attempt the Destruction and Attainder of the said Earl by an Act of Parliament to be therefore purposely made to condemn him upon Accumulative Treason none of the pretended Crimes being Treason apart and so could not be in the whole if they had been proved as they were not and also adjudged him guilty of Constructive Treason that is of Levying War against the King though it was only the Commanding an Order of the Council-Board in Ireland to be executed by a Serjeant at Arms and three or four Soldiers which was the constant Practice of the Deputies there for a long time to which end they having first presented a Bill for this intent to the House of Commons and finding there more opposition than they expected they caused a multitude of tumultuous Persons to come down to Westminster armed with Swords and Staves to fill both the Palace-Yards and all the Approaches to both Houses of Parliament with fury and clamour and to require Justice speedy Justice against the Earl of Strafford And having by these and other undue Practices obtained that Bill to pass in the House of Commons they caused the Name of those resolute Gentlemen who in a Case of innocent Blood had freely discharged their Consciences being Fifty Nine to be posted up in several Places about the Cities of London and Westminster and stiled them Staffordians and Enemies to their Country hoping thereby to deliver them up to the Fury of the People whom they had endeavoured to incense against them and then procured the said Bill to be sent up to the House of Peers where it having sometime rested under great Deliberation at last in a time when a great part of the Peers were absent by reason of the Tumults and many of those who were present protested against it the said Bill passed in the House of Peers and at length his late Majesty King Charles the First of Glorious Memory granted a Commission for giving his Royal Assent thereunto which nevertheless was done by his said Majesty with exceeding great sorrow then and ever remembred by him with unexpressible Grief of Heart and out of his Majesty's great Piety he did publickly express it when his own Sacred Life was taken away by the most detestable Traytors that ever were And I hope when this is read and considered it will sufficiently vindicate the King and his Conscience and stop the Mouths of such clamorous and seditious Persons as you are You tell us in another place to lessen the King's Grace in granting the Triennial Act that it did not extend so far as by Law the Parliament might have required there being at that time two Acts of Edward the Third for a Parliament to be holden once a Year And what then was it no Act of Grace to grant over and above that if the King did not call a Parliament within such a time that then the Lords Lieutenants the Deputy Lieutenants and so on might do it nay if they neglected their Duty it should at last be in the Power of the very Constables to do it Pray Sir do Justice to the King and let not such an unparalell'd Act of Grace and Favour be buried and hid from the People and therefore I say again and do you reproach me for it as long as you please that the granting this Bill with so many additional Clauses was certainly a greater Condescension than ever was made by any of his Predecessors Another thing you accuse this Good Man for is his tampering with the Officers of the Army to curb the Parliament and to subdue them to his Will and here you tell a long Story of Piercy and Goring c. such a Story indeed as the Faction was wont to make use of upon all occasions to amuse and heat the People against their Prince but the best of it is there are so many incredible things in your Account that I must tell you it hath not gained upon my Belief at all and I hope before I have done with it it will find as great a difficulty to be believed by others Amongst the rest you tell us that two of the Parties concern'd confess that all the French that were about the Town were to be mounted I suppose it was upon Hobby-Horses and were to joyn with the Party but that which is the Nicker is That the Clergy would raise a Thousand Horse to assist them and yet this Conspiracy was under an Oath of Secresie and very likely indeed when so many of the Clergy must be acquainted with it as to raise by their own and their Brethrens Purses a thousand Horse Surely Sir you have a mighty Opinion of your self and fancy the World so very silly as to believe every thing upon your Say so Come Sir give me leave to undeceive the World and to expose your Honesty your Knavery I mean by letting them know the King's Account in this Matter whose Words I must tell you notwithstanding all your barbarous Reproaches ought to find Credit with the World Husband 's Exact Coll. Pag. 523. A New Fright was now found to startle the People and to bring us into Hatred and Jealousie with them the general Rumours of Treasons and Conspiracies began to lose Credit with all Men who began to consider what they felt more than what others feared and therefore they had now found out a Treason indeed even ready to be put in Execution upon the whole Kingdom in the representative Body thereof a Plot to bring up the whole Army out of the Northern Parts to London A strange Plot indeed which considering the Constitution of the Time no Man can believe Us guilty of And though they made great Use of it for the filling the Minds of Our People with Fears and Apprehensions they seemed not then to Charge Us with any Knowledge of or Privity to it What they have done since all the World knows notwithstanding Our many Protestations in that Point and We cannot but say that by those Examinations of Collonel Goring Sir Iacob Ashly and Sir Iohn Conyers and Mr. Piercy's Letter which is all the Evidence we have seen and by which they seem principally to be guided We cannot satisfie Our own private Conscience that there ever was a Resolution of bringing up the Army to London and upon the strictest Examination We can make of that Business we can find it to be no other than this Observation being made of the great Tumults about Westminister which seem'd to threaten the Safety of the Members of both Houses at least of those who were not known to agree with the Designs of the Faction We have before spoken of and the Manner of delivering Petitions by Multitudes of People attested or pretended to be so by the Hands of many Thousands against the known Laws and the Establish'd Government of this Kingdom which yet seem'd to receive some Countenance and to carry some Authority as Instances of the Affections of so many Persons it fell into the Thoughts
this I say upon the greatest deliberation of Mind without passion or prejudice to any Party of Men whatsoever and upon this score have I taken upon me the Defence of this Great Man not in the least wishing ill to or desiring the Oppression of any sort of Men who will live quietly and peaceably under Their Majesties happy Government nor any ways envying their Liberty of Conscience as long as they make a modest and thankful use of it My Lords and Gentlemen Desiring your candid Thoughts of this honest and well-designed Vndertaking I take my leave of you by subscribing myself Your humble Servant and Faithful Country-man Richard Hollingworth A REPLY TO THE Author of a Letter CALLED A LETTER from Ludlow to Dr. Hollingworth c. SIR I Have met with your Book without the Civility of your fencing me one but I quickly found reason not to wonder at that for upon reading you over I found Civility none of your Talent and tho' I am so far from being in the least concerned at your ungentile Behaviour and unhandsome Usage of myself that I think it really an Honour to be reflected on by a Person of your Principles and should have the worse Opinion of myself if I had the good word either of you or those of your Party yet Sir when I read over your barbarous dealing with that excellent Prince King Charles I. your dirty and Tinker-like Names by which you call him and those many undeserved Indignities you load his Sacred Memory withal truly Sir it makes my Heart ake and my Flesh tremble to think at this time of the Day and under such a Government there should be found so bold so impudent and so unmannerly a Person in the Kingdom that dares belch forth such leud such dishonourable and false Things against one who was the Lord's Anointed and your own lawful and undoubted Soveraign What Sir do not you know that the greatest part of the Nobility Gentry and Commons of England do to this very Day continue and preserve a great Veneration for the Name and Memory of King Charles the First Have you forgot when the Nation was restored to its Rights and Laws not over-awed by an Insolent and Threatning Army that they chose a Representative that presently expressed the Sence of the Nation as to that Prince and condemned by an Act of State all those who had any hand in his Murther and appointed a Day which you like yourself scornfully call a Madding-day for ever to bewail the Sin and thereby to prevent those Judgments which they thought that Horrid Act might be justly attended withal Cannot you further remember or have you not heard that Their present Majesties had two Sermons preached before them the last Thirtieth of Ianuary that both They and the rest that heard them might the better be engaged to renew their just Sence of as well as deep Sorrow for the detestable Fact And Sir did not the Lords and Commons appoint two Preachers to help their sorrowful Meditations that Day the one the Right Reverend Bishop Kidder and the other the Reverend Dr. Sherlock And have you not read those Sermons for which the two Houses thanked them and ordered them to be Printed for the Good of the Nation that the Memory of that Great Man might be kept alive and the Sence of his Horrid Murther preserved in the Breasts of the People Come Sir if you have not read them I will give you an Account of some Passages in them both and I beseech you for your Soul 's good to mind them for 't is pity any one Body in the Kingdom should not know them that so they may be preserved from the Poyson and Infection of such scurrilous Books as this of yours is Pag. 20 says the good Bishop On this Day it was that our Soveraign of blessed Memory fell by the Hands of Violence and Wickedness then was his Righteous Blood shed and tho' we gave no explicit Consent to this barbarous Murther and perhaps with the Iews have said That if we had been in the Days of our Fore-fathers we would not have been Partakers with them yet all this while we may deceive ourselves and others if we do not confess this Sin with great humility and abandon all propensity to so great a Wickedness And Pag. 22. says this good Man We may learn what cause we have to be humbled for our Fathers Sins and more particularly for the Wickedness committed on this Day then was the Nation stained with the Righteous Blood of an innocent and excellent Prince that Bloud God will require of the principal Criminals and Accessories also of the first Offenders and their Associates and as we would not be charged with it let us humble ourselves before God the Stain can be removed no otherways than by Tears of Repentance and the Blood of Jesus And truly Sir before I cite the next passage let me tell you here is very bad News for you and all your Adherents and therefore instead of vindicating thorough the hardness of your Hearts I pray you humble yourselves before God that so the continuance in this Sin may not be your Ruin Pag. 25. Speaking further of this Murther he says thus It will admit of no extenuation it was an Action foul and deformed barbarous and cruel without excuse or plea he must be lost to the Reason of a Man and the Tenderness of a Christian whom it strikes not with Horrour Pag 26. We are all concerned in this Day 's Work to bewail the Wickedness of Men and improve the amazing Providence of God And once more We have since this Fatal Blow was given suffered severely and what the Iews say of the Calf in the Wilderness That there is something of it in all their Sufferings may with as much Truth be said of the barbarous Murther of this Day Our Sufferings have been the Product of the horrid Sin of this Day for many of them they bear the Mark and Signatures of it And truly Sir let me tell you if the Bishop be in the right as all good Men conclude he is I am sure you are very much in the wrong and ought to repent and give Glory to God by confessing your great Fault in so villanously bespattering such a Man as this Great and Good King was If after this you look into the Sermon preached the same day before the Commons by that great and well-studied Divine Dr. Sherlock you will find pag. 5. these words The Sin we this Day lament I shall make no scruple to call it what you have this Day in your Publick Prayers to Almighty God confessed it to be the barbarous Murther of an excellent Prince And Pag. 10. If we add to this the Character of his Person and those Princely Vertues which adorned his Life such Vertues as are rarely found in meaner Persons nay which would have adorned even an Hermit's Cell it still aggravates the Iniquity of his Murther And at the bottom
their Heads And this is all I think good to say by way of Answer to your Scotch Affairs and truly I think it is enough of all reason to convince the World what Defenders of the Christian Faith and the Rights and Laws of their Country these Covenanters were God bless the Kingdom of Scotland I and England to from such Reformers as these are and I hope the greatest part of the People of both Nations will say Amen to it with all readiness and cheerfulness And thus Sir without any Obligations on my side for as I Told you in my Defence I only would concern myself with the last Eight Years of King Charles I have run through and proved your Accusations spiteful and false which you have so liberally vented to defame this Great and Good Man and I hope I have given the World a just satisfaction how much you are to be credited as to all the other things you assert you I say who rather than you will not serve your Cause will offer to the World the greatest Lyes and Untruths in Nature I come now Sir to apply myself Sir to the Defence of what I have said in my Book in the behalf of King Charles from your rude Impleadings of them and Reflections upon them And here Sir I will be plain with you I am not at leisure to play the Buffoon by making a Return to your Raillery and little Witticisms wherewith you entertain your Reader in the beginning of your Libel but will follow the Advice of a wiser and honester Man than either you or any of your Party are or will be that is King Solomon namely Not to answer a fool according to his folly least I be like unto him You say That those gracious Acts which I mention were bought of him And what then What hath been more usual ever since Parliaments had a Being in England Pray look into the Statute-Book and tell me what gracious Favours can you find bestowed by the several Kings of this Realm upon their People that those People have not made their Acknowledgments for them by presenting their Soveraigns with great Sums of Money And how comes this to be a fault in King Charles more than in all his Predecessors But buy these Acts did they Pray who had the disposal of the Money How was it laid out Was it given to the King to do what he lifted withal No Sir you know the contrary and that amongst the rest of the Uses it was put to you know a great part of it was bestowed upon the Scots for the good Service they did in rebelling against their King and putting two Kingdoms into a flame and they returned home by the Favour of your Friends loaden with the Nation 's Treasure when if they had had their deserts they had gone back with Halters about their Necks as a sign of what was due to them for so traiterously invading a Kingdom they had nothing to do withal But however to shew he did nothing willingly as to these condescending Acts you tell us when he past the Poll-Bill he demurred to the passing of the Bills for taking away the Star-Chamber and the High Commission And what then May not King's take time to consider as well as other Men Must they who considering the Charge God hath entrusted them withal ought to have better Eyes in their Heads than other Men must they I say only act like Bruits and do things without previous thoughts without a Why or Wherefore Who would sit in a Throne if the Condition of it must be the divesting himself of the Reason and Consideration of a Rational Creature But Sir I will answer this Aspersion in the King 's own Words to the Two Houses and then leave the Reader to judge whether you have done fairly to lessen his Grace upon this Account his Words are these I must tell you That I cannot but be very sensible of those Reports of Discontent that I hear some have taken for not giving my Consent on Saturday Methinks it seems strange that any one should think I could pass two Bills of that importance as these were without taking some fit time to consider of them for it is no less than to alter in a great measure those Fundamental Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil which many of my Predecessors have established And truly I hope this will satisfie tho' not you and such as you are yet any good Man who is not resolved for a Party as to this paticular Reflection Another thing you reflect upon me for is saying That his signing the Bill for taking away my Lord Strafford's Life offered violence to the peace and quiet of his Mind all the Days of his Life And here Sir I cannot but take Notice how you endeavour to make sport with this good Man's Conscience but let me tell you I have always observed that those Men who make sport with other Mens Consciences have none of their own and I am sure you have shewn none throughout this scurrilous Letter unless Lying ad Slandering be the signs of Grace ad Good Conscience in a Common-wealth's-man Pray Sir why might not the King scruple this Do not you know what unusual Arts and Methods were made use of before they could agree upon a Bill to take away this Great Man's Life Do not you know how many of the House of Commons protested against it how thin the House of Lords was when it passed there how the Rabble were brought down to threaten the House and in a clamorous way which you call peaceable to cry Iustice Iustice and how they posted up the Names of the Protestors in order to expose them to the fury ad danger of the discontented and designing part of the City And do not you know after all they were so little satisfied with the Legality of their Proceedings that they in the very Bill itself inferred a Clause that this should not be made use of as a Precedent for the time to come and after all this might not a pious and compassionate King scruple the signing of such a Bill from a very good Conscience Come Sir to answer this to the full and vindicate the King's scruple I will here present to the World for their satisfaction the Sence not of a House of Peers consisting of Seventeen or Eighteen Members nor of a House of Commons consisting of not many above an Hundred but the Sence of two full Houses of Lords and Commons who took off the Attainder of that Noble Earl the Words in the Act are those WHereas Thomas late Earl of Strafford was Impeached of High-Treason upon pretence of endeavouring to subvert the Fundamental Laws and called to a Publick and Solemn Arraignment and Tryal before the Peers in Parliament where he made a paticular Defence to every Article objected against him insomuch that the Turbulent Party then seeing no hopes to effect their unjust Designs by any ordinary way and method of proceedings did at last resolve to
the more to answer if they forbore to express it at the passing of this Declaration and if they forbore to express it we have the greater reason to complain that so envious an Aspersion should be cast on us to our People when they knew well how to answer their own Objection And now let the Reader judge what this piece of Impudence deserves for laying such a groundless flander at the Door of such a Person as King Charles was I could be very severe upon you for this horrid Lye and the more because your Party all over the Town hug this Falshood and make great use of it to reak their Malice upon the Name and Memory of this blessed Prince and Martyr I have but one thing more of this nature to take Notice of and that is who were the first Beginners of the War I know very well you and your whole Party have always vindicated the Justice of your Proceedings as if you were necessitated to take up Arms against the King because he first raised an Army to bring in Arbitrary Power Sir I have read over the Story as well as you and according to the best Information I can give myself from the best Authors the Parliament did really and indeed first draw the Sword and sound the Trumpet to Battel Was not mustering the Militia and seizing of Hull and denying the King Entrance into his own Garrison and the Command of his own Magazine entring into a State of Hostility and bidding Defiance to all just Subjection to their lawful Soveraign Did not they Vote before the King levied Men any other wise than to have a Guard of Gentlemen about his Person which any King in the World ought to have especially in such dangerous Times as those were That he intended to wage War against his People And afterwards did not they Vote an Actual War with him which I think implies a necessity or else it was done without Reason as I am very well satisfied it was And you need not have fallen so scurrilously upon me for the mistake of a word as to give me the Lye but good Manners I will never expect from a Man of your turbulent Temper and Principles And whereas the King set up his Standard at Nottingham in August did not the Lords and Commons in Iune before make an Order for bringing in of Money or Plate to maintain Horses Horse-men and Arms naming a General and other subordinate Officers which I think was beginning the War to purpose And truly Sir let me tell you I will believe that pious Prince and afterwards patient and couragious Martyr before Ten thousand such pestilent Persons as you by this Letter appear a Person of so venemous a nature that you turn every thing to Poyson you touch which good King tells us upon their voting his Intentions to enter into a State of War with his Parliament that he had no more Intentions to do any such thing than he had to make War with his own Children And who further when he came to look Death in the face with all his Holy Solemn and Divine Thoughts about him which is a time when we are ready and that upon good grounds to give Credit to the Assertions of Men who have lived very bad Lives much more of a Person whose Life in his Retirements had been so much with God as we may be satisfied from his heavenly Soliloquies and Meditations I say who even then discourses of this thing namely who were the Beginners of the War at this rate upon the mournful and dismal Scaffold I think it is my Duty to God first and then to my Country to clear myself both as an honest Man a good King and a good Christian I shall begin first with my Innocency All the World knows I did never begin a War with the Two Houses of Parliament and I call God to witness unto whom I shall shortly give an Account that I did never intend to encroach upon their Priviledges they began upon me it is the Militia they began upon they confessed the Militia was mine but they thought it fit to have it from me And to be short if any Body will look to the Date of Commissions of their Commissions and mine and likewise to the Declaration he will see clearly they began these unhappy Troubles and not I. And now all you Nations and Kindreds upon the Earth I appeal to you all whether a King just going to appear before the Great God of Heaven and Earth so prepared and so assured within himself of an incorruptible Crown is not to be believed before such a foul-mouthed such a scandalous and leud Miscreant as this Letter-writer is who values not the Reputation of Innocence itself if it stand in the way of his Lusts and Passions of his Revenge against Monarchy and Episcopacy And thus Sir I have answered and I hope to satisfaction your grand Impeachments and Accusations of this great and excellent Prince As for the other things with which you have stufft your Libel as The giving up the City for a Spoil to the Army c. tho' I wonder you missed the blowing up the Thames to drown the City I say alas Sir you must not think to catch some Birds and there are thanks be to God great Numbers of them in the Kingdom with such Chaff as this is And for the several Petitions and Addresses they made to His Majesty which you quote at large why all the World knows that the worst Undertakings have always been covered with the most specious and glittering Pretences that is a very bad Cause indeed that a Man of Wit and Parts a Man of Interest and Design cannot paint out in seemingly fair and taking colours But pray Sir how comes it to pass that we hear not one word from you of the King's Answers and the Noble Defences he made for himself against all those Pretences of Glory and Honour to him and of Peace and Happiness to the Kingdom No Sir your business was not to do Right to his Memory but to draw him out in the blackest hue that so you might serve the future Designs of your Party namely to extirpate Monarchy and overthrow the Ancient Constitution of the Kingdom And therefore I desire some good Man would with the leave of him who has Mr. Royston's Right to those famous Works of King Charles print some of those Declarations of his and especially that large one of August 1642 wherein all his Enemies Cheats and Tricks are display'd and discovered to the full Or else I wish That every Parish in England at the Publick Charge of the Parish would buy the whole Book itself and chain it up in some Publick Place so that all good Men might have recourse to it in order to inform their Minds of the true Merits of the Cause betwixt this great Prince and his Enemies which if done I am sure the good People of England would quickly be convinced what little reason