Man agrees with him and saw all and almost in the very next Words confesses he was not there at the beginning Not there Yet he saw it My Lords if you mark it this is a wholsom Oath He says That then the Church-Yard was Consecrated by it self It was ever so the one Act must follow the other though both done the same Day For the Places being different the Act could not pass upon them at the same time Then he said there were Fees required and a good Eye had to the Money This is a poor Objection against me If the Officers did exact any Money without Rule or beyond President let them answer for it But for that which was said to belong to me I presently gave it to the Poor of the Parish And this Mr. Dell my Secretary then present attested to the Lords Lastly he said they were not New Churches Let him look to his Oath again for 't is notoriously known they were both New Built from the Ground and St. Giles not wholly upon the Old Foundation The Third Charge was laid on me only by Mr. Nieolas and without any Witness It was That I out-went Popery it self for the Papists Consecrated Churches only but I had been so Ceremonious that I had Consecrated Chappels too My Lords the use of Chappels and of Churches in regard of God's Service is the same Therefore if Consecration be fit for the one it must needs be for the other And the Consecrations of Chappels was long before Popery came into the World For even Oratories Newly Built were Consecrated in or before Eusebius his Time And he Flourished about the Year of Christ 310. So ancient they are in the course of Christianity and for any Prohibition of them there is neither Law nor Canon in the State or Church of England that doth it The Chappels they instance in are Three First they say I Consecrated a Chappel of the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer Weston's I did so and did no harm therein As for the touch given by the way upon that Honourable Person he is gone to God I have nothing to do with it Secondly they Instanced in a Chappel of Sir John Worstenham's Building 'T is true I Consecrated that too but that was a Parish-Church Built in the Place where he was born and it was in my Diocess and so the Work proper for me The Third Instance was in my own Chappel in my House at Aberguilly when I was Bishop of St. Davids the Room lay waste and out of Repair and I fitted it at my own Cost and Consecrated it into a Chappel that House having no Oratory before Here they farther aggravated many circumstances As First that I named it at the Dedication The Chappel of S. John the Baptist. I did so Name that Chappel in Memory of the College where I was Bred which bears the same Name but I dedicated it to God and his Service And to give the Names of Angels and Saints to Churches for distinction sake and for the Honour of their Memory is very Ancient and Usual in the Church as appears in S. Augustin and divers others of the Fathers but Dedicated only to God Which in the midst of Superstitious times the School it self confesses So yet no Offence Secondly That I did it upon the 29th of August And why might I not do it that Day as well as upon any other But resolving to Name the Chappel as I did I the rather made choice of that Day both because it was the Day of the Decollation of S John the Baptist and because as upon that Day God had wonderfully Blessed me in the Hearing of my Cause concerning the Presidentship of S. John's College in Oxford by King James of ever blessed Memory So yet no Offence Thirdly there was a Paper read and Avowed to be mine in which was a fair description of Chappel Furniture and Rich Plate and the Ceremonies in use in that Chappel and Wafers for the Communion At the reading of this Paper I was a little troubled I knew I was not then so Rich as to have such Plate or Furniture and therefore I humbly desired sight of the Paper So soon as I saw it I found there was nothing in it in my Hand but the Indorsement which told the Reader plainly that it was the Model of Reverend Bishop Andrews his Chappel with the Furniture Plate Ceremonies therein used and all Things else And this Copy was sent me by the Household Chaplain to that Famous Bishop This I laid open to the Lords and it would have made any Man ashamed but Mr. Pryn who had delivered upon Oath that it was a Paper of my Chappel Furniture at Aberguilly contrary to his Conscience and his own Eye-sight of the Paper And for 〈◊〉 I never either gave or received the Communion but in Ordinary Bread At Westminster I knew it was sometimes used but as a thing indifferent As for the Slur here given to that Reverend Dead Bishop of Winchester it might well have been spared he deserved far better usage for his Service to the Church of England and the Protestant Cause The Fourth Charge was the Publishing the Book of Recreations And it was ushered in with this Scorn upon me That I laboured to put a Badge of Holiness by my Breath upon Places and to take it away from Days But I did neither the King commanded the Printing of it as is therein attested and the Warrant which the King gave me they have And though at Consecrations I read the Prayers yet it was God's Blessing not my Breath that gave the Holyness And for the Day I ever laboured it might be kept Holy but yet free from a Superstitious Holyness And First it was said That this was done of
into a Jewish Superstition while we seek to shun Profaneness This Calvin hath in the mean time assured me That those Men who stand so strictly upon the Morality of the Sabbath do by a gross and carnal Sabbatization three times out-go the Superstition of the Jew Here it was inferred that there was a Combination for the doing of this in other Dioceses But no proof at all was offer'd Then Bishop Mountague's Articles and Bishop Wrenn's were Read to shew that Inquiry was made about the Reading of this Book And the Bishop of London's Articles Named but not Read But if I were in this Combination why were not my Articles Read Because no such thing appears in them and because my Articles gave so good content that while the Convocation was sitting Dr. Brownrigg and Dr. Holdsworth came to me and desired me to have my Book confirmed in Convocation to be general for all Bishops in future it was so moderate and according to Law But why then say they were other Articles thought on and a Clause that none should pass without the Approbation of the Arch-Bishop Why other were thought on because I could not in Modesty press the Confirmation of my own though solicited to it And that Clause was added till a standing Book for all Dioceses might be perfected that no Quaere in the Interim might be put to any but such as were according to Law The Sixth Charge was about Reversing of a Decree in Chancery as 't is said about Houses in Dr Walton's Parish given as was said to Superstitious Vses 1. The First Witness was Serjeant Turner He says He had a Rule in the King's Bench for a Prohibition in this Cause But by Reason of some defect what is not mentioned he confesses he could not get his Prohibition Here 's nothing that reflects upon me And if a Prohibition were moved for that could not be personally to me but to my Judge in some Spiritual 〈◊〉 where it seems this Cause depended and to which the Decree in Chancery was directed And indeed this Act which they call a Reversing was the Act and Seal of Sir Nath. Brent my Vicar General And if he violated the Lord Keeper's Decree he must Answer it But the Instrument being then produced it appeared concurrent in all things with the Decree The Words are Juxta scopum Decreti hac in parte in Curiâ 〈◊〉 factum c. 2. The Second Witness was Mr. Edwards And wherein 〈◊〉 concurs with Serjeant Turner I give him the same Answer For that which he adds that Dr. Walton did let Leases of these Houses at an undervalue and called none of the Parishioners to it If he did in this any thing contrary to Justice or the Will of the Donor or the Decree he is Living to Answer for himself me it concerns not For his Exception taken to my Grant of Confirmation I think he means and to the Words therein Omnis Omnimoda c. 'T is the Ancient Stile of such Grants for I know not how many Hundred Years no Syllable innovated or altered by me Then followed the Charge of Mr. Burton and Mr. Pryn about their Answer and their not being suffer'd to put it into the Star-Chamber Which though Mr. Pryn pressed at large before yet here it must come again to help fill the World with Clamour Yet to that which shall but seem new I shall Answer Two things are said 1. The one That they were not suffered to put in their defence Modo Forma as it was laid There was an Order made openly in Court to the Judges to Expunge Scandalous Matter And the two Chief Justices did Order the Expunging of all that which was Expunged be it more or less As appears in the Acts of that Court. 2. The other is that I procured this Expunging The Proofs that I procured it were these 1. First because Mr. Cockshot gave me an Account of the business from Mr. Attorney I had Reason to look after the business the whole Church of England being scandalized in that Bill as well as my self But this is no Proof that I either gave direction or used any solicitation to the Reverend Judges to whom it was referred 2. Secondly because I gave the Lords thanks for it It was openly in Court It was after the Expunging was agreed unto And what could I do less in such a Cause of the Church though I had not been personally concerned in it 3. Thirdly because I had a Copy of their Answer found in my Study I conceive it was not only fit but necessary for me to have one the Nature of the Cause considered But who interlined any passages in it with black Lead I know not For I ever used Ink and no black Lead all my Life These be strange Proofs that I procured any thing Then Mr. Pryn added That the Justice and Favour which was afforded Dr. Leighton was denyed unto him As far as I remember it was for the putting in of his Answer under his own Hand This if so was done by Order of the Court it was not my Act. The last Charge followed And that was taken out of the Preface to my Speech in Star-Chamber The Words are That one way of Government is not always either fit or safe when the Humors of the People are in a continual Change c. From whence they inferred I laboured to reduce all to an Arbitrary Government But I do humbly conceive no construction can force these Words against me for an Arbitrary Government For the meaning is and can be no other for sometimes a stricter and sometimes a remisser holding and ordering the Reins of Government yet both according to the same Laws by a different use and application of Mercy and Justice to Offenders And so I Answer'd to Mr. Brown who charged this against me as one of my ill Counsels to his Majesty But my Answer given is Truth For it is not said That there should not be One Law for Government but not One way in the Ordering and Execution of that Law And the Observator upon my Speech an English Author and well enough known though he pretend 't is a Translation out of Dutch though he spares nothing that may be but carped at yet to this passage he says 't is a good Maxim and wishes the King would follow it And truly for my part I Learned it of a very wise and an able Governour and he a King of England too it was of Hen. 7. of whom the Story says that in the difficulties of his Time and Cause he used both ways of Government Severity and Clemency yet both these were still within the compass of the Law He far too Wise and I never yet such a Fool as to imbrace Arbitrary Government CAP. XXXVI THis day I received a Note from the Committee that they intended to proceed next upon the remainder of the Seventh and upon the Eighth and Ninth Original
he calls Rome Monstrum Abominandum Howsoever I conceive all this is nothing to me 5. The Fifth Instance was a Book which they said was Licensed by Dr. Weeks And if so then not by my Chaplain But upon perusal I find no License Printed to it nor to any of the other but only to Sales which is answered 6. The Sixth Instance was in Bishop Mountague's Books the Gagg and the Appeal Here they said that Dr. White told Dr. Featly that five or six Bishops did allow these Books But he did not name me to be one of them Then Mr. Pryn urged upon his Oath that these Books were found in my Study And I cannot but bless my self at this Argument For I have Bellarmine in my Study Therefore I am a Papist Or I have the Alcaron in my Study Therefore I am a Turk is as good an Argument as this I have Bishop Mountague's Books in my Study Therefore I am an Arminian May Mr. Pryn have Books in all kinds in his Study and may not the Archbishop of Canterbury have them in his Yea but he says there is a Letter of the Bishops to me submitting his Books to my Censure This Letter hath no date and so belike Mr. Pryn thought he might be bold both with it and his Oath and apply it to what Books he pleas'd But as God would have it there are Circumstances in it as good as a Date For 't is therein expressed that he was now ready to remove from Chichester to Norwich Therefore he must needs speak of submitting those his Books to me which were then ready to be set out which were his Origines Ecclesiasticae not the Gagg nor the Appeal which are the Books Charged and which were Printed divers Years before he was made a Bishop and my Receit indorsed upon it is Mar. 29. 1638. And I hope Mr. Nicolas will not call this the Colour of an Answer as he hath called many of the rest given by me 7. The Seventh Instance was in a Book Licensed by Dr. Martin then my Chaplain in London-House This Book Mr. Pryn says was purposely set out to Countenance Arminianism as if it had been some Work of Moment whereas it was answered twice in the Queens Time If Dr Martin did this 't is more than I remember nor can I so long after give any Account of it But Dr Martin is Living and in Town and I humbly desired he might be called to answer He was called the next Day and gave this Account The Account is wanting a Space left for it but not filled up Mr. Pryn says farther that after this he Preached Arminianism at S. Paul's Cross. Why did not Mr. Pryn come then to me and acquaint me with it Which neither he nor any Man else did And I was in Attendance at Court whither I could not hear him And the Charge which came against him upon the next Days Hearing was this and no more That one then Preached at the Cross Vniversal Redemption but he that gave Testimony knew him not only he says one told him 't was Dr Martin 8. The last Instance was of a Bible commonly Sold with a Popish Table at the end of it This is more than I know or ever heard till now nor was any Complaint ever brought to me of it And I cannot know all things that are done abroad for Gain for that will teach them to conceal as well as move them to act Yet one of the Popish Heads mentioned in that Table was Confirmation which is commanded in our Church Liturgy and ratified by Law Here this day ended and I was ordered to appear again July 4. That Day I received a Note under Mr. Nicolas his Hand that they meant to proceed upon the 8 9 10 11 12 and 14th Original Articles and the Sixth and Seventh Additionals The last Warrant for other Articles came under Serjeant Wild's Hand and Mr. Nicolas signing this it seems mistook For the Eighth and Ninth Original Articles are in part proceeded on before Now they go forward with these and then on to the rest which I will write down severally as they come to them The same Day being Thursday all my Books at Lambeth were by Order of the House of Commons taken away by Mr. ....... Secretary to the Right Honourable the Earl of Warwick and carried I know not whither but are as 't is commonly said for the use of Mr Peters Before this time some good Number of my Books were delivered to the use of the Synod the Ministers which had them giving no Catalogue under their Hands which or how many they had And all this was done contrary to an Order of the Lords bearing Date Novemb. 9. 1642. for the safe keeping of my Books there And before I was Convicted off any Crime This Day also I received an Order which put off my Hearing to the next Day CAP. XXXIX The Seventeenth Day of my Hearing THis Day I appeared again And the First Charge against me was that I had preferred none to Bishopricks Deaneries prebends and Benefices but Men Popishly affected or otherwise unworthy And some they named 1. As First Dr Manwaring Disabled by the Parliament 2. Secondly Mr Mountague Excepted against by Parliament But for these no Proof was now brought They referred themselves to what was said before and so do I. And where they go to prove only by Dockets I desire it may still be remembred that the Docket is a full Proof who gave Order for drawing the Bill at the Signet Office But no Proof at all who procured the Preferment 3. Thirdly Bishop Corbet But the Earl of Dorset got my Lord Duke of Buckingham to prefer him to make way for Dr. Duppa his deserving Chaplain into Christ-Church Nor was any thing Charged against Dr Corbet but that he was preferred by me 4. Fourthly Bishop Pierce Against whom there was no Proof offered neither And he is living to answer it if any be 5. Nor was there now any Proof offered against Bishop Wren who was named also at the least not till he was made a Bishop So if I did prefer him it seems I did it when nothing was laid against him And if after he had his Preferment he did any thing unworthily that could not I foresee and he is living to answer it 6. The Sixth was Bishop Lindsy a Man known to be of great and universal Learning but preferred by the then Lord Treasurer Portland not by me Him they Charged with Arminianism The Witnesses two The First Mr. Smart he is positive He was his Fellow Prebendary at Durham There was Animosity between them And Smart not able to Judge of Arminianism Secondly Mr. Walker who could say nothing but that he heard so much from some Ministers and Dr. Bastwick So here is as Learned a Man as Christendom had any of his time Debased in this great and Honourable Court by Ignorance and a Hearsay And that when the Man is gone
these The Ninth Charge was about the ordering of Popish Books that were seized and the disposing of them The sole Witness here is John Egerton He says These Books were delivered to Mr. Mattershead Register to the High-Commission And I say so too it was the constant Course of the High-Commission to send them thither and have them kept in that Office till there was a sufficient number of them and then to burn them Yea but he adds that Mattershead told him they were re-delivered to the Owners This is but a Report and Mattershead is dead who should make it good And though this be but a single Witness and of a dead Man's Report yet Mr. Browne thought fit to Summ it up with the rest But surely if any Books were redelivered to the Owners it was so ordered by the High-Commission in regard the Books were not found dangerous From me Mattershead had never any such Command Lastly he says he met Sir Toby Matthew twice at Lambeth But he confesses he never saw him with me and then me it cannot concern The Tenth Charge was concerning the Priests in Newgate the Witnesses are Mr. Deuxel and Francis Newton They both agree and they say that the Priests there had the best Chambers and Liberty to go abroad without Keepers I hope these Men do not mean to make the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Keeper of Newgate If any Man gave them this Liberty he is to be blamed for it not I who never knew it till now Nor do either of these Witnesses say that they called on me for remedy or ever did so much as acquaint me with it And they say this was Twelve Years since and I had been Arch-Bishop but Seven Years when I was Committed The Eleventh Charge was about words in my Epistle Dedicatory before my Book against Mr. Fisher. The Words these For to my remembrance I have not given him or his so much as course Language So the Charge is because I have not given ill Words And here Mr. Nicolas fell foul upon me again for taking such care that the Whore of Babylon may have nothing but good Words c. But First my Lords I have always thought and do still that ill Language is no Proof against an Adversary All the good it can do is it may bring Scorn upon the Author and work hardness of Heart in the Adversary whom he doth or should labour to Convert And this I learned of two eminent Fathers in the Church Gregory Nazienzen and S. Augustin The First would not use it no not against the Arrians who as he saith made open War against the Deity of Christ. Nor would the other against the same Adversaries The one accounts it Ignorance though a Fashion taken up by many and the other loss of time And here I desired the Lords that I might read what immediately followed this Passage which was granted And there as their Lordships did so may the Reader see if he please that though my Words were not uncivil yet in the Matter I favoured neither him nor his And to avoid Tediousness thither I refer the Reader With this that sometimes Men apt enough to accuse me can plead for this Moderation in their own Cases and tell each other that Christ will not own bitterness in maintaining any way though consonant to his Word And another finds just Fault both with Papists and Martin Marr-Prelat for this reproachful Language And yet it must be a Crime in me not to use it The Last Charge was the Commitment of one Ann Hussy to the Sheriff of London The Business was this She sent one Philip Bambridge to tell me of I know not what Plot against the King nor I think she neither Bambridge came to White-Hall toward the Evening and could make nothing of this dangerous Plot. Yet because it pretended so high I sent him presently to Mr Secretary Windebank I being the next Morning to go out of Town The Business was called to the Council-Table When I came back I was present there Bambridge produced Ann Hussy but she could make nothing appear She says I thought she was out of her Wits Not so my Lords but I did not think she was well in them nor do I yet And whereas she complains of her Imprisonment it was her own desire she might be committed to the Sheriff and Mr. Hearn my Councel here present was assigned by the Lords to take her Examination Therefore if any Particular in this Charge stick with your Lordships I humbly desire Mr. Hearn may supply my want of Memory But it passed over as well it might Here this Day ended and I was ordered to attend again July 29. CAP. XLII The Twentieth and the Last Day of my Hearing THis Day I appeared again and they proceeded upon the Fourteenth Original Article which Follows in these Words Art 14. That to preserve himself from being questioned for these and other his Traiterous Courses he hath laboured to subvert the Rights of Parliaments and the ancient Course of Parliamentary Proceedings and by false and malicious Slanders to incense his Majesty against Parliaments By which Words Councels and Actions he hath Traiterously and contrary to his Allegiance laboured to alienate the Hearts of the King's Liege People from his Majesty to set a Division between them and to ruine and destroy his Majesty's Kingdoms For which they do Impeach him of High-Treason against our Soveraign Lord the King his Crown and Dignity The First Charge of this Day was Prefaced with a Note out of my Diary at May 8. 1626. That the Duke of Buckingham was that Day impeached to the Lords by the House of Commons And at May 25. The difference arising in the House of Peers about the Earl of Arundel's Commitment to the Tower without a Cause declared No use made of these but that I then Bishop of S. Davids took notice of these things Then the Charge followed and the First of it was That I then being of the Lords House and so to be one of the Duke's Judges made a Speech for him and Corrected his Speech in some particulars and of a Judge made my self an Advocate Which Mr. Nicolas said was a great Offence I saw not these Papers and therefore can say nothing what is or is not under my Hand But to the thing it self I say first that if in that Speech any particular Fault had been found impeaching any Right or Power of Parliament that I must have answered but none is charged but only the bare making of one Speech and the mending of another And this is a very poor Argument of any Enmity against Parliaments Secondly seeing no Fault is charged upon me in particular it was but the Office of a poor Friend to a great one to whom being so much bound as I was I could not refuse so much Service being intreated to it And Thirdly I do humbly conceive that so long as there
Yet not forgetting what Ordinance you told me was drawn up against me If that which I have now said may any way satisfie this Honourable House to make stay of it or to mitigate it I shall bless God and you for it And I humbly desire you to take into consideration my Calling my Age my former Life my Fall my Imprisonment long and strict That these Considerations may move with you In my Prosperity I bless God for it I was never puffed up into Vanity whatever the World may think of me And in these last full four Years durance I thank the same God Gravem Fortunam constanter tuli I have with decent Constancy born the weight of a pressing Fortune And I hope God will strengthen me unto and in the end of it Mr. Speaker I am very aged considering the Turmoils of my Life and I daily find in my self more Decays than I make shew of and the Period of my Life in the Course of Nature cannot be far off It cannot but be a great Grief unto me to stand at these Years thus Charged before ye Yet give me leave to say thus much without Offence Whatsoever Errours or Faults I may have committed by the way in any my Proceedings through Human Infirmity as who is He that hath not offended and broken some Statute-Laws too by Ignorance or Misapprehension or Forgetfulness at some sudden time of Action Yet if God Bless me with so much Memory I will die with these Words in my Mouth That I never intended much less endeavoured the subversion of the Laws of the Kingdom nor the bringing in of Popish Superstition upon the true Protestant Religion Established by Law in this Kingdom And now Mr. Speaker having done with the Fact I have but this one thing to put to the Consideration of this Honourable House My Charge hath been repeated I confess by a very worthy and a very able Gentleman But Ability is not absolute in any The Evidence given against me before the Lords was as by the Law it ought to be given in upon Oath But the Evidence now summed up and presented to this Honourable House is but upon the Collection and Judgment of one Man how able or intire soever and what he conceived is proved against me is but according to his Judgment and Memory which perhaps may differ much from the Opinion and Judgment of the Judges themselves who heard the Evidence at large Nor was this Gentleman himself present every Day of my Hearing and then for those Days in which he was absent he can report no more here than what others have reported to him So for so much his Repetition here is but a Report of a Report of Evidence given And at the best but a Report of Evidence and not upon Oath And I suppose never any Jurors who are Tryers of the Fact in any Case Civil or Criminal did ever ground their Verdict upon an Evidence only Reported before them and which themselves heard not And if this manner of Proceeding shall be thought less considerable in my Person yet I humbly desire it may be thoroughly weighed in the prudent Judgment of this Honourable House the great Preserver of the Laws and Liberties of the Subject of England how far it doth or may trench upon these in future Consequences if these great Boundaries be laid loose and open And because my Infirmities are many and great which Age and Grief have added to those which are naturally in me I most humbly desire again That my Councel may be heard for point of Law according to the former Concession of this Honourable House For I assure my self upon that which hath been pleaded to the Lords That no one nor all of the things together which are charged against me if proved which I conceive they are not can make me guilty of High Treason by any known Established Law of this Kingdom The Sum of all is this Upon an Impeachment arising from this House I have pleaded Not Guilty Thereupon Issue hath been joined and Evidence given in upon Oath And now I must humbly leave it to you your Wisdom and Justice Whether it shall be thought Fit and Just and Honourable to Judge me here only upon a Report or a Hearsay and that not upon Oath CAP. XLVI HEre ended the heavy Business of this Day I was exceeding faint with speaking so long and I had great pain and soreness in my Breast for almost a Fortnight after then I thank God it wore away I was commanded to withdraw and to attend the House again on Wednesday Novemb. 13. which I did Then Mr. Brown made a Reply to my Answer The Reply had some great Mistakes in it but else was for the most part but a more earnest Affirming of what he had delivered And I conceived I was not to Answer to his Reply but that he was to have the last Speech For so it was always carried during my Hearing in the Lords House Therefore being dismissed I went away And I was no sooner gone but the House called for the Ordinance which was drawn up against me and without Hearing my Councel or any more ado Voted me Guilty of High Treason And yet when I came that Day to the House all Men and many of the House themselves did much magnifie my Answer before given I will forbear to set down in what Language because it was high and as no time can be fit for Vanity so least of all was this time for me And Vain I must needs be thought should I here relate what was told me from many and good Hands But it seems the Clamour prevailed against me On Saturday Novemb. 16. this Ordinance was passed the House of Commons suddenly and with so great deliberation as you have heard was transmitted to the Lords and by them the Debate concerning it put off to Friday Novemb. 22. Then the Earl of Pembroke began more fully to shew his canker'd Humour against me how provoked I protest I know not unless by my serving him far beyond his Desert There among other course Language he bestowed as I am informed the Rascal and the Villain upon me And told the Lords they would put off giving their Consent to the Ordinance till the Citizens would come down and call for Justice as they did in my Lord Strafford's Case Was there not Justice and Wisdom in this Speech Hereupon the Business was put off to Saturday Novemb. 23. and then to Friday Novemb. 29. But then upon Thursday Novemb. 28. Mr. Strowd came up with a Message from the Commons to quicken the Lords in this Business And at the end of his Message he let fall That they should do well to agree to the Ordinance or else the Multitude would come down and force them to it At this some Lords very honourably took Exception and Mr. Strowd durst not bide it that this was any part of the Message delivered him by the House of Commons
I humbly beseech thee give me now in this great Instant full Patience proportionable Comfort and a Heart ready to Die for thine Honour the King's Happiness and the Churches Preservation And my Zeal to this far from Arrogancy be it spoken is all the Sin Humane Frailty excepted and all the Incidents thereunto which is yet known to me in this Particular for which I now come to suffer I say in this Particular of Treason But otherwise my Sins are many and great Lord Pardon them all and those especially whatever they are which have drawn down this present Judgment upon me And when thou hast given me strength to bear it do with me as seems best in thine own Eyes And carry me through Death that I may look upon it in what Visage soever it shall appear to me Amen And that there may be a stop of this Issue of Blood in this more than miserable Kingdom I shall desire that I may Pray for the People too as well as for my self O Lord I beseech thee give Grace of Repentance to all Blood-Thirsty People but if they will not Repent O Lord confound all their Devices defeat and frustrate all their Designs and Endeavours upon them which are or shall be contrary to the Glory of thy Great Name the Truth and Sincerity of Religion the Establishment of the King and his Posterity after him in their just Rights and Priviledges the Honour and Conservation of Parliaments in their just Power the Preservation of this poor Church in her Truth Peace and Patrimony and the settlement of this distracted and distressed People under their Ancient Laws and in their Native Liberty And when thou hast done all this in meer Mercy to them O Lord fill their Hearts with Thankfulness and with Religious Dutiful Obedience to thee and thy Commandments all their Days Amen Lord Jesu Amen And receive my Soul into thy Bosom Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. The Speech and Prayer being ended he gave the Paper which he read into the Hands of Stern his Chaplain permitted to Attend him in his last Extremity Whom he desired to Communicate it to his other Chaplains that they might see in what manner he left this World and so Prayed God to shew his Blessings and Mercies on them And taking notice that one Hind had employed himself in writing the Words of his Speech as it came from his Mouth he desired him not to do him wrong in Publishing a False or Imperfect Copy This done he next applied himself to the Fatal Block as to the Haven of his Rest. But finding the way full of People who had placed themselves upon the Theatre to behold the Tragedy he desired he might have room to Die beseeching them to let him have an end of his Miseries which he had endured very long All which he did with so serene and calm a Mind as if he rather had been taking order for a Noble-Man's Funeral than making way for his own Being come near the Block he put off his Doublet and used some Words to this Effect God's Will be done I am willing to go out of this World none can be more willing to send me And seeing through the Chinks of the Boards that some People were got under the Scaffold about the very Place where the Block was seated he called to the Officer for some Dust to stop them or to remove the People thence saying It was no part of his Desires that his Blood should fall upon the Heads of the People Never did Man put off Mortality with a Better Courage nor look upon his Bloody and Malicious Enemies with more Christian Charity And thus far he was on his way toward Paradise with such a Primitive Magnanimity as Equalled if not Exceeded the Example of the Ancient Martyrs when he was somewhat interrupted by one of those who had placed himself on the Scaffold not otherwise worthy to be Named but as a Firebrand brought from Ireland to inflame this Kingdom Who finding that the Mockings and Revilings of Malicious People had no power to move him or sharpen him into any discontent or shew of Passion would needs put in and try what he could do with his Spunge and Vinegar and stepping to him near the Block he would needs propound unto him some impertinent Questions not so much out of a desire to learn any thing of him but with the same purpose as was found in the Scribes and Pharisees in propounding Questions to our Saviour that is to say either to intrap him in his Answers or otherwise to expose him to some disadvantage with the standers by Two of the Questions he made Answer to with all Christian Meekness The first Question was What was the Comfortablest Saying which a Dying Man would have in his Mouth To which he Meekly made Answer Cupio dissolvi esse cum Christo. Being asked again What was the fittest Speech a Man could use to express his Confidence and Assurance He answered with the same Spirit of Meekness That such Assurance was to be found within and that no words were able to express it rightly But this not satisfying this Busie Man who aimed at something else as is probable than such satisfaction unless he gave some Word or Place of Scripture whereupon such Assurance might be truly founded he used some words to this effect That it was the Word of God concerning Christ and his dying for us But then finding that there was like to be no end of the Troublesom Gentleman he turned away from him applying himself directly to the Executioner as the Gentler and Discreeter Person Putting some Money into his Hand he said unto him without the least distemper or change of Countenance Here Honest Friend God forgive thee and I do and do thy Office upon me with Mercy And having given him a Sign when the Blow should come he kneeled down upon his Knees and Prayed as followeth viz. Lord I am coming as fast as I can I know I must pass through the shadow of Death before I can come to see thee but it is but Umbra Mortis a meer shadow of Death a little darkness upon Nature but thou by thy Merits and Passion hast broke through the Jaws of Death The Lord receive my Soul and have Mercy upon me and bless this Kingdom with Peace and Plenty and with Brotherly Love and Charity that there may not be this effusion of Christian Blood amongst them for Jesus Christ his sake if it be thy will Then laying his Head upon the Block and praying silently to himself he said aloud Lord receive my Soul which was the Signal given to the Executioner who very dexterously did his Office and took off his Head at a blow his Soul ascending on the Wings of Angels into Abraham's Bosom and leaving his Body on the Scaffold to the care of Men. And if the Bodies of us Men be capable of any Happiness in the Grave he had as great a
share therein as he could desire his Body being accompanied to the Earth with great Multitudes of People whom Love or Curiosity or remorse of Conscience had drawn together purposely to perform that Office and decently Interred in the Church of Alhallow Barking a Church of his own Patronage and Jurisdiction according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England In which it may be noted as a thing remarkable That being whilst he Lived the greatest Champion of the Common-Prayer-Book here by Law Established he had the Honour being Dead to be Buried by the Form therein prescribed after it had been long disused and almost reprobated in most Churches of London Hitherto Dr. Heylin The same day that the House of Lords passed the Ordinance of Attainder against the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury viz. Jan. 4. they likewise passed an Ordinance that the Book of Common-Prayer should be laid aside and for Establishing the Directory for Publick Worship which had been framed by the Assembly of Divines Rushworth par 3. vol. 2. pag. 839. H. W. On the Arch-Bishop's Coffin was nailed a little Brass-Plate with his Arms and this Inscription Engraven thereon In hac Cistuli conduntur Exuviae Gulielmi Laud Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis qui Securi percussus Immortalitatem adiit Die X. Januarij AEtatis suae LXXII Archiepiscopatûs XII In the Year 1663 his Body was removed from All-Hallows Church in London and being carried to Oxford was there Solemnly deposited July 24. in a little brick Vault near to the Altar of the Chappel in St. John Baptist's College The Arch-Bishop's Last Will and Testament In Dei Nomine Amen I William Laud by God's great Mercy and Goodness Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury being in perfect Health tho' at this time a Prisoner in the Tower of London God knows for what in due and serious Consideration of Humane Frailty do hereby Make Ordain and Declare this my Last Will and Testament in Manner and Form following And First in all Humility and Devotion of a contrite Heart I 〈◊〉 beg of God Pardon and Remission of all my Sins for and through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ my alone Saviour And though I have been a most Prodigal Son yet my hope is in Christ that for his sake God my most merciful Creator will not cast off the Bowels of Compassion of a Father Amen Lord Jesus In this Hope and Confidence I render up my Soul with Comfort into the Mercies of God the Father through the Merits of God the Son in the Love of God the Holy Ghost And I humbly pray that most Blessed and Glorious Trinity One God to prepare me in that Hour of Dissolution and to make me wait every Moment when my Changing shall come and in my Change to receive me to that Rest which he prepared for all them that Love and Fear his Name So Amen Lord Jesu Amen Whomsoever I have in the least degree Offended I heartily ask God and him Forgiveness And whosoever hath Offended me I pray God forgive them and I do And I hope and pray that God will forgive me my many Great and Grievous Transgressions against him Amen For my Faith I Die as I have Lived in the True Orthodox Profession of the Catholick Faith of Christ foreshewed by the Prophets and Preached to the World by Christ himself his Blessed Apostles and their Successors and a True Member of his Catholick Church within the Communion of a Living part thereof the present Church of England as it stands Established by Law Secondly I leave my Body to the Earth whence it was taken in full assurance of the Resurrection of it from the Grave at the last day This Resurrection I constantly believe my Dear Saviour Jesus Christ will make happy unto me his poor and weary Servant And for my Burial tho' I stand not much upon the place yet if it conveniently may be I desire to be Buried in the Chappel of St. John Baptist's College in Oxford underneath the Altar or Communion-Table there And should I be so unhappy as to die a Prisoner yet my earnest desire is I may not be buried in the Tower But wheresoever my Burial shall be I will have it private that it may not waste any of the poor Means which I leave behind me to better Uses Thirdly For my Worldly Estate I Will that my Debts be presently paid which at this time I praise God are very small Then for St Paul's Church it grieves me to see it at such a stand And tho' I have besides my pains given largely towards it and the Repairs thereof yet I leave it a Blessing of 800 l. which will be truly paid in for that Work if ever it go on while the Party trusted with it lives But my Executors are not charged with this 't is in safe but other Hands Item I take the boldness to give to my Dread and Dear Soveraign King Charles whom God bless 1000 l. and I do forgive him the Debt which he owes me being 2000 l. and require that the Tallies for it be delivered up Item I give to St John's College in Oxford where I was bred all my Chappel-Plate gilt or party-gilt All my Chappel-Furniture all such Books as I have in my Study at the time of my Death which they have not in their Library and 500 l. in Money to be laid out upon Lands And I Will that the Rent of it shall be equally divided to every Fellow and Scholar alike upon the 17th day of October every fourth Year Something else I have done for them already according to my Ability And God's everlasting Blessing be upon that Place and that Society for ever I give to the Right Honourable George Lord Duke of Buckingham his Grace my Chalice and Patin of Gold and these I desire the young Duke to accept and use in his Chappel as the Memorial of him who had a Faithful Heart to love and the Honour to be beloved of his Father So God bless him with wise and good Counsels and a Heart to follow them By Father and Mother I never had Brother nor Sister but by my Mother many They were all Ancient to me and are Dead but I give to their Children as followeth Legacies To his Brother Dr Robinson's Children Scil Henry and John and Lucie and Elizabeth Wife to Dr Baily To Dr Cotsford Son of his Sister Amie To Dr Edward Layfield Son of his Sister Bridget To Eliz Holt Daughter of his Sister Bennet To William Bole Son of his Sister Elizabeth To his Sister Briget's Daughter Wife to Mr Snow To his Chaplains Rings rich or Watches To the Poor of several places he had reference to 5 l. each To Canterbury Lambeth and Croydon 10 l. each To the University of Oxford where I was Bred and to the Town of Reading where I was Born I have already in perpetuity as God hath made me able Item I give to so many of my Servants as did continue my Servants
Times as well as now may be true enough And yet in those Ancient Times none thought Schism or Separation from the Church howsoever charged to be but a Theological Scare-crow But caused it to be examined to the bottom as 't is fit nay necessary that it should For else the most dangerous Separation that can be may go away free with this That it is but a trick of the prevalent Party to fright other Men into their Opinions by charging them with Separation Now the most dangerous Separation in a Church is where the Church it self hath little or no Power to punish Separatists And where they of the Separation are by the great Misfortune of the State become the potent and prevalent Party And whether this be not or at least were not the condition of the State and Church of England when my Lord Printed this Speech of his I leave to the indifferent Reader to judge My Lord hath Printed no more than this and therefore I will take notice of no more But yet Iam told by a very good Hand that his Lordship upon this quotation of Mr. Hales his Manuscript was pleased openly in that Honourable House of Parliament where he spake it to lend Mr. Hales one Wipe and me another But since my Lord is pleased to pass it over at the Press I shall do so too Yet with this that if my Lord did give that Gird I will make it plainly appear whenever he shall publish it that there is no shew of Truth in it But now that my Lord hath done with Mr. Hales he proceeds and tells us his own Judgment Secondly I say that there is a two-fold Separation one from the Vniversal or Catholick Church which can no otherwise be made but by denying the Faith for Faith and Love are the Requisites to that Communion And I say so too that there is a two-fold Separation and that one of them is from the Vniversal or Catholick Church But that this Separation can no otherwise be made but by denying the Faith I doubt comes short of Truth First because there is a great difference between Schism and Apostacy And every Apostacy is a Separation but every Separation is not Apostacy For a Man is not an Apostate properly till he fall away by denying the whole Faith But a Man may be in Heresie Schism and Separation upon the denyal of any one Article of the Faith received by the Catholick Church Secondly because should a Man agree in all and every Article of the Faith with the Catholick-Church yet he may maintain some false Opinion and incongruous both to the Verity and the Practice of Religion and Judgment of the Universal Church And be so in Love with these as that for these Opinions sake he will Separate from the whole Body Therefore Denyal of the Faith is not the only Cause of Separation from the Catholick Church since this Separation can be otherways made And my Lord within the space of Three Lines crosses himself For First he says that this Separation can no otherwise be made but by denying the Faith And in the very next Words he tells us that Faith and Love are the Requisites to that Communion Two Requisites to that Communion with the Universal Church therefore two Causes of Separation from it Therefore by my Lord 's own Confession he that is so out of Charity with the Universal Church for some Opinions or Practices which he dislikes as that he will not Communicate with it is in Separation though he do not deny the Faith The other my Lord tells us is a Separation from this or that particular Church or Congregation And that not in respect of difference with them in matter of Faith or Love But in dislike only of such Corruptions in their external Worship and Liturgies as they do admit of and would enjoyn upon others In this other Particular Separation I shall meddle with neither Congregation nor Conventicle Meeting allowed or disallowed by Church or State but that Separation which is or is not made by my Lord and his Followers from the National Church of England as it stands Setled and Established by Law Not as her Service may be mangled or otherwise abused in any particular Parish or Congregation whatsoever And if this Lord dislike any the Service as 't is used in some one Parish or other and yet will come to the Service as it is Established by Law in other either Cathedral or Parochial Churches my Lord hath had great Wrong to be accounted a Separatist But if my Lord will not come to the Prayers of the Church of England by Law Established let his Pretence be what it will a Separatist he is But my Lord says that this Particular Separation is not in respect of difference with them in matter of Faith or Love Where First you may observe on the by that in my Lord's Judgment Publick Breach in Charity as well as in Faith may be Cause of this Separation too as well as of that from the Vniversal or Catholick Church before mentioned Next that this particular Separation if it be not in respect of Difference in Faith or Love in what respect is it then Why if we may herein believe my Lord 't is only in dislike of such Corruptions in their external Worship and Liturgies as they do admit of and would injoyn others Well First I 'll pray for my Lord that there be no difference in Faith and Charity but I do very much doubt there is Next either there are such Corruptions in the External Worship and Liturgies as his Lordship hath just Cause to dislike or there are not If there be not why doth he Separate from them If there be or probably seem to be why doth he not complain to the King and the Church that these Corruptions may be considered on and amended if Cause appear And this he ought to do before he Separate For I hope Christianity is not yet come to that pass though it draw on apace that a Powerful Lay-Man or two shall say there are Corruptions in the set Service of God and then be Judges of such Corruptions themselves Nor doth the Church of England admit of Corruptions in her Liturgy or labour to injoyn them upon others Now my Lord tells us farther That This is a Separation not from their Persons as they are Christians But from their Corruptions in matter of Worship as they are therewith defiled And this Separation every Man that will keep himself Pure from other Mens Sins and not Sin against his own Conscience must make This will not yet help my Lord For say this be not a Separation from their Persons as they are Christians which yet it too often proves to be And I believe if this Lord would impartially examine himself he would find to be true in himself and his Comportment But that it is from their Corruptions in matter of Worship as they are therewith defiled First these Corruptions are
within their several Diocesses And so with my Prayers for your Majesty's long Life and happy Reign I humbly submit this my Account for the Year last past being 1638. January 2d 〈◊〉 W. Cant. The Arch-Bishop's Account of his Province to the King for the Year 1639. In Dei Nomine Amen May it Please your most Sacred Majesty ACcording to your Royal Commands expressed in your Instructions for the good of the Church I here most humbly Present this my Account for the Year finished now at Christmas 1639. And First to begin with my own Diocess The great thing which is amiss there and beyond my Power to remedy is the stiffness of divers Anabaptists and Separatists from the Church of England especially in and about the Parts near Ashford And I do not find either by my own Experience or by any Advice from my Officers that this is like to be remedied unless the Statute concerning Abjuration of your Kingdom or some other way by the Power of the Temporal Law or State be thought upon But how fit that may be to be done for the present especially in these broken Times I humbly submit to your Majesty's Wisdom having often complained of this before Many that were brought to good Order for receiving of the Holy Communion where the Rails stand before the Table are now of late fallen off and refuse to come up thither to receive But this God willing I shall take care of and order as well as I can and with as much speed And the same is now commonly fallen out in divers other Diocesses There was about half a Year since one that pretended himself a Minister who got many Followers in Sandwich and some Neighbouring Parishes but at last was found to have gone under three Names Enoch Swann and Grey and in as several Habits of a Minister an ordinary Lay-Man and a Royster. And this being discovered he fled the Country before any of my Officers could lay hold on him Upon this occasion I have commanded my Commissary and Arch-Deacon to give Charge in my Name to all Parsons and Vicars of my Diocess that they suffer no Man to preach in their Cures but such as for whom they will Answer as well otherwise as for the point of Conformity which I hope will prevent the like abuse hereafter In this Diocess the last Year there was some heat struck by opposite Preaching in the Pulpit between one Mr Goodwin Vicar of St Stevens in Coleman-street and some other Ministers in the City concerning the Act of Believing and the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness in the Justification of a Sinner And the Peoples Minds were much perplexed hereabouts This business was quieted by my Lord the Bishop and his Chancellour and a Promise of Forbearance made Yet now lately Mr Goodwin hath preached again in the same way and the same Perplexity is like to be caused again thereby in the City Yet my Lord the Bishop is in hopes to settle this also quietly wherein he shall have the best Assistance I can give him The Arch-Deacons in this Diocess and others are too negligent in giving their Bishops due Information of such things as are committed to their Charge Mr Joseph Simonds Rector of St Martin's Ironmonger-lane is utterly fallen from the Church of England and hath abandoned his Benefice and gone beyond the Seas and so was deprived in September last past Mr Daniel Votyer Rector of St Peter's in Westcheap hath been likewise convented for divers Inconformities and promised Reformation as Mr Simonds also did but being now called into the High Commission Order is taken for the Officiating of his Cure till it shall appear whether he will desert it or no for he also is gone beyond the Seas Mr George Seaton Rector of Bushy in the County of Hertford is charged with continual Non-residency and other Misdemeanours little beseeming a Clergy-man But of this neither my Lord nor my self can say more to your Majesty till we see what will rise in Proof against him My Lord the Bishop of this Diocess gives me a very fair Account of all things regular therein saving that the Popish Recusants which he saith are many in that Diocess do yearly increase there and that this may appear by the Bills of Presentment in his Annual Inquisitions My Lord the Bishop informs me that he hath been very careful in point of Ordination as being a Bishop near the University and to whom many resort for Holy Orders at times appointed by the Church But he complains that having refused to give Orders to Twenty or Thirty at an Ordination most of them have addressed themselves to other Bishops and of them received Orders not only without Letters Dimissory but without such Qualification as the Canon requires In this Case I would humbly advise your Majesty That my Lord the Bishop may enquire and certifie by what Bishops these Parties so refused by him were Admitted into Holy Orders that so they may be admonished to be more careful for the future and that this Abuse may not find Encouragement and increase For Popish Recusants they have been proceeded against in this Diocess according to Law saving only such of them as have pleaded and shewed your Majesty's Exemption under your Great Seal from being question'd in any Ecclesisiastical Court for matters concerning their Religion I find by the Bishop's Certificate that he hath constantly resided upon his Episcopal Houses but saith that he cannot have his Health at Eccleshall and hath therefore since resided in his Palace at Lichfield but with very little Comfort by reason of Inmates left as his Lordship saith upon the Church's Possession His Lordship adds That he hath an ancient Palace at Coventry in Lease but with reservation of the Use thereof in case the Bishop shall at any time come to live there Here he means to reside for a time if it stand with your Majesty's good liking For Popish Recusants his Lordship saith they are presented and prosecuted according to the Law This Diocess my Lord the Bishop assures me is as quiet uniform and conformable as any in the Kingdom if not more And doth avow it that all which stood out in Suffolk as well as Norfolk at his coming to that See are come in and have now legally subscribed and professed all Conformity and for ought he can learn observe it accordingly Yet his Lordship confesseth that some of the Vulgar sort in Suffolk are not conformable enough especially in coming up to Receive at the Steps of the Chancel where the Rails are set But he hopes by fair means he shall be able to work upon them in time His Lordship adds That some have Indicted a Minister because he would not come down from the Communion Table to give them the Sacrament in their Seats But this your Majesty hath been formerly acquainted with by the Minister's Petition which you were graciously pleased to command me to underwrite
so many innocent Souls from imminent Danger To whose monitions he willingly consented and delivered the following things to be put in Writing out of which the Articles not long since tendered to your Grace may be clearly explicated and demonstrated 1. First of all that the Hinge of the Business may be rightly discerned it is to be known that all those Factions with which all Christendom is at this Day shaken do arise from the Jesuitical Off-spring of Cham of which four Orders abound throughout the World Of the First Order are Ecclesiasticks whose Office it is to take care of things promoting Religion Of the second Order are Politicians whose Office it is by any means to shake trouble reform the State of Kingdoms and Republicks Of the Third Order are Seculars whose property it is to obtrude themselves into Offices with Kings and Princes to insinuate and immix themselves in Court Businesses bargains and sales and to be busied in Civil Affairs Of the Fourth Order are Intelligencers or Spies Men of Inferiour condition who submit themselves to the services of great Men Princes Barons Noblemen Citizens to deceive or corrupt the Minds of their Masters 2. A Society of so many Orders the Kingdom of England nourisheth For scarce all Spain France and Italy can yield so great a multitude of Jesuits as London alone where are found more than Fifty Scottish Jesuits There the said Society hath elected to it self a seat of Iniquity and hath conspired against the King and the most faithful to the King especially the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and likewise against both Kingdoms 3. For it is more certain than certainty it self that the forenamed Society hath determined to effect an universal Reformation of the Kingdom of England and Scotland Therefore the determination of the end necessarily infers a determination of means to the end 4. Therefore to promote the undertaken Villany the said Society dubbed it self with the Title of The Congregation of propagating the Faith which acknowledgeth the Pope of Rome the Head of the College and Cardinal Barbarino his Substitute and Executor 5. The chief Patron of the Society at London is the Popes Legat who takes care of the business into whose Bosom these Dregs of Traytors weekly deposite all their Intelligences Now the Residence of this Legation was obtained at London in the name of the Roman Pontif by whose mediation it might be lawful for Cardinal Barbarino to work so much the more easily and safely upon the King and Kingdom For none else could so freely circumvent the King as he who should be palliated with the Pope's Authority 6. Master Cuneus did at that time enjoy the Office of the Pope's Legat an universal Instrument of the conjured Society and a serious promoter of the business whose secrets as likewise those of all the other Intelligencers the present good Man the Communicator of all these things did receive and expedite whither the business required Cuneus set upon the chief Men of the Kingdom and left nothing unattempted by what means he might corrupt them all and incline them to the Pontifician Party He inticed many with various Incitements yea he sought to delude the King himself with gifts of Pictures Antiquities Idols and of other Vanities brought from Rome which yet would prevail nothing with the King Having entred familiarity with the King he is often requested at Hamptoncourt likewise at London to undertake the cause of the Palatine and that he would interpose his Authority and by his Intercession persuade the Legat of Colen that the Palatine in the next Diet to treat of Peace might be inserted into the Conditions which verily he promised but performed the contrary He writ indeed that he had been so desired by the King concerning such things yet he advised not that they should be consented to lest peradventure it might be said by the Spaniard that the Pope of Rome had patronized an heretical Prince In the mean time Cuncus smelling from the Arch-Bishop most trusty to the King that the King's Mind was wholly pendulous or doubtful resolved That he would move every Stone and apply his Forces that he might gain him to his party Certainly considing that he had a means prepared For he had a command to offer a Cardinal's Cap to the Lord Archbishop in the Name of the Pope of Rome and that he should allure him also with higher Promises that he might corrupt his sincere Mind Yet a sitting ocasion was never given whereby he might insinuate himself into the Lord Arch-Bishop for the Scorpion sought an Egg Free access was to be impetrated by the Earl and Countess of Arundel likewise by Secretary Windebank The intercession of all which being neglected he did fly the Company or familiarity of Cuneus worse than the Plague He was likewise perswaded by others of no mean rank well known to him neither yet was he moved 7. Another also was assayed who hindred access to the detestable wickedness Secretary Cook he was a most bitter hater of the Jesuits from whom he intercepted access to the King he entertained many of them according to their deserts he diligently enquired into their Factions by which means every incitement breathing a Magnetical attractive power to the Popish Party was ineffectual with him for nothing was so dear unto him that might incline him to wickedness Hereupon being made odious to the Patrons of the Conspiracy he was endangered to be discharged from his Office it was laboured for three Years space and at last obtained Yet notwithstanding there remained on the King's part a knot hard to be untied for the Lord Arch-Bishop by his constancy interposed himself as a most hard Rock When Cuneus had understood from the Lord Arch-Bishop's part that he had laboured in vain his Malice and the whole Societies waxed boyling hot Soon after Ambushes began to be prepared wherewith the Lord Arch-Bishop together with the King should be taken Likewise a Sentence is passed against the King for whose sake all this business is disposed because nothing is hoped from him which might seem to promote the Popish Religion but especially when he had opened his Mind that he was of this Opinion that every one might be saved in his own Religion so as he be an honest and pious Man 8. To perpetrate the Treason undertaken the Criminal execution at Westminster caused by some Writings of Puritans gave occasion of the first Fire Which thing was so much exasperated and exaggerated by the Papists to the Puritans that if it remained unrevenged it would be thought a blemish to their Religion the Flames of which Fire the subsequent book of Prayers increases 9. In this heat a certain Scottish-Earl called Maxfield if I mistake not was expedited to the Scots by the Popish party with whom two other Scottish Earls Papists held correspondency He ought to stir up the People
Time to write it again out of my scribled Copy but I dare trust the Secresie in which I have bound him To others I am silent and shall so continue till the thing open it self and I shall do it out of Reasons very like to those which you give why your self would not divulge it here In the last place you promise your self That the Condition you are in will not hinder me from continuing to be the Best Friend you have To this I can say no more than that I could never arrogate to my self to be your Best Friend but a poor yet respective Friend of yours I have been ever since I knew you And it is not your Change that can change me who never yet left but where I was first forsaken and not always there So praying for God's Blessing upon you and in that Way which He knows most necessary for you I rest Lambeth March 27 1636. Your very Loving Friend To serve you in Domino I have writ this Letter freely I shall look upon all the Trust that ever you mean to carry with me that you shew it not nor deliver any Copy to any Man Nor will I look for any Answer to the Quaeries I have herein made If they do you any good I am glad if not yet I have satisfied my self But leisure I have none to write such Letters nor will I entertain a Quarrel in this wrangling Age and now my Strength is past For all things of moment in this Letter I have pregnant places in the Council of Trent Thomas Bellarmin Stapleton Valentia c. But I did not mean to make a Volume of a Letter Endorsed thus with the Archbishop's own Hand March 27 1636. A Copy of my Answer to Sir Ken Digby's Letters in which he gives me an account of his Return to the Ro Communion The Testimony of the Reverend Mr Jonathan Whiston concerning the Opinion had of the Archbishop at Rome and with what Joy the News of his Death and Suffering was there received I Do remember that being Chaplain to the Honourable Sir Lionel Tolmach Baronet about the Year 1666. I heard him relate to some Person of Quality how that in his younger days he was at Rome and well acquainted with a certain Abbot which Abbot asked him Whether he had heard any News from England He answered No. The Abbot replied I will tell you then some Archbishop Laud is Beheaded Sir Lionel answered You are sorry for that I presume The Abbot replied again That they had more cause to rejoice that the Greatest Enemy of the Church of Rome in England was cut off and the Greatest CHAMPION of the Church of England silenced Or in Words to that purpose In witness whereof I have hereunto set my Hand this 28th Day of September 1694. Jona Whiston Vicar of Bethersden in Kent The Testimony of the Learned and Worthy John Evelyn Esq Fellow of the Royal Society concerning the same Matter I Was at Rome in the Company of divers of the English Fathers when the News of the Arch-Bishop's Suffering and a Copy of his Sermon made upon the Scaffold came thither They read the Sermon and commented upon it with no small Satisfaction and Contempt and looked upon him as one that was a great Enemy to them and stood in their Way whilst one of the blackest Crimes imputed to him was his being Popishly affected John Evelyn FINIS BOOKS Printed for RICHARD CHISWELL SCriptorum 〈◊〉 Historia Literaria a Christo nate usque ad seculum xiv facili 〈◊〉 Digesta Qua de Vita illorum ac Rebus Gestis de Secta Dogmatibus 〈◊〉 Style de Scriptis Genuinis Dubiis Suppositiis Ineditis Deper ditis Fragmentis Deque Variis Operum Editionibus perspicue Agitur Accedunt Scriptores Gentiles Christianae Religionis 〈◊〉 Cujusvis Seculi Breviarum Inseruntur suis Locis Veterum 〈◊〉 Opuscula Fragmenta tum Graeca tum Latina hactenus inedita Premissa denique 〈◊〉 quibus plurima ad Antiquitatis Ecclesiasticae Studium spectantia Traduntur Opus indicibus necessariis Instructum Authore Gulielmo Cave SS Theol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Windesoriensi Accedit Hen. Whartoni Appendix ab ineunte Secula xiv ad Annum usque MDX VII 〈◊〉 Disquisitiones Criticae de Variis per Diversa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bibliorum Editionibus Quibus Accedunt Castigationes Theologi Cujusdam Parisiensis ad Opusculum Is Vossii de Sybillinis Oraculis Ejusdem responsionem ad Objectiones nuperae Critica Sacra 4to Censura Celebriorum Authorum sive tractatus in quo Varia Virorum 〈◊〉 de Claris. Cuiusque Seculi Scriptoribus Judicia traduntur Unde Facilimo 〈◊〉 Lector 〈◊〉 queat quid in singulis quibusque istorum Authorum Maxime Memorabile sit qucnam in pretio apud Eruditos 〈◊〉 Habiti Fuerunt Opera Thomae Pope-Blunt Baroneti Fol V Cl Gulielmi Camdeni Illustrium 〈◊〉 ad G. Camdenum Epistolae cum Appendice Varii Argumenti Accesserunt Annalium Regni Regis Jacobi 〈◊〉 Apparatus 〈◊〉 de Antiquitate Dignitate Officio Comitis Marescali Angliae Premittitur G. Camdeni Vita Scriptore Thoma Smitho S T D Ecclesiae Anglicanae Presbytero 4to Jacobi Usserii Armachani Archiepiscopi Historia Degmatica Controversiae inter Orthodoxos 〈◊〉 de Scripturis Sacris Vernaculis nunc primum Edita Accesserunt ejusdem Dissertationes duae de Pseudo-Dionysii seriptis de 〈◊〉 ad Laodiceos antehac 〈◊〉 Descripsit Digessit notis atque auctario Locupletavit Henricus Wharton A M Rev in Christo Pat ac 〈◊〉 Archiepisc Cantuariensi a sacris Domesticis 4to 1690. Anglia 〈◊〉 sive Gollectio Historiarum Antiquitus Scriptarum de Archiepiscopis 〈◊〉 Angliae a Prima Fidei Christianae susceptione ad Annum 1540. in duobus Voluminibus per Henricum Whartonum Fol. 1691 Some Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of 〈◊〉 By Peter Allix D D Treasurer of Sarum 4to his Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses 4to Dr Burnet's now Lord Bishop of Sarum Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England 4to History of the Rights of Princes in disposing of Ecclesiastical Benefices and Church Lands 〈◊〉 8vo Life of William Bedel D D Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland together with the Copies of certain Letters which passed between Spain and England in matter of Religion concerning the general Motives to the Roman Obedience Between Mr James 〈◊〉 a late Pensioner of the Holy Inquisition in Sevil and the said William Bedel 8vo Some Passages of the Life and Death of John late Earl of Rochester 8vo A Collection of Tracts and Discourses from 1678 to Christmas 1689 inclusive In 2 Volumes 4to Examination of the Letter writ by the late Assembly-General of the Clergy of France to the 〈◊〉 inviting them to return to their Communion together with the Methods proposed by them for their Conviction 8vo Pastorall Letter to the Clergv of his Diocess concerning the