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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58041	Mercurius Rusticus, or, The countries complaint of the barbarous outrages committed by the sectaries of this late flourishing kingdom together with a brief chronology of the battels, sieges, conflicts, and other most remarkable passages, from the beginning of this unnatural war, to the 25th of March, 1646.	Ryves, Bruno, 1596-1677.; Barwick, John, 1612-1664. Querela Cantabrigiensis.; Wharton, George, Sir, 1617-1681. Mercurius Belgicus.	1685 (1685)	Wing R2449; ESTC R35156	215,463	414

him we may justly receive at his hands heavier Judgments than these yet our Innocence will plead Not Guilty to the face of any Man who shall object against us any Civil Misdemeanors whereby we can more justly be deprived of our Fellowships than any free Subject in England of his fee Simple if they please to say he is guilty of Misdemeanors And as it hath pleased our gracious Master whose Ministers we are to make us examples though but of suffering to the rest of our Brethren So we hope he will continue unto us his grace of humilation under his mighty hand as an earnest of his exalting us in due time And in the interim that he will lay no more upon us than he shall be pleased to strengthen our infirmities to bear And that he will still preserve unto us a good conscience that whereas our persecutors speak evil of us as of evil doers they may be ashamed that falsly accuse our good conversation in Christ. FINIS Mercurius Belgicus OR A briefe Chronology of the Battels Sieges Conflicts and other most remakable passages from the beginning of this Rebellion to the 25 th of March 1646. Together with A Catalogue of the Persons of Quality slain on both sides CICERO Incerti sunt exitus pugnarum Marsque esi communis qui saepe spoliantem jam exultantem evertit perculit ab abjecto Printed in the Year 1685. The Preface Readers YOU have here a canded and impartial Epitomy of an unnatural War Subjects banding against their lawful Prince Brother against Brother and Father against Son Read but the said ensuing Story and therein consider the number and quality of Persons slain the destruction of Houses and Families the desolation of Cities and Towns the increase of Widows and Orphans the Tyranny and inhumanity of our new Legislators over their own Fellow-Subjects and you will easily conclude of these as Cicero did of Sylla's time Nemo illo invito nec bona nec patriam nec vitam retinere potueirt In earnest it may well be wondred whence these men have their minds God nor man nor Nature ever made them thus To be short the Reader may here see the flux and reflux of Fortune de la Guerre now this party flourisheth and that goes down anon that flourisheth and this goes down as if the guilt of our sins were drawing a heavy Judgment from Heaven upon this Land and these Rebels were ordained for the instruments of it But let us hope for better And particularly that God in the richness of his mercy will look down upon these macerated Kingdoms and periodize these distractions That Religion may again flourish in its purity maugre the Plots and impieties of all Seditiaries and Schismaticks That His Sacred Majesty may be re-established in His just Rights and Prerogatives that Parliaments may move in their own and known Centre the Ancient Laws of the Land re-inforced and freed from fellow-subjects Tyranny and Arbitration and the Subject re-estated in his Ancient Liberties freed from Murder Rapine and Plunder which that we may quickly see let it be the Subject of ever good Christian Prayer Memorable OCCURRENCES since the beginning of this REBELLION Anno Dom. 1641. IN December 1641. The House of Commons published a Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom therein setting forth all the errors of his Majesties Government a meer design to alienate the affection of his Subjects from him The tenth of January following his Majesty with the Queen Prince and Duke of Yorke left White-hall and went to Hampton Court to avoid the danger of those frequent tumults then hazarding the safety of his Royal Person February the 23 d. the Queens Majesty took shipping at Dover having been driven before from White-hall by the frequent tumults of the Rebels And soon after His Majesty went to New-market and from thence to Yorke where after the Rebels had Guards for three Months before the Gentry of the Country raised a Guard for his Majesties Person Anno Dom. 1642. MAY the 20 th it was voted by both Houses That the King intended to levie War against the Parliament which they did on purpose to excuse themselves for raising a Rebellion against His Majesty as appeared within few days after July the second the Kings ship called the Providence Landed in the Creek of Kenningham near Hull till which time His Majesty had not a Barrel of Powder nor any Arms or Ammunition whatsoever July the 12 th the pretended two Houses Voted that the Earl of Essex should be General of their Army and that they would live and die with him August the first the Earl of Essex caused all the men then raised being in number about 10000 to be committed to Officers and divided into Regiments which men had been raising ever since the 12 th of July 1642. at which time he was made General of the Rebels August the sixth the Earl of Bedford having fruitlessely besieged the Lord Marquess of Hertford in Sherburn Castle for four days before retreated to Yevell the Noble Marquess sallied after him and with a small number fell on that great body of the Rebels Kill'd above 140 whereof 9 Commanders took divers Prisoners and routed the rest so as he marched away and after divided his small Forces going himself into Wales and Sir Ralph now Lord Hopton into Cornwall of both which there followed so good an effect August the 22 d. His Majesty set up his Standard Royal at Nottingham for raising of Forces to suppress the Rebels then marching against him September the 23 d. Prince RUPERT with about 11 Troops of Horse gave a great overthrow to the Rebels in Wikefield near Worcester where Colonel Sands that commanded in chief received his mortal wound Major Douglas a Scot and divers other Captains and Officers slain and drowned Captain Wingate a Member of the House of Commons with four Coronets taken and two more torn in pieces This body of the Rebels was observed to be the flower of their Cavalry October the 23 d. was that signal great battel fought between Keynton and Edg-hill by his Majesties Army and that of the Rebels led by the Earl of Essex wherein the Rebels lost above 70 Colours of Coronets and Ensigns and His Majesty but only 16 Ensigns and not one Coronet The exact number that were slain on both sides in this Battel is not known But it is certain that the Rebels lost above three for one Men of eminence of his Majesties Forces who were slain in the Battel were the two Noble and valiant Lords Robert Earl of Lindsey Lord High Chamberlain of England and George Lord D. Aubigney Brother to the Duke of Richmond and Lenox Sir Edmund Verney Knight Marshal to His Majesty with some other worthy Centlemen and Soldiers but besides these three named there was not one Noble Man or Knight kill'd which was an extraordinary mercy of Almighty God considering what a glorious sight of Princes Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Barons Knights and

in the Protestation to abolish Popery of which in their opinion wearing the Surpless was a part Many attempts they made upon the Doctor and his Curate affronting them both in officiating Divine Service and administration of the Sacraments but they being countenanced by a considerable part in the Town the Sectaries could not effect what they desired until at last in the Months of June July and August 1642. they were animated by the coming of the Forces raised in Essex Suffolk and Norfolk For as they raised each Company it was sent to Chelmsford the common Rendezvouz and there staied until they were made up three hundred or four hundred and so sent to London In all the time of their stay there the Doctor lay at the mercy of the Soldiers who egg'd on by the Brownists and Anabaptists of the Town used his House as their Quarter consumed his provisions for his Family and commanded there as Lords Amongst many Outrages committed by the Soldiers Three are most remarkable First Upon a Fast Day they send a Command to the Doctor that he should not pray for the Bishops nor so much as make mention of them in his Lips nor use the Book of Common-Prayer if he did they threaten to pull him out of the Pulpit and tear him in pieces The Doctor not intimidated by their Threat gives order to his Curate to read the Prayers appointed which accordingly he did The Soldiers right bred being Volunteers of Colchester and Ipswich and rightly designed too for my Lord Sayes's own Regiment fit Soldiers for such a Leader irreverently fit with their Hats on make a noise to drown the Curates voice nay they call to him to come out of his Calves Coope meaning the Reading-Desk and make an end of his Pottage The Curate remembring that advice of our Saviour Not to cast Pearls before Swine nor holy things to Dogs gives over reading unwilling to expose the holy Worship of God to so foul Contempt and Scorn Having thus silenced the Curate their Commanders looking on they violently take the Sacred Bible to tear it but being reproved for it by Sergeant Major Bamfeild then present they exchange the Bible for the Book of Common-Prayer Having it in their power in solemn Triumph they carry it into the Streets and that which holy Martyrs inspired by the Holy Ghost composed and sealed the truth and sanctity of it with their dearest Blood these Savage Miscreants rent in pieces Some of the leaves they tread under feet some they cast into the Kennel some they pissed upon and some they fixed on the end of their Clubs and Cudgels and in a Triumphant manner marched with them up and down the Town Secondly About a Week after when the Doctor was in the Chancel there to Interr the Corps of a Gentleman lately deceased these Soldiers rushed into the place with an intent to bury the quick with the dead to put the Doctor into the same Grave which they had done for no other reason but because he used the Form prescribed by the Church at burial of the Dead had he not been powerfully rescued by his Parishoners Lastly When the glad Tydings were brought to Chelmsford that Episcopacy was voted down by the House of Commons all usual expressions of an exulting joy were used amongst the rest Bonfires were kindled in every street but most of the Fuel was violently taken from the Doctor 's Wood-yard And now the pile raised and the fire kindled they want nothing but a Sacrifice this they resolve shall be the Doctor himself To this purpose the Separatists of the Town assisted by two Companies of Soldiers in the Evening assault him in his House seise upon his Person and are ready to carry him to the Fire there to throw him headlong into the midst of it But some of his Friends having information of the design go and acquaint the Commanders with the bloody intentions of their Souldiers who presently take a Guard and rescue the Doctor out of their power as soon as ever they had seized on him Since that oppressed and worried every day by these ravenous Wolves he was forced to forsake his Charge as many other godly Ministers are and to fly for his Life leaving his Wife and eight Children to the mercy of the Rebels who have deprived his Family of all their Livelihood and exposed them to extream want Nay they have several times broken violently into his House under pretence to search for him and have held Pistols cocked and Swords drawn at the Breasts of his Children and Servants charging them upon their Lives to reveal where the Doctor was It was lately certified from thence by a chief Member of that Town and no friend of the Doctors that he finds the case there to be far worse than he expected for while they hoped that the power being Traiterously wrested out of the King's hand they should have shared it amongst themselves they find that either the power is fallen into their hands that are far beneath them or else hath raised these men up far above them for as he writes The Town is governed by a Tinker two Coblers two Taylors two Pedlers c. And that the World may see what a Systeme of Divinity these Coblers and Taylors are like in time to stitch together and what Principles they intend to Rule by I shall here set down certain preparatory prelusory Propositions which they usually Preach for Preach they do to their infatuated Disciples and by them are received as the Divine Oracles of God And you shall have them in their own Terms viz. First That Kings are the Burdens and Plagues of those People or Nations over which they Govern Secondly That the relation of Master and Servant hath no ground or warrant in the New Testament but rather the contrary For there we read In Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free and we are all one in Christ. Thirdly That the Honours and Titles of Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Lords Knights and Gentlemen are but Ethnical and Heathenish distinctions amongst Christians Fourthly That one man should have a Thousand Pounds a Year and another not one Pound perhaps not so much but must live by the sweat of his Brows and must Labour before he eat hath no ground neither in Nature or in Scripture Fifthly That the Common People heretofore kept under Blindness and Ignorance have a long time yielded themselves Sorvants nay Slaves to the Nobility and Gentry But God hath now opened their Eyes and discovered unto them their Christian Liberty And that therefore it is now fit that the Nobility and Gentry should serve their Servants or at least Work for their own Maintenance and if they will not Work they ought not to Eat Sixthly That Learning hath always been an enemy to the Gospel and that it were a happy thing if there were no Universities and all Books burnt except the Bible Seventhly That any man whom God hath as they call it Gifted may be

upon it which Holy name though it could not but put the Rebels in mind whose possession and House it was did not at all afford it patronage and protection from their accursed rage and madness The Rebels under the Conduct of Sir William Waller sate down before the City of Winchester on Tuesday the 12. of December 1642. about twelve of the Clock and entered the City that afternoon between two and three being Masters of the City they instantly fall upon the Close under a pretence to search for Cavaliers They seize upon the Prebends Horses and demand their Persons with many threatning words That night they break into some of the Prebends Houses such Houses as they were directed unto by their Brethren the Seditious Schismaticks of the City and Plundered their goods But the Castle not yet surrendred into the Rebels hands something awed their insolency which being the next day delivered up to their power did not only take away the Restraint which was upon them but incouraged them without check or controul to rob and defi●e both God and all good men Wednesday therefore and Wednesday night being spent in Plundering the City and Close on Thursday Morning between nine and ten of the Clock hours set apart for better imployments and therefore purposely in probability chosen by them being resolved to prophane every thing that was Canonical they violently break open the Cathedral Church and being entred to let in the Tyde they presently open the great West doors where the Barbarous Soldiers stood ready nay greedy to rob God and pollute his Temple The doors being open as if they meant to invade God himself as well as his possession they enter the Church with Colours flying their Drums beating their Matches fired and that all might have their part in so horrid an attempt some of their Troops of Horse also accompanied them in their march and rode up through the body of the Church and Quire until they came to the Altar there they begin their work they rudely pluck down the Table and break the Rail and afterwards carrying it to an Ale-house they set it on fire and in that fire burnt the Books of Common-Prayer and all the Singing Books belonging to the Quire they throw down the Organ and break the Stories of the Old and New Testament curiously cut out in carved work beautified with Colours and set round about the top of the Stalls of the Quire from hence they turn to the Monument of the Dead some they utterly demolish others they deface They begin with Bishop Fox his Chappel which they utterly deface the break all the glass windows of this Chappel not because they had any Pictures in them either of Patriarch Prophet Apostle or Saint but because they were of painted Coloured Glass they demolish and overturn the Monuments of Cardinal Beaufort Son to John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster by Katharine Swinfort founder of the Hospital of S. Cross near Winchester who sate Bishop of this See forty three years They deface the Monument of William of Wainflet Bishop likewise of Winchester Lord Chancellor of England and the Magnificent Founder of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford which Monument in a grateful Piety being lately beautified by some that have or lately had Relation to that Foundation made these Rebels more eager upon it to deface it but while that Colledge the unparralleld example of his bounty stands in despight of the malice of these inhuman Rebels William of Wainflet cannot want a more lasting Monument to transmit his memory to Posterity from hence they go into Queen Maries Chappel so called because in it she was Married to King Philip of Spain here they brake the Communion Table in pieces and the Velvet Chair whereon she sate when she was Married They attempted to deface the Monument of the late Lord Treasurer the Earl of Portland but being in Brass their violence made small impression on it therefore they leave that and turn to his Fathers Monument which being of Stone was more obnoxious to their fury here mistaking a Judg for a Bishop led into the error by the resemblance or counterfeit of a Square cap on the head of the Statue they strike off not only the Cap but the head too of the Statue and so leave it Amongst other acts of Bounty and Piety done by Richard Fox the fifty seventh Bishop of this See he covered the Quire the Presbytery and the Iles adjoyning with a goodly vault and new glased all the Windows of that part of the Church and caused the bones of such Kings Princes and Prelates as had been Buried in this Church and lay dispersed and scattered in several parts of the Cathedral to be collected and put into several Chests of lead with inscriptions on each Chest whose bones lodged in them These Chests to preserve them from rude and prophane hands he caused to be placed on the top of a Wall of exquisite workmanship built by him to inclose the Presbytery there never to be removed as a man might think but by the last Trump did rest the bones of many Kings and Queens as of Alfredus Edwardus Senior Eadredus the Brother of Athelstane Edwinus Canutus Hardecanutus Emma the Mother and Edward the Confessor her Son Kiniglissus the first founder of the Cathedral of Winchester Egbert who abolishing the Heptarchy of the Saxons was the first English Monarch William Rufus and divers others with these in the Chests were deposited the bones of many Godly Bishops and Confessors as of Birinus Hedda Swithinus Frithestanus S. Elphegus the Confessor Stigandus Wina and others Had not the barbarous Inhuman impiety of these Schismaticks and Rebels shewed the contrary we could not have imagined that any thing but the like Piety that here inshrined them or a Resurrection should ever have disturbed the repose of these venerable yet not Popish Reliques But these monsters of men to whom nothing is holy nothing is Sacred did not stick to prophane and violate these Cabinets of the dead and to scatter their bones all over the pavement of the Church for on the North side of the Quire they threw down the Chests wherein were deposited the bones of the Bishops the like they did to the bones of William Rufus of Queen Emma of Hardecanutus and Edward the Confessor and were going on to practise the like impiety on the bones of all the rest of the West Saxon Kings But the Outcry of the People detesting so great inhumanity caused some of their Commanders more Compassionate to these Ancient Monuments of the dead then the Rest to come in amongst them and to restrain their madness But that devilish malice which was not permitted to rage and overflow to the spurning and trampling on the bones of all did satiate it self even to a prodigious kind of wantonness on those which were already in their power And therefore as if they meant if it had been possible to make these bones contract a Posthume guilt by being

growing Hemp and there lay on the Ground almost 20 Hours without Meat or any sustenance so that what with fright and dampness of the Earth some of them contracted dangerous Sicknesses and hardly escaped with Life The Terrour which fell upon the Country thereabout was so great that the neighbouring Justice of Peace durst not grant his Warrant to search after any of Sir Richard's Goods though earnestly intreated to it And the Neighbours were so ill used and threatned to extort confession from them where Sir Richard was or where any of his Goods were conveyed that some swooned for fear some fell mad and some died Certain it is their carriage was so barbarous that it inforced Mr. Jo. Crew one of the Company to profess his dislike and to tell the Lord Brooks and the rest That they being Law-makers should not be Law-breakers nor make such precedents as would discover their intentions and render them odious unto the Country Since that knowing Sir Richard to have put himself for preservation of his Life under his Majesties Protection they have caused his Pond-heads to be digged down and have destroyed all his Fish they have cut down his Woods and seised on all his Lands or made them utterly unprofitable unto him for they will not suffer any Bayliff or Servant of his to take any care of his Estate but have often sent parties of Horse to seise on them or kill them At a place called Kings-harbour near Hounslow-heath three Soldiers under the Command of the Lord Wharton came into a House to drink going away they of the House demand Money for their Drink So unexpected an affront did so incense the Soldiers that one of them told his Companions he would shew them how they set Houses on fire in Ireland and so put his Carbine into the Thatch and discharged it set the House on fire and departed The General ESSEX returning from London came by as the House was on fire complaint is made unto him that the owner of the House was undone but all in vain his Excellency was not at leisure to do Justice The Countess of Rivers who as you heard in the second Weeks Relation was Plundered to the value of an Hundred thousand or an Hundred and fifty thousand pounds finding her abode here unsafe having lost her Goods and her Person in danger to secure her self resolved for a time to abandon her Country and rather expose her self to the hazard of Travel than commit her self to that protection which the contemned Laws now afford To this purpose she obtained a Pass to go beyond Seas While she was in preparing for her Voyage Mr. Martin Plunder-master General he that so familiarly speaks Treason and steals the King's Horses or doth any thing plunders the Countess of her Coach Horses notwithstanding a Warrant from the Lords House to secure them And when this Warrant was produced to stave off this Parliament Horse-taker he replied That if the Warrant had been from both Houses he would obey it as coming from the highest authority in England sure this man was born with Treason in his Mouth but since it came But from the Lords he did not value it When this Warrant could not prevail the Countess obtains a Warrant from the Earl of Essex to have the Horses restored unto her again but Mr. Martin to overbear all procures an Order from the House of Commons to keep them This Honourable Ladies Goods were seised on though Licensed to pass by the Lords and searched and allowed by the Custome-House At Pebmarsh in the same County of Essex on the Lords Day divers of the Parliament Voluntiers came into the Church while the Parson Mr. Wiborow was in his Prayer before Sermon and placed themselves near the Pulpit and when he was in his Prayer one of them struck divers times with his Staff against the Pulpit to interrupt him and while he was in his Sermon in contempt of the place where they were and the sacred action in doing they were almost as loud as the Preacher to the great disturbance of the Congregation No sooner was the Sermon ended and the Parson come out of the Pulpit as far as the Reading-desk but they lay violent hands upon him rent his Clothes threaten to pull him in pieces in the Church With much intreaty they spare him there and permit him to go into the Church-yard he is no sooner come thither but they assault him more violently than before Mr. Wiborow seeing the Constable who all this while stood a spectator of his hard usage calls unto him and charges him in the King's Name to keep the Kings Peace At his request they did a little forbear him But before he could get half ways Home they assault him again and demand the Book of Common-Prayer which he used in the Church That which was found by the Parish being torn in pieces before which he refusing to deliver up unto them they reek their fury on him They tug and hale him and vow to kill him unless he deliver up the Book of Common-Prayer to their pleasure he stoutly refuseth Hereupon they fall upon him strike up his Heels and take it from him by force and so carry it away in triumph Mr. Blakerby a silenced Minister heretofore preaching at Halstead in the same County told them That to bow at the Name of Jesus was to thrust a Spear into Christ's side and such Ministers as signed Children with the sign of the Cross did as much as in them lay to send such Children unto the Devil When the Earl of Essex and the rest went from Reading to London after the unhappy to say no more surrender of that town they left there a Committee consisting of none but City Captains and Tradesmen these according to the authority committed unto them summon all the able men of the Parishes thereabout to appear before them at Reading and Assessed them at their pleasure In Marlow they Assessed one Mr. Drue at 1000 l. they fell to 500 l. he refusing to pay was Imprisoned but the Prison being most nasty and loathsom denied the accommodation of Bedding was forced to pay 300 l. Mr. Horcepoole they assessed at 200 l. Mr. Chase a man plundered before at 40 l. 20 pound was offered but nothing will be abated of 30. Eliot a Butcher at an 100 l. and Imprisoned Cocke a Baker at 20 l. Mr. Fornace the Vicar not suffered to speak for himself because a Malignant at 10 l. and paid seven John Langley 10 l. Thomas Langley 20 l. William Langley 5 l. and Wilmot his Servant 5 l. John More 80 l. Hoskins a Shoomaker 5 l. Cane an Innkeeper 7 l. Rates so Illegal or had they been Legal so unequally proportioned to these mens Estates that had Ship-money been still on foot it would not have drawn so much Money out of their Purses in forty or fifty years as this Blew-Apron Committee at Reading removed some seven or eight Degrees from the Close Committee at Westminster

was to know and foresee in him what end attends those who forgetting all Religion and Loyalty shall lift up their hands against their God in Sacrilege and against their Sovereign in Rebellion Mercurius Rusticus c. II. The Cathedral Church of Rochester violated the Sacrilege and prophaneness of the Rebels under Command of Sir William Waller and Sir Arthur Haslerig acted on the Cathedral Church of Chichester c. AS when the Spirit brought the Prophet Ezekiel into the holy Temple he led him from place to place and each place entertained him with greater Abominations than the former so that the farewel to the last Vision and the invitation to the next is Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater Abominations than these so having brought you in the Cathedrals of this Kingdom Temples in despite of Atheists Rebels and Anabaptists of God too and having shewed you the Abomination of desolation in one of them viz. in Canterbury the first instance of their accursed rage and having viewed that I must now lead you on as the Spirit did the Prophet from place to place and the incitement may be the same for though you have seen great prophanations in the former relation yet you shall see greater Abominations than these The next instance of the Rebels profaneness which I shall offer unto you is in the Cathedral of Rochester recompensed for the smalness of ' its revenue with the honour of ' its antiquity as boasting of Ethelbert King of Kent a common Founder to this Church with those of Canterbury and London The unhappy loss of Earnulphus History the thirty second Bishop of this See deprives us of that light which discovered the various condition of this Church how long in the beginning it struggled with ' its own poverty and in after ages with the injuries of time and War remaining some Years in a kind of widowhood without the government and superintendency of a Bishop till at last Gundulfus the thirtieth Bishop of this See reedified this Church from the ground and brought it into that magnificence in which we now see it to which pious work he brought so good so vigorous affections that as Maelmesbury records of him Praevenerat vivacitas Gundulfi omnium successorum diligentiam Gundulphus alacrity in that work did so prevent the piety of his successors that he hardly left them any place in this kind wherein to exercise their bounty Little did the overflowing zeal of our Ancestours to the house of God like that of the old Israelites pouring out their wealth and precious things to adorn the Tabernacle in so great measure that Moses was fain to publish a Proclamation to restrain their liberality for the stuff they had was sufficient for the work to make it and too much Exod. 36.6 7. little I say did they thnik when they did this that what they thus bountifully gave unto God should ever while this Kingdom remained Christian become a prey to those which as Tertullian speaks Gentes agunt Christi nomine have not so much as a form but the bare usurped name of Christianity which they fully and pollute with those worse than heathenish crimes of Sacrilege and Prophaneness had the Sacrilege lately commited at Canterbury been applauded by the People to gain whom no arts though never so repugnant either to Religion or common honesty were left unattempted certainly this Church which next stood in their way and immediately after Canterbury tasted of their fury had been utterly demolished and offered up a sacrifice to Popularity But Plundering being then but a stranger in England newly arrived here from desolate Germany especially Plundering of Churches which heretofore were held inviolable Sanctuaries for offenders but much more for their own innocent ornaments this made a general outcry every man detested so foul impiety nay their own party some of them not yet so deeply leavened with their Anabaptistical Doctrines nor given up to so reprobate a sense to believe monstrous lyes for truth did not onely not approve but sparingly condemn the Fact and the general vote of the People awakened by Doctor Paske his Letter declared it barbarous and wicked nay the dislike of such proceedings grew to so great a height that some wise men were deceived into an opinion that the Houses would punish the offenders for the present and publish an Order to restrain the like outrages for the future and indeed though some good men Members of both Houses did earnestly desire it yet by experience they quickly found how unequal they were to effect any thing in which they had not the concurrence of the heads of the Faction which ruled in both Houses but much less when they rowed against the stream and had them for their adversaries The Rebels therefore coming to Rochester brought the same affections along with them which they express'd at Canterbury but in wisdom thought it not safe to give them the same scope here as there for the multitude though mad enough yet were not so mad nor stood yet so prepar'd to approve such heathenish practices by this means the Monuments of the Dead which elsewhere they brake up and violated stood untouched Escutcheons and Arms of the Nobility and Gentry upbraiding eye-fores to broken mean Citizens and vulgar Rebels remained undefaced the Seats and Stalls of the Quire escaped breaking down onely those things which were wont to stuff up Parliament Petitions and were branded by the Leaders of the Faction for Popery and Innovation in these they took liberty to let loose their wild zeal they brake down the rail about the Lords Table or Altar call it which you please and not only so but most basely reviled a now Reverend Prelate who being lately Dean of that Church had for the more uniform and reverend receiving of the blessed Sacrament set it up with the odious name of Rogue often repeated they seized upon the Velvet Covering of the holy Table and in contempt of those holy Mysteries which were Celebrated on the Table removed the Table it self into a lower place of the Church in this perfect Disciples of that profane Author of the Book called Altare Damascenum who in the 718. p. devoutly resolves thus De loco ubi consistat cur solliciti cum quovis loco vel Angulo extra Tempus Administrationis collocari possit Concerning the place where the Lords Table shall stand what need we to be sollicitous when out of the time of administration of the Sacrament it may be set aside in any place or obscure corner And to shew what Members they are of the Church of England they strewed the Pavement with the torn mangled leaves of the Book of Common-Prayer which with the Book of Homilies and the 39 Articles makes up the third Book wherein the Doctrin of the Church of England is fully containad understanding that the Dean that then was was to Preach on Sunday morning Colonel Sandys and Sir John Seaton that false Traiterous Scot sent unto him