Vows on them and their Posterity These were the Deans Instructions which the Lord Marquess received with as much Thankfulness as he could express and requited his Adviser with this Complement that he would use no other Counsellor hereafter to pluck him out of his plunges for he had delivered him from Fear and Folly and had Restor'd him both to a light Heart and a safe Conscience To the King they go together forthwith with these Notes of honest Settlement whom they found accompanied in his Chamber with the Prince and in serious Discourse together upon the same perplexities Buckingham craves leave That the Dean might be heard upon those particulars which he had brought in Writing which the King Mark'd with Patience and Pleasure And whatsoever seem'd contentious or doubtful to the King 's piercing Wit the Dean improved it to the greater liking by the Solidity of his Answers Whereupon the King resolv'd to keep close to every Syllable of those Directions Sir Edward Villiars was sent abroad and return'd not till September following Michel and Mompesson received their censure with a Salvo that Mompesson's Lady not guilty of his Crimes should be preserv'd in her Honour And before the Month of March expir'd Thirty seven Monopolies with other sharking Prouleries were decry'd in one Proclamation which return'd a Thousand praises and Ten Thousand good prayers upon the Sovereign Out of this Bud the Deans Advancement very shortly spread out into a blown Flower For the King upon this Tryal of his Wisdom either call'd him to him or call'd for his Judgment in Writing in all that he deliberated to Act or permit in this Session of Parliament in his most private and closest consultations The more he founded his Judgment the deeper it appear'd so that his Worth was Valued at no less than to be taken nearer to be a Counsellor upon all Occasions The Parliament wearied with long sittings and great pains was content against the Feast of Easter to take Relaxation and was Prorogued from the 27 of March to the 18 of April The Marquess had an Eye in it upon the Lord Chancellor to try if time would mitigate the displeasure which in both Houses was strong against him But the leisure of three Weeks multiplied a pile of New Suggestions against him and nothing was presaged more certain than his downfal which came to Ripeness on the third of May. On that day the Patent of his Office with the Great Seal was taken from him which Seal was deliver'd to Four Commissioners the Lord Treasurer Mountagu Duke of Lenox Lord Steward of the King's Houshold William Earl of Pembroke Lord Chamberlain to the King and Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surry with whom it rested till the 10th of July following In the mean time Sir James Leigh Lord Chief Justice of the King's-Bench was Commissioned to be Speaker in the Upper House and Sir Julius Caesar Master of the Rolls was Authorized with certain Judges in equal power with him to hear dispatch and decree all Causes in the Court of Chancery 62 The Competitors for the Office of the Great Seal were many Sir James Leigh before mention'd a Widower and upon Marriage with a Lady of the Buckingham Family Sir Henry Hobart Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Chancellor to the Prince a Step to the Higher Chancellorship and as fit as any man for his Learning and Integrity which of these it was uncertain but one of these was expected And verily a fitter Choice could not be made than out of the pre-eminent Professors of the Common Laws but that all Kings affect to do somewhat which is extraordinary to shew the liberty of their power The Earl of Arundel was thought upon a Master of Reason and of a great Fortune For it was remembred upon the Death of Lord Chancellor Bromly anno 1587 That Queen Elizabeth designed a Peer of the Realm for his Successor Edward Earl of Rutland whose Merit for such a place is favour'd by Mr. Cambden because he was Juris scientiâ omni politiori literaturâ ornatissimus and if his Death much bewailed had not prevented the Great Seal had been born before him But the likeliest to get up and I may say he had his Foot in the Stirrup was Sir Lionel Cranfield Married in the kindred that brought Dignity to their Husbands a man of no vulgar head-piece yet scarce sprinkled with the Latin Tongue He was then Master of the Court of Wards and did speak to the Causes that were brought before him quaintly and evenly There seemed to be no Let to put him in Possession of the great vacant Office but that the Lord Marquess set on by the King was upon enquiry how profitable in a just way it might be to the Dignitary and whether certain Branches of Emolument were natural to it which by the endeavour of no small ones were near to Lopping Sir Lionel besought the Marquess to be sudden and to Advise upon those things with the Dean of Westminster a found man and a ready who did not wont to clap the Shackles of delay upon a business He being spoken to to draw up in Writing what he thought of those Cases return'd an Answer speedily on the Tenth of May with the best advantage he could foresee to the promotion of the Master of the Wards Yet it fell out cross unto him that the Dean woing for another utterly beyond expectation sped for himself The Paper which he sent to the Marquess hath his own Words as they follow My most Noble Lord ALthó the more I Examine my self the more unable I am made to my own Judgment to wade through any part of that great Employment which your Honour vouchsafed to confer with me about yet because I was bred under the place and that I am credibly inform'd my True and Noble Friend the Master of the Wards is willing to accept it and if it be so I hope your Lordship will incline that way I do crave leave to acquaint your Honour by way of prevention with secret underminings which will utterly overthrow all that Office and make it beggerly and contemptible The lawful Revenue of that Office stands thus or not much above at any time In Fines certain 1300 l. per annum or thereabout In Fines Casual 1250 l. or thereabout In greater Writs 140 l. for impost of Wine 100 l. in all 2790. and these are all the true means of that great Office Now I am credibly inform'd that the Lord Treasurer begins to Entitle the King to to the casual Fines and the greater Writs which is a full Moiety of the profits of the place not so much to Enrich the King as to draw Grist to his own Mill and to wind from the Chancellor the donation of the Cursitors places The preventing the Lord Treasurers in these Cases made Queen Elizabeth ever Resolve suddenly upon the disposing of the Great Seal Likewise they are very busie in the House of Commons and I saw a Bill which
to that Treatise as follow Let the World take notice if it may concern any your Honour is be unto whom next unto His most Sacred Majesty my most Gracious Sovereign and Master I owe more then to all the World beside Professing unseignedly in the word of a Priest Fâ—cisti ut vivam moriar ingratus 81. The Lord-Keeper being so great a Dealer in the Golden Trade of Mercy and so successful he followed his Fortune and tried the King and the Lord Marquess further in the behalf of some whom their dear Friends had given over in Despair to the Destiny of Restraint And those were of the Nobles For he carried a great regard to their Birth and Honour and knew it was good for his own safety to deserve well of those high-born Families The East of Nerthumberland had been a Prisoner in the Tewer above 15 years His Confidents had not Considence and a good Heart I say not to Petition but to dispute with the King how ripe the Earl was for Clemency and Liberty 〈◊〉 Majesty was very merciful but must be rubb'd with a Fomentation of hi◠〈◊〉 Oyl to make him more supple This dextrous Statesman infuseth into 〈…〉 how to compass the Design with what Insinuations and Argum◠〈…〉 were improved with the Earl's demulcing and well-languag'd Phrases And when it came to strong Debate the Lord-Keeper got the better of the King in Reason So the Physic wrought as well as could be wish'd and on the 18th of July the Earl of Northumberland came out of the Tower the Great Ordnance going off to give him a joyful Valediction Who turned his Thoughts to consider the Work of God that a Stranger had wrought 〈◊〉 Comfort for him in his old Age whose Face he had ne 〈…〉 never purchased by any Benefit nor courted so much as by the meâ—age of a Salutation Which his Lordship compared to St. Peter's Deliverance by the Angel of God Acts 12. when Peter knew not who it was that came to help him Though not in order of Time yet in likeness of Condition the Earl of Oxford's Case is to be ranked in the same File It was in April in the year following that he was sent to the Tower betrayed by a false Brother for rash Words which heat of Wine cast up at a merry meeting His Lordship's Enemies were great and many whom he had provoked yet after he had acquainted the Lord-Keeper with the long Sadness of his Restraint in a large Letter which is preserved he wrought the Earl's Peace and Releasment conducted him to the King's Chamber to spend an hour in Conference with His Majesty from whence a good Liking was begot on both sides Whom thereupon that Earl took for his trusty and wisest Friend using his Counsel principally how to Husband his Estate and how to employ his Person in some Honourable Service at Sea that the Dissoluteness of his Hangers-on in the City might not sink him at Land The Lord-Keeper did as much for the Earl of Somerset in Christmas-time before bringing him by his mediation out of the House of Sorrow wherein he had continued above five years that he might take fresh Air and enjoy the comfort of a free Life which was affected by him to gratisie the splendid and spreading Family of the Howards And they were all well pleased with him as were the greatest part of the Grandees except the Earl of Arundel for a Distast taken of which the Lord-Keeper need not be ashamed 82. Within Six Weeks after he was settled in that Office the Earls Secretary brought two Patents to be Sealed the one to bestow a Pension of 2000 l. per annum upon his Lord out of the Exchequer which was low mow'n and not sit to bear such a Crop beside the Parliament which was to meet again in the Winter could not choose but take Notice what over-bountiful Issues were made out of the Royal Revenue to a Lord that was the best Landed of all his Peers Yet the Seal was put to with a dry assent because there was no stopping of a Free River With this Patent came another to confer the Honour of the Great Marshal of England upon the same Noble Personage The Contents of it had scarce any Limits of Power much exceeding the streit Boundaries of Law and Custom The Lord Keeper searching into the Precedents of former Patents when the same Honour was conser'd found a great inequality and doubted for good Cause that this was a device to lay his unfitness for his great place Naked to the World if he swallowed this Pill But nothing tended more to the praise of his great Judgment with His Majesty He writes to my Lord of Buckingham to acquaint the King that he thought His Majesty intended to give to greater Power than the Lords Commissioners had who dispatch'd Affairs belonging to that Office joyntly before him and that all Patents refer to the Copy of the immediate Predecessors who were the Earls of Essex Shrewsbury and Duke of Somerset but my Lord leap'd them over and claim'd as much as the Howards and Mowbries Dukes of Norfolk did hold which will enlarge his Authority beyond the former by many Dimensions There is much more than this in the Cabal of Letters p. 63. And much more than I meet there in his own private Papers The King was much satisfied with the Prudence and Courage of the Man that he had rather display these Errors than commit them for fear of a mighty Frown so the Earls Counsel were appointed to attend the Lord Keeper who joyning their hands together examin'd the Obliquities of the Patent and alter'd them What would have follow'd if it had pass'd entire in the first Draught For being so much corrected and Castrated yet the proceedings of the Court of Honour were a Grievance to the People not to be supported The Decrees of it were most uncertain most Arbitrary most Imperious Nor was there any Seat of Judgment in the Land wherein Justice was brought a bed with such hard Labour Now I invite the Reader if he please to turn to the 139 pag. of Sir An. Wel. Pamphlet and let him score a Mark for his Remembrance at these Lines That Williams was brought in for this Design to clap the Great Seal through his Ignorance in the Laws to such things that none that understood the danger by knowing the Laws would venter upon This Knight when he is in a Course of Malice is never out of his Way but like an egregious Bugiard here he is quite out of the Truth For the New Lord Keeper walk'd so Circumspectly that he seem'd to fear an Ambush from every Grant that was to pass for the use of encroaching Courtiers if any thing were Ambiguous or Dangerous he was not asham'd to call for Counsel If any thing were prest against Rule he was inexorable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eth. He kept constant to Justice in its Flat Square I could be Luxuriant in instances nothing is
dissipatur Especially a contumely cleaves the faster when he that is clean from the Defamation in one Person hath deserv'd it in others for as Octa. Minutius says Oftentimes there is some likelihood in a Lye and not unseldom some unlikelihood in a Truth 143. Other Errors and many were charg'd upon the Duke and a broad back will not bear them all Yet casting not an Eye upon the Earl of Bristol's Papers which he produced in Parliament a Lap full of them and no less Their chief purpose was to cast an Odium upon him that he heightned the Spaniards at first to ask worse Conditions in Religion then were formerly Treated on These were Recriminations wherein no man no not the Wise Earl of Bristol is like to keep a Charitable Moderation Because his Miscarriages had been ript up by the Duke before what followed but that wawardness which St Austin confess'd to be sometime in himself Si deprehensus Arguerer saevire magis quà m caedere libebat Cofess lib. 1. c. ult But such as were no parties in Contestation with my Lord of Buckingham blame him that he was very rash in managing business turning about Councils in all haste upon the Wheel of Fancy but keeping no Motion of Order or Measure which none could endure worse then that Nation with whom he Treated who are the most Superstitious under Heaven to keep that Politick Rule Bona Consilia morâ valescere Tacit. Hist l. 4. They said also That he was Offensive to the Crown of Spain in taunting Comparisons and an open derider of their Magniloquent Phrases and Garb of stateliness which must be an intended provocation for he was as well studied in blandishments and the Art of Behaviour as any Courtier in Europe They repined that he thrust himself into such a Room at their Masks and Interludes as were proper to their King our Prince and the Train Royal and was not contented with that Honour which was given to the Major Domo or prime Subject of Spain as if he were not satisfied to be Received as a less Star but as a Parelius with his Highness And whatsoever the grudge was they vented it craftily in that Quarrel that he did many things against the Honour and Reverence due to the Prince as one hath pick'd up and offered it to King James Cab. p. 221. That he was over Familiar in Talk and in Terms with his Highness Yet David so near the Crown call'd himself a dead Dog or a Flea in respect of Saul Nor is it omitted that he was sometime cover'd when the Prince was bare sometime sitting when the Prince stood capering a lost in sudden Fits and Chirping the Ends of Sonnets which was not Unmannerliness he was better bred but inconsiderateness which will creep upon him who was too much dandled upon the Lap of Fortune Or as Budaeus better Expresseth it Sap. Pand. p. 331. Mirablandimenta genuit Aulici victus ratio quibus praestantissima virtus saepè consopita connivere visa est And truly his Breeding in Budaeus his own Country did him some prejudice in that kind For the French Mode is bold Light and Airy That which we call rudeness with them is freedom good Metal brave assurance And that which we and the Castilians call Gravity or Modesty with them is reputed Sneaking want of Spirit Sheepishness But between frets of Spight and Fits of Levity the Duke put the Treaty so far out of Tune that the Lovers were disappointed of their expected Epithalamium So that the Spaniards made it one of their Refranes or Proverbs If the Prince had come alone without the Duke he had never return'd alone without the brave Castilian Virgin they might say so freely for I heard himself say no less in the Banqueting House at a Conference with the Lords and Commons anno 1624. When he endear'd himself to the Hearers That the Stout and Resolute way wherein he went had overturn'd the Marriage and did Arrogate the Thanks of all things to himself that were acceptable and popular So be it yet that which Canoniz'd him with the people then was afterward made an Evidence against him Cab. p. 227. To lay a Dram of Excuse against a Pound of Error this is to be Alledged that Olivares and Count Montes-claros were ill Advis'd to spurn a young Lion as if he had been a Puppy-Whelp For as soon as they saw the Duke soare so high in his Opinions and when Bristol spake to mitigate him disaccount of him contemptibly as if he had nothing to do this Brace of Grandees call'd it in Question what Creature could have more Power in that Action then an Embassador that laid the first Stone of it that had ample Letters of Credence under the King's Broad-Seal with the Confirmation of the Privy-Council of England which was more then my Lord of Buckingham brought with him The Headship of the Treaty was in the Prince and they bended to it Extolling his Wisdom as Capitolinus doth Gordianus the Elder Moribus it a moderatus ut nihil possis dicere quod nimiè fecit The next place they deemed to the Earl of Bristol upon the Reason premised though he declin'd it And should Buckingham be degraded to be the third in Place who held the Highest Place in Honour and the Supremacy both in the King 's and the Princes Favour Ausonius in Paneg. ad Gratian. tells a Story That Alexander the Great Reading those Verses in Homer that Agamemnon was Nam'd by the Common Souldiers to Fight the Duel with Hector after Aiax and Diomedes clapt out an Oath saying Occiderem eum qui me tertium nominasset I would have cut his Throat that should have Named two before me Truly Buckingham had so much Bravery in him that he would take the third Place in as great Dudgeon as Alexander 144. The grave Earl of Bristol was passive in this Quarrel and sunk it in Silence with his best Dexterity So he did allay all other Heats which the Duke's Passion raised against him if his Letter to the Lord Keeper be of Canonical Faith Cab. P. 21. knowing how undecent and scandalous a thing it is for the Ministers of Princes to run different ways in a strange Court But the Envy of all Miscarriages was cast upon his Lordship by that mighty Adversary and by a greater than he That he was wholly Spaniolized which could not be unless he were a Pensioner to that State That he sided with Olivarez in all Consults That he professed a Neutrality and more in all Propositions for the Advancement of the Popish Religion That he never Pleaded for the Restitution of the Palatinate but only pitied it with the Spanish Shrug That he did not so timely unmask the Spanish Councils to the Kings Advantage as he might and ought to have done That he entangled the Prince in Delays to keep him from returning Home For these and other the like which will follow in the great Report made in the next Parliament a Noise was made
that his Lordship should be offered up to Justice as a publick Sacrifice But they that contest for his Innocency observe that he was let loose to depart in Quiet when he should have been brought to the Horns of the Altar And when the Bill drawn up against him was put into Sir Robert Philip's Hand an active and a gracious Member of the House to manage it to his Ruine Sir Robert writes to the Duke Cab. P. 265. If Bristol frame a probable satisfactory Answer to any Charge will it not rather serve to declare his Innocency than to prepare his Condemnation Your Grace may consult with your self whither you may not desist with Honour upon having him further questioned Afterward when his Master King James was dead and when he was at the Stake I may say like to be worried in Parliament by his Accusers he writes thus confidently to the Lord Conway Cab. P. 20. As for the Pardon Jacob. 21. I should renounce it but that I know the justest and most cautious Man living may through Ignorance or Omission offend the Laws So that as a Subject I shall not disclaim any Benefit which cometh in general as it doth usually to all other Subjects in the Kingdom But as for any Crime in particular that may entrench upon my Employments in point of Loyalty and Fidelity I know my Innocency to be such that I am confident I shall not need that Pardon A. Gallius li. 12. c. 7. Take the Earl's Case Pro and Con it is very dubious therefore I will deal with it as the manner of the Areopagites was in such Perplexities adjourn it to be heard an hundred Years hence I say not He but They were the Proprophets of Baal that troubled our Israel Our Corner-miching Priests with the Bloomesberry-Birds their Disciples and other hot spirited Recusants cut out the Way with the Complaints of their no-grievous Sufferings which involved us in Distractions Rome and Madrid were full of them and they conjured Pope Gregory and the Catholick King to wind in their Safety and Immunity in the Articles of the Match as behoved a Father and a Friend If they had sate still and let the Business go adrist with the Tide it had been better for them They that force their Fruits to be Ripe do but hast them to be rotten Qui spretis quae tarda cum securitate prematura vel cum exitio properant Tacit. Annal. lib. 3. The Word of the King and Prince would not serve them that they would be gracious to all of their Sect that lived modestly and inoffensively to deserve their Clemency But they must have publick Instruments for it and Acts of Parliament if they could be gotten to debauch his Majesty in the Love of his People For as the Lord Keeper writes very prudently to the Duke Cab. P. 105. The Bent of the English Catholicks is not to procure Ease and Quietness to themselves but Scandals against their neighbouring Protestants and Discontents against the King and State Rhetorical Campian avows it in an Oration made at Doway Note this Apostrophe of his to our Kingdom As far as it concerns our Society we all dispersed in great Numbers through the World have made a League and Holy Solemn Oath that as long as any of us are alive all our Care and Industry all our Deliberations and Councils shall never cease to trouble your Calm and Safety Yet when our pragmatical Bosom-Enemies had wearied themselves with Solicitations the Earl of Nitsdale a main Prop of their Cause confest It may be Assurance sufficient to all Catholicks who have the Sense to consider that it must be our Master's and the Prince's gracious Disposition that must be our Safety more than either Word or Writ Thus he to the Duke Cab. P. 250. But while the Recusant Petitioners had caused all Affairs with us and Abroad to be obnoxious to Inflammation the Lord Keeper like a right Lapidary cuts a Diamond with a Diamond and useth Sir Tobâ— Mâ— is it not a Paradox the busiest Agent in that Cause to Manifest both in the Palace at Rome and in the Court at Madrid that the Petitioners grasp at more Favours than they could hold either with the Peace of this Kingdom or with the Laws of it which would endanger them to forfeit all that Connivance which they had gained before Give him his Due he rode with great Celerity to those remote Places and did his Work to the Proof and to his great Praise Sâ—stus est at mihi infidelis non est As Plautus in Trinummo The Lord Keeper failed not to put Gold in his Pocket but he paid him chiefly out of his Father's Purse That most Reverend Arch-Bishop of York his Father being highly distasted with Sir Toby's Revolt from the Protestant Religion made a Vow to Dis-inherit him and to leave him nothing The Lord Keeper plied the Arch-Bishop with sweet and pleasant Letters which he loved and with some Mediators in Yorkshire not to infringe his Vow for he did not ask him so much as to name him in his last Wiâ—l and Testament but to furnish him with Three thousand Pounds while he lived and the Sum was paid to his Son to a Peny How Sir Toby beâ— himself in the wisest Counsel which I think was given to the King of Spain may be read Cab. P. 25â— importuning his Majesty not to entangle the Prince with the Voâ—o of the Theologos to which he could not submit himself with Honour but to accept of those large Conditions for Catholicks which my Lord the King and the Prince have condescended to that so the Prince may have some foot of Ground upon which he may stand without Breach of Honour to comply with the incomparable Affection which he beareth to the Infanta This is sure that Sir Toby's Industry was well taken because he did what he could And he that employed him held him ever after to be a Person of Trust in any thing which he promised to do 145. Very consonant to the grand Particulars of the Praemises are the Contents of two Letters both dispatcht in June from the Lord Keeper to the Duke's Grace That which bears the former Date June 15 and yet unpublished lays out Errors advisedly and mannerly under the Heads of trivial Reports and furnisheth the Duke with Counsel for all Exigencies of Advantage especially diseloseth the King's Opinion if the Worst should come It is long but I could not pare it and not mar it Thus it is May it please your Grace IF ever I had as God knoweth I never had any extraordinary Contentment in the Fortunes of this World I have now good Cause offered me to redouble the same by that exceeding Love and Affection which every Man in his private Letter to others doth take Notice that your Grace doth bear and continually express to your poor Servant Nor is your Love incentred to me only in your own Breast but full of Operation having procured to me a good
had signified his further pleasure and that when the Princessa had been Six Months in England this Favour should be confirmed to her further Content The like was not yielded in the business Agitated with the Duke of Anjoy but a strict Exception was put in Ut nulla Occasio Anglis ad leges constitut as violandas praeberetur It was an ill time for the Embassadors to ask such things when not only seditious Spirits but the best of Protestants who had nothing in them of the peevish and refractory were sick of an ill Digestion of Jealousies It was a hard seeming work to overcome for the Ravens Croak'd and the Doves mourned at it Yet it was a worse time to deny them when the Pledge of our Future Happiness stuck fast in a Foreign Kingdom and nothing could Conduct him home with such Celerity and Safety as some drops of Grace Distilling from the Prerogative Royal to stay the longing of the Pontifician Faction They are beguiled that think Marquess Inoihosa or 〈◊〉 Carlos de Colonna pluck'd us over our Line to get a Wife for the Prince it was to get him home Jam non de Gloriâ sed de Salate pugnandum est Curt. lib. 4. Let his Highness look to it in Spain to come home with a Glorious Bride but all Loyal Hearts look earnestly for him whether single or double was not the Chief Point And the Anxiety of his Majesty was What shall I do for my Son 1 Sam. 10.2 This was the Compass that guided the Lords of the Councel in their condescension to bring their young Master out of Peril though it were with the Ransom of too much Mercy to them who were not the best that deserv'd it But who it was that set the Edge of the Razor upon the Hoane who it was that surpass'd himself in this Negotiation that cut off difficulties smoothly leaving no Raggedness to be seen in the Clest of his distinctions will appear in the ensuing dispatch of the Lord Keepers to the Prince whose goodness will satisfie for the Prolixity May it please your Highness 150. IF I shall touch upon any Service which I may seem to have performed towards Your Higness I humbly beseech your Highness to conceive I do it not to pick Thanks and much less to put any acknowledgment upon your Highness but only to discharge my self of that part of Duty which all the World knoweth I do above all Men in the World owe unto your Highness Before I did imagine that his Majesty would take any Opinion of mine in the Signing and Swearing of this Treaty Sir Fr. Cottington your most worthy Servant had acquainted me with all the dispatch and permitted me to Read the Papers over Upon Saturday last the 12 of July the Council formerly warned to attend his Majesty the next day at Wansted were discharged and some hour after my self commanded to attend Suspecting thereupon I might be questioned to that Effect I sent for your Highness Secretary and heard from him it would be so indeed and that His Majesty was much troubled and perplex'd about his Oaths Presently Town-Reports were Raised of great Opposition among the Lords against this Swearing In so much as the shameless people had made two Orations the one to be of mine for the Oaths and the other of my Lord of Canterbury's against the same which they supposed prevailed with the King and the whole Councel when neither of us had heard or spoken one word in that Theme I spent in a manner all that Night in debating with my self the Streights that your Highness was unto and at the last fell upon this Resolution contained in this Letter which I deliver'd upon Sunday Morning in private to his Majesty with an excuse for my Boldness therein His Majesty accepted thereof very well and Read it over three or four times that day and seemed to me at that time to approve thereof in all Points and put off further Discourse till the Afternoon I was so far emboldned therewith that after Dinner because I found some whispring among the Lords present I stept again to His Majesty and deliver'd him an Opinion that for the Oath of the Lords his Majesty should not leave it to their Disputation but command them to take 〈◊〉 there being no matter of scruple or moment in the same as indeed there is not This his Majesty well approved of and put in practise afterward with good success The Council being met whereof some were there by Reason of their Attendance as my Lord Chamberlain Earl of Carlisle Lord Fenton and Mr. Treasurer others warned as the Duke Lord Treasurer Lord Marshal my self Sir R. Weston and the two Secretaries his Majesty made a Speech unto us full of perplexity because of your Highness's Streits and his own Remorse of Conscience Chiefly he insisted it would be frivolous to be put upon it to move the next Parliament to abrogate the Laws already Establish'd against Recusants which would not be Heard much less Granted and that in point of Conscience and Religion he could not promise that no Laws hereafter should be made against them This his Majesty having utter'd with much Passion and earnestness left us to hear all the Papers Read and having Commanded us very passionately to give him our best Advice retired into his Chamber and left us together for two hours After the End of the Reading many odd and extravagant Propositions were made of Advice to be given to his Majesty how to get your Person home again wherein I durst not say one word finding none of my Opinion unless it were Secretary Calvert nor my self to concur with any of theirs At the last pressed thereunto I said that I conceiv'd upon the Discourse of his Majesty we could not deliver any Advice or Opinion at all For if his Majesty made a Conscience of taking the Oaths and had already Framed unto himself this Conclusion the immoveable Rule in this Case is Quod dubitas ne feceris nor there was no more in Policy or Divinity to be said therein On the other side if His Majesty would otherwise declare himself that he was not moved in Conscience or Religion but only in Honour and Safety to Refuse those Oaths I did hope no Lord in this Company would Advise his Majesty to desert his only Son and to desert him in this manner in the Face of all Christiandom For to pretend an excuse to fetch him home to bâ—lpâ—his Majesty to facilitate these Affairs would never repair his Credit who had subscribed that which his Father would not make good nor was he himself any way able to accomplish Beside that I made it a Question Whether the King of Spain after all this wooing would so easily be deceived in Licensing him to depart At the last his Majesty Returning and calling upon us for our Advice all the Lords Assented to this last Opinion and told his Majesty they durst not Advise him any thing until he express'd himself
Choler in his Complexion Yet that it could not appear but that the Marriage on King Philip's part was very sincerely meant in all the Treaty most clearly when his Highness took his Farewell most openly since his Departure Wherein the Earl of Bristol had much wronged that great Monarch giving him a Bastle insupportable For when the Power of Revocation or rather Repression of the Proxy was peremptorily in his Lordship's hand he did not acquaint the King of Spain to stop him from erecting a Gallery turned by the Earl's Negligence into a Gullery in the open Streets covered with the richest Tapestry and set forth with all other Circumstances of Wealth and State to conduct the Infanta in open View and with most magnificent Solemnity to the Deposorios when by the Instruments and Commissions the Earl had lately received he knew these augustious Preparations would be ridiculously disappointed which was a Despight that a Gentleman not to say an Embassador should have prevented For the Disgrace was so far blown abroad with Derision that it was the News of Gazette's over all Europe The Intention of that Nation to give the Infanta in Marriage to the Prince being not controverted Yet his Highness protesting on his part that he was free unless the Palatinate were surrendred they were all satisfy'd with it his Word was Justice to them and that which was in his own Breast must alone direct him how to use his Freedom This Question dispatched was upon a blown Rose the next was upon a Bramble The Lord Duke was so zealous say it was for the Palsgrave's Sake that he voted the King of Spain to be desied with open War till amends were made to the illustrious Prince Elector for the Wrongs he sustained The Lords appointed for the Conference that apprehended it otherwise were the Keeper Treasurer Duke of Richmond Marquess Hamilton Earl of Arundâ—l Lord Carow Lord Belfast who could not say that the King of Spain had done the part of a Friend for the Recovery of the Palatinate as he had profess'd nor yet could they find that he had acted the Part of an Enemy declaredly as was objected Their Judgment was the Girts of Peace were slack but not broken This is couched in the Admonitions of an Ignote unto King James Cab. p. 278. The Conference or Treaty about the Palatinate was taken from the Council of State a Society of most prudent Men only for this Cause that almost every one of them had with one Consent approved the Propositions of the most Catholick King and did not find in it any Cause of dissolving the Treaty And a little beneath The Duke fled from the Council of State and disclaimed it for a Parliament by way of an Appeal Most true that scarce any in all the Consulto did vote to my Lord Duke's Satissaction which made him rise up and chase against them from Room to Room as a Hen that hath lost her Brood and clucks up and down when she hath none to follow her The next time he saw the Lord Belfast he asked him with Disdain Are you turned too and so flung from him Cab. p. 243. To which the Lord Belfast answered honestly in a short Letter That he would conform himself in all things to the Will and good Pleasure of the King his Master The greatest Grudge was against the Lord Keeper who seldom spake but all Opinions ran into his one as they did at this time and the Duke presumed that his Sentence should never vary from his own Mind An hard Injunction and all the Favour on Earth is too dear to be bought at such a Price But he declared that he saw no Expediency for War upon the Grounds communicated For upon whom should we fall says he either upon the Emperor or the King of Spain The Emperor had in a fort offered our King his Son-in-Law's Country again for a great Sum in Recompence of Disbursments but where was the Money to be had Yet it might be cheaper bought than conquered before a War were ended For the King of Spain he saw no Cause to assault him with Arms He had held us indeed in a long Treaty to our Loss but he held nothing from us and was more likely to continue the State of things in a possibility of Accommodation because he disliked the Duke of Bavaria's Ambition and had rather stop the Enlargement of his Territories The King was glad that some maintained his Judgment and would not consent wantonly to raise him from the Down Bed of his long admired Peace Neither did he refrain to speak very hardly of that Servant whom he loved best that agitated to compel him to draw the Sword one of the great Plagues of God His Censure upon him was bitter Cab. P. 92. but fit to be cast over-board in silence 176. A King of Peace is not only sittest to build Temples but is the Temple of God Such a one doth foresee how long how far how dangerously the Fire of War will burn before he put a Torch to kindle it And as every Bishop ought to have a care of the Universal Church so every King ought to have a care of all Humane Society It is not such a thing to raise War in these Days as it was in Abraham's Muster his Servants in one Day and rescue Lot from his Enemies the next Nor such as it was with the old Romans make a Summers Laâ—rt in Vit. before he laid down his Office The Charge in our Age which usually for many Years doth oppress the People will hardly countervail if GOD should send it the Gladness of a Victory Nor is all fear over when a War is ended But as Solon says Lacrt. in Vit. Great Commanders when they have done their Work abroad and are return'd with Honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do more Mischief by their Factions to their Country than they did against their Enemies And whosever scape well the poor Church is like to suffer two ways First as Camden says Eliz. Ann. 1583. Schismatica pravitas semper bello ardente maxime luxuriat Schismatical Pravity will grow up under the Licentiousness of War Some profane Buff-Coats will Authorize such Incendiaries Secondly For some Hundreds of Years by-past in Christendom I cannot find but where Wars have been protracted the Churchman's Revenue hath been in danger to pay the Soldiers If this affect not those that will not think that there is such a Sin as Sacrilege yet all acknowledge that there is such a Virtue as Humane Compassion Then they that would awake drouzy Peace as they call it with the Noise of the Drum and the prancing of Horses in the Street let them before they design their War describe before their Consciences the heaps of slaughter'd Carkasses which will come after That the Land which is before tâ—en shaâ—I look like the Garden of the Lord and that which is behind them like Burning and Brimstone For all this will they tempt God and be the Foes of
That if his Majesty should receive any intelligence that he was deteined in that State as a Prisoner he would be pleased for his sake never to think of him more as a Son but to reflect with all his Royal Thoughts upon the good of his Sister and upon the safety of his own Kingdoms Sic omnes unus amores vicit amor patriae And so far to the Supplements I must now explicate their Lordships Opinion who having by the Command of his Majesty taken into their Mature Considerations the whole Narration made by the Prince his Highness and my Lord Duke to both Houses in this place and all the Letters and Dispatches read unto them to corroborate the same And Lastly these Supplements and Additions recited before are of opinion upon the whole Bulk of the matter that his Majesty cannot rely upon or maintain any longer either of both these Treaties concerning the Match with Spain or the Restitution of the Palatinate with the safety of his Religion his Honour his Estate or the Weal and Estate of his Grand-Children And his Highness together with their Lordships are desirous to know whether you Gentlemen the Knights Burgesses and Citizens of the House of Commons do concur with their Lordships in this their Opinion which they ever referred to this further Conference with your Honourable House 192. As Plutarch said of the Laconick Apothegms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were Clean and Sound Timber with the Bark taken off So the Reader may observe in these Reports that the Matter is Heart of Oak the Style clear from Obscurity and disbark'd quite from superduity But regarding the Auditors and their Affections at that Season nothing could be more proper for he spake to their Content as if he had been within them with Sweet and Piercing Expressions resembled in the Harp and the Quiver of Arrows with which the Heathen Trimm'd up Apollo their Deity of Graceful Speech They that detract from such Worth would be glad it were their own as says our compleat Poet upon the like A good Man 's Envied by such as would For all their Spight be like him if they could But this beginning presaged good Luck to the ensuing Counsels debated in that Session This is called to this day the Blessed Parliament and so Posterity will take it from us Says Tully very well 3. Philip. Magna vis est magnum numen unum idem consentient is senatus A full Senate Head and Members consenting in one carries a Majestick and Oraculous Authority with it This is the Confirmation of it when the people brought before the King the Fruits of their Wisdom which they had Studied And the King did ratifie him chearfully with the Wisdom of his Power They opened their Purse to him and which was more beneficial to them then if they had spared a little Mony he let fall some Flowers off his Crown that they might gather them up which indeed was no more then desluvium pennarum the Molting of some Feathers after which the Eagle would Fly the better He opened his Ear to them in all their Petitions and they listned as much to him and gave their Ear-Rings to Jacob Gen. 35.4 So the King and the Subject became perfect Unisons And as God doth knit his own Glory and the Salvation of mankind together so the King did imitate God and Married his Honour with the welfare of the Kingdom Who is it that reads the Statutes 21 Jacobi and doth not admire them The Peers took it to be their greatest Nobility to look well to the Publick And the other House did light upon the True Companion of Wisdom Sâ—data Tranquillitas a Calm Tranquility as Rivers are deepest where they Foam least And all the Land had cause of rejoycing that the House of Commons was never better Replenish'd in Man's Memory with Knights and Burgesses of rare Parts and Tempers especially the Gown-men of the Inns of Courts who were extoli'd for Knowledge and political Prudence as no Age had afforded a better Pack And I give the Lord Keeper his Right and no more knowing his Traces perfectly at that time that he labour'd as for Life to keep an Harmony between the King and this Parliament to suck out his Majesties assent to all their Proceedings that he might shew himself as good as he was great Which I think was the greatest certainly the happiest part of Honour that ever the Lord Keeper Merited How he mitigated Discontents and softned refractoriness how he obliged the leading Voices with benefits how he kept the Prerogative of the Supreme Power and the Extravagancies of pretended Liberty on the other side from Encroachments the Wise only knew but they that knew it not were the better for it and that he was chiefly us'd in Consultation for compiling those wholesom Laws which had their double Resining and Clarifying from Lords and Commons In all likelihood prosperous success might be expected from this Parliament because it was Pious and Pious because it was a strict preserver of the Holy Patrimony Allotted to God Quae 〈…〉 erunt quam quibus Deus praestitit auxilium says Ansonius to the Emperor 〈◊〉 What Counsels are more compleat then those that are help'd by God Nay What Councels can be more compleat then theirs that defend the Right of God As worser times would let the Clergy keep nothing so those times by their good Will would let them part with nothing Let the Trial be observ'd as the Case follows 193. The Duke of Buckingham lack'd a dwelling according to the Port of his Title and to receive a very populous Family It must be near to Whitehal and it must be spacious None could be found so fit as the Arch-Bishop of York his House It was nigh to Charing-Cross and he came little to it The Duke us'd the Lord Keeper to move Arch-Bishop Mathew for his Consent and to make the Bargain between them causing him to make prosser of such Lands in the County of York as should be equivalent or better then the House Garden and Tenements belonging to the Arch-Bishop's Place For nothing was intended but Exchange with considerable Advantage to him and his Successors And that was sure as touch because the House was to be past by Act of Parliament to the Kings Majesty So the Duke had made it his humble Request and drew on the King hardly to make a Chop with those Demeasnes to which the Name of God and his Christ were made the Feoffees in the first Donation for the use of that Tribe which peculiarly serves him in Sacred Offices Yet with instance and much Suit the King was wrought to it for the Duke's sake As M. Antony said to his Confident Septimius Quod Concupiscas tu videris quod concupieris certè habebis Tul. 5. Philip. So this Beloved Minion should be Wise to see what he ask'd for his Master had no Power to say him nay His Majesty was most Nice and Cautious to make the Composition
else the Treasurer had been rescued by the Power and Justice of his Royal Master His Majesty perceived that the Actions of this unfortunate Man rack'd with the strictest Enquiries were not Sins going over the Head scarce reaching to the Ankles and why should he suffer him to sink under the Waves of Envy Therefore he sent for the Lord Keeper to Greenwich and gave him his Sense That he would not make his Treasurer a publick Sacrifice Sir says the Lord Keeper I have attempted among my surest Friends to bring him off fairly All shrink and refuse me only the stout and prudent Lord Hollis adventured upon the Frowns of the Prince and Duke and gave his Reasons why Middlesex to him appeared an Innocent I were mad if for my part I should not wish him to escape this Tempest and be safe under the Harbor of Your Majesty's Clemency Suam quisque fortunam in consilio habet quando de alienâ deliberat Curt. lib. 5. When I deliberate upon him I think of my self 'T is his Fortune to day 't is mine to morrow The Arrow that hits him is within an Handful of me Yet Sir I must deal faithfully Your Son the Prince is the main Champion that encounters the Treasurer whom if you save you foil your Son For though Matters are carried by the whole Vote of Parliament and are driven on by the Duke yet they that walk in Westminster-Hall call this the Prince's Undertaking whom you will blast in his Bud to the Opinion of all your Subjects if you suffer not your old and perhaps innocent Servant to be pluck'd from the Sanctuary of Your Mercy Necessity must excuse you from Inconstancy or Cruelty In the Close of this Speech the Kings Reason was convinced that he must use this Counsel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iliad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the Treasurer suffered the Dishonour or rather the Calamity of a Censure Himself was so comforted to his dying Hour as the engraved Posie spake his Thoughts in his great Chamber at Copt-Hall in Essex Quae venit immeritò paena dolenda venit And I spake with few when it was recent that were contented with it except the Members of the House who would not dislike their own Action 196. Popular Favor continued a while with the Duke and now he was St. George on Horseback let the Dragon take heed that stood in his Way The Earl of Middlesex was removed and he that presided over the great Accounts did now stand for a Cipher The Lord Keeper perceived his turn was next although he wanted not fair Words and fair Semblance from the Contriver But an Ambush is more dangerous than a pitch'd Battel because it is hid unless the Leader look about him in his March and search every Hedge by Vant-curriers as he did A vigilant Man will not sleep with both Eyes when he suspects Danger Cauto circumspectu vita quae variis casibus subjacet est munienda Apul. instam lib. 11. The Keeper knew he had deserved no ill yet he trusted not to that for he knew likewise how a Judge that hears many Causes must condemn many and offend many And if Justice should shrink in to decline Offences what were it so like unto as to one in the Fable that would feed upon nothing but Spoon-meat because he would not wear out his Teeth He was not ignorant of the laudable or at least the durable Custom of the Commons to countenance all Prosecutors and to file the Medly of all Complaints Therefore this Prometheus kept a careful Watch to repulse Embroilments as much as he could for though he had a sound Bark yet none but a phrantick Pilate would be willing to be toss'd in a Storm And he had been an ill Keeper if he had not been wary to keep himself to which I may fitly apply the Orators Words Philip 12. Qui mulâ—â—rum Custodem se profitetur eum sapientes sui primum capitis aiunt Custodem esse oportere He had made the Prince his fast Friend before who was so ingenious that when he had promised Fidelity there was no fear that he would start chiefly because he sought to lay hold on his Highness upon no other Conditions than to mortifie those spiteful accusations if any such hapned with his Frown that durst not stand the Breath of Truth Concerning the Duke he was not so silly to look any longer upon himself as growing on the former Root of his Favour yet he was not so rude to expostulate with him according to the Merit of his Unkindness and provoke him further but as it occurs Cab. P. 80. He tells his Lordship That Suspicions of his Displeasure transported him not a Jot further than to look about him how to defend himself that he begg'd Assurance of his Grace's former Love yet not in the least desire to crave the Patronage of any corrupt or unjust act of his that should be objected against him in Parliament nor to take Refuge to him in any Cause or Clamor otherwise than according to Justice and fair Proceeding A sufficient Number of other Friends were made already to him by his Wisdom and Deservings whom he never requested as he had no need of it to make a Side for him but to be intentive to disclose such Winding Insinuations which are apt to twine about some weak Understandings This Forecast made him stand unmoveable and unaffrighted when Petitions and Remonstrances of Perdue-Causes were entred against him They came about him like Bees and were extinct like Fire among the Thorns And what were they that made a Noise with their Grievances Itane nihil fortunam puduit si minus accusatae innocentiae at accusantium wilitatis Boeth de consol 'T is a shame that Innocency should be accused but what Remedy shall it have against base and beggerly Accusers against the very Kennel of the Fleet and other Goals against such whose Suits would admit of no good Order and their Forwardness of no bad I knew a Plaintif and Desendant Morgan and Bouglar that complained one as much as the other of the same Decree to the Parliament and at the Hearing of the Cause one of the Counsel protested that Two hundred and twelve Commissions References and Orders had past upon it After a while a Bundle of those frivolous Objections being read and examined were cast out of Doors and the House in the Afternoon being put into a general Committee Seven and thirty of those Paper-Kites slew away that same day and were never heard of more Some of the Members would have repaired the Lord Keeper and asked him what he would have done to his Adversaries Nothing says he for by this time they have all fretted themselves into Patience and some of them perhaps into Repentance Which proved even so For many of them came privily to be admitted to his Favour condemned their own scandalous Petitions and laid it upon a great Name that they were encouraged to bring them in whom he
in that kind to press an Injury against any Man but might come about to be Scann'd Little did a greater Man than the Duke the Emperor Ludovicus called the Holy Dream That he should be Persecuted so far by his Son Lotharius and Edo Bishop of Rhemes to set under his Hand an Acknowledgment of his Errors in forcing Judges to do unjustly Yet it was so as it is in Baron An. 833. Com. 17. Inter Ludovici crimina quae publicè agnouit Quod Judicantes ad falsum Judicium induxit Of two Evils the less was to be chosen by the Keeper rather to provoke one Man then all Men nay rather to provoke Man than GOD That some will be provok'd it cannot be avoided It is best to instance in a whole Nation to give no Offence Aristides in one of his Orations Censures the Old Romans and the Modern are no better They held all that were under them for Slaves and all that would be Freemen and not Slaves for Enemies The King heard the noise of these Crashes and was so pleas'd that he Thank'd God before many Witnesses that he had put the Keeper into that Place For says he He that will not wrest Justice for Buckingham 's Sake whom I know he Loves will never be corrupted with Money which he never Lov'd His Majesty would have a Judge to be such a one as Justinian aimed at Novel 17. Vir optimus purus his contentus quae à fisco dantur A good Man that took nothing of the People but was contented with such Wages as the King gave him He had found the Man And because the Lord Keeper had Husbanded that Stock Three years and half and lived fairly upon it and was not the Richer by the Sale of one Cursitors Place in all that time His Majesty Granted him a Suit by the Name of a New-Years-Gift after the size of the Liberality of that good Master which was enough to keep a Bountiful Christmas twice over The Giver did not repent him but thought himself repaid with a Conceit that this most useful Counsellor produc'd at that Season about the Children of the Prince Elector The Spanish Treaties were laid aside and new Ones from France rose up in their Room which being Examin'd it could not appear that they did portend any Comfort to the Recuperation of the Palatinate His Majesty bewailed that his Grand-Children then Young and Tender would be very Chargeable to England when they grew to be Men. It was their Sole Refuge They might Seek their Fortune in another place and come home by Spills-Bury Sir says the Lord Keeper Will you be pleased to listen to me taking in the Prince his Consent of which I make no doubt and I will shew how you shall furnish the Second and Third Brothers with Preferments sufficient to maintain them that shall cost you nothing Breed them up for Scholars in Academial Discipline keep them strictly to their Books with such Tutors as will Teach them not to abuse themselves with vain Hopes upon the Greatness of their Birth For it is a Folly to gape after the Fruit hanging upon a high Tree and not to know how to Climb it If they fall to their Studies design them to the Bishopricks of Durham and Winchester when they become void If that happen in their Nonnage which is probable appoint Commendatories to discharge the Duty for them for a laudable Allowance but gathering the Fruits for the support of your Grand-Children till they come to Virility to be Consecrated George Duke of Anhault having Ministerial Gifts was Ordain'd into that Holy Calling at Magdeburg and yet put to no Shifts as Melancthon is my Author and many more The Priestly Office was esteem'd from the beginning fittest for the best Gentlemen for the First-Born among them that serv'd the Truo God And the Romans who serv'd them that were no Gods learn'd it at Athens from Theseus Plut. in vità 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Citizens of the Noblest Blood should be train'd up in knowledge of Sacred Things and be made the Administrators of Divine Mysteries And I am at another Benefit wherein I praise God that I am assured Your Majesty will concur with me That the Office of a Bishop imprudently by many Mâ—lign'd I might charge them with a worse Crime will be the more Inviâ—lable when the Branches of Your Royal Stock have so great an Interest in it And such Provision is Needful against Schismatical Attempts both for Religious Sake and the Publick Weal For if such great Superstructions should fall all would come to Ruin that is round about them I will yet go further If Your Majesty think a Bishoprick though of the best kind too little for either of them you may please to annex to each of them one of your principal Offices of State as You find them Trusty and Discreet When he had ended As I Live says the King I will fellow this Direction I thank you heartily for it and I attend it that it will save me more then the worth of a Subsidy Thus far these Matters were well Chewed But because they were not followed when others bore the sway they never came to a second Concâ—ction 215. The Peaceable Period of King James's Reign drew on when the times were active about a Marriage between our Prince and a Daughter of France the youngest of Henry the Great 's Posterity for she was a Posthuma a Princess eminently adorn'd with many Rays of Honour celebrated far and wide for Beauty Wit and sweet Disclosures of Behaviour The Lord Keeper was not us'd in Counsel about it till after many sendings to and fro Yet what fell out at last for his part to the better Understanding of Conditions of Agreement is worthy to hang upon the File of Honourable Registry Viscount Kersâ—ngâ—â—â— Created of Holland in the pursuance of that Service was sent into France almost a Twelve-Month before to discover what Approbation was like to follow if this Match were offer'd The Earl had an Amorous Tongue and a Wise Head could Court it Smoothly as any Man with the French Ladies and made so Fortunate an account into England after Three Months of his Introductions that he saw no fear of denial in the Suit nor of Spinosity in the Articles But because he was 〈◊〉 put in Trust by the Lord Duke and our King would scarce acknowledge that he had given him Authority for all that he had done He sent the Earl of Carlile after him His Majesty much affying in that Lords Fidelity and put them both into the same Commission They were Peers of the best Lustre in our Court Elegant in their Persons Habit and Language and by their nearness to King 〈◊〉 apt Scholars to learn the Principles of Wisdom and the sitter to improve their Instructions to Honour and Safety While these Things went on the 〈◊〉 made it is Thought and Study what to do befitting a Counsellor and 〈…〉 upon the prospect of the
would witness against me for my Council-Table Opinion I would say to him as Gallus did to Tyberius Caesar Good Sir speak you first for I may mistake and you may witness against me for it in the next Parliament Some did make Laws with Ropes about their Necks What Must men give their Counsel as it were with Ropes about their Necks Solomon says When thou comest to a rich man's table put a knife to thy Throat But what 's here When we give Judgment as we are able among the Lords of the Council must we put an Ax to our Necks Beware of such Traps pittying the case of human Weakness 145. The fourth Question is thus comprized Whether some Members of the House of Commons may be present at the Examination Judicially they cannot the Judicature is in your Lordships but whether organically and ministerially is the Scruple to be satisfied I will be brief in my Conceptions what is against the claim of the House of Commons and what is for them This is not for them That 50 Edw. 3. one Love was a Witness in Lord John Nevile's Case Love denied what he had confest before two Knights Members of the Lower House The House of Commons send them to the Lords to confront Love which they did and Love was thereupon committed Now their being here was only to confront not to assist the Lords either judicially or ministerially Many things make for them why they may be there ministerially at least First Originally both Houses were together and so the Commons heard all Examinations Considerent inter se Modus ten Pl. and sate so till Anno 6 Edw. 3. by Mr. Elsing's Collections which are not over-authentick Secondly After that time they have all the House of Commons been present when Witnesses were sworn here Anno 5 Hen. IV. Rot. 11. swears his Fealty before the Lords and Commons and two or three days after by the same Oath and before the same persons clears the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of York from a Suspicion of Treason laid to their charge The Commons were by and heard all this The third Reason is Mr. Attorny-General if this Lord were arraigned of Treason as I pray God bless him from deserving it would be by and observe his Defence and such Witnesses as he should produce for himself and would no doubt bring Counter proofs Sur le Champ and upon the sudden against the same if he were able The House of Commons is in this case the King's Attorny who make and maintain the charge So far out of brief Notes for take them to be no other you have a strong Judgment pass'd upon four Questions Says Tully in his Brutus of Caesar's Eloquence Tabulam benè pictam collocat in bono lumine He draws his Picture well and hangs it out to be well seen So here 's a Piece well drawn and placed in the light of Perspicuity His next Argument is very long but of that use to the Reader that he shall not sind so much Learning in any Author on that Theme that I know a Scholar would not want it They that fostered deadly Enmities against E. Strafford laboured to remove the Bishops from the hearing of his Cause This Bishop and his Brethren minding to him all the Pity and Help they could shew him the Opposites began to vote them out of Doors and would not admit them in the Right of Peers in this Cause because it was upon Life and Blood Lincoln maintains that the Lords did them Injury and that Bishops in England may and ought to vote in causâ sanguinis That they were never inhibited by the Law of this Land never by the Peers of the Land before this time That their voluntary forbearance in some Centuries of the Ages before proceeded from their Fears of the Canons of the Court of Rome and by the special Leave of the King and both Houses who were graciously pleased to allow of their Protestations for their Indemnity as Church-men when the King and Parliament might have rejected their Protestations if they had pleas'd And much he insisted upon it that the opponent Lords grounded their Judgment upon the corrupt Canons of the Church of Rome Indeed I find in my own Papers that the Monks of Canterbury complain'd against Hubert their Archbishop to the Pope for sitting upon Tryals of Life and Blood They could not complain that he went against the Laws and Customs of England but their Appeal was to the Pope's Justice and it was more tolerable for Monks to rake in the Rubbish of the Roman Courts than for English Barons And say in sooth must not Divines of the Reformed Church meddle in Cause of Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amph. Would they be laugh'd at for this Hypocrisie or abhorr'd For who more forward to thrust into the Troops of the late War than the Ministers whom they countenanc'd Have I not seen them prance about the Streets in London with Pistols in their Holsters and Swords by their sides And so for Edg-hill and Newberry c. Could they rush into so many Fights and be clear from cause of Blood Nay the Pontisical part make but a Mockery of this Canon for anno 1633 a Book was printed in Paris sill'd with a Catalogue of Cardinals Bishops and Priests who had been brave Warriours most of them Leaders in the Field the Author a Sycophant aimed to please Cardinal Richlieu and a Fig for the Canons Reason Canons Parliamentary Privileges nay Religion are to corrupt men as they like them for their own ends Now hear how this Bishop did wage his Arguments for the affirmative 146. It is to be held for a good Cause against which nothing of moment can be alledg'd such is this concerning the Right of Bishops to vote in causâ sanguinis First It is not prohibitum quia malum not any way evil in it self no more than it is an evil thing in it self to do Justice Secondly It was in use from the Law of Nature when the eldest of the Family was King Priest and Prophet Thirdly It was in use under Moses's Law and so continued in the Priests and Levites down to Annas and Caiaphas and after Christ's death till the Temple was destroyed as appears by the scourging of the Apostles by the stoning of Stephen and commanding St. Paul to be smitten on the Mouth Fourthly It was in use in the persons of the Apostles themselves as in that Judgment given upon Ananias and Saphira in the delivery up to Satan as most of the ancient Fathers expound that Censure to be a corporal Vexation And generally in all the Word of God there is no one Text that literally inhibits Church-men more than Lay-men to use this kind of Judicature For that Precept to be no striker 1 Tim. 3.3 is no more to be appropriated to a Bishop distinct from the rest of Christian men than that which is added not to be given to Wine that is immoderately taken Proceed we
Lay-Lords and consequently continued present in Judicature in the eye and construction of the Law Therefore I apply my Answers to Courtney's Protestation principally which are divers and fit to be weighed and ponder'd First I do observe that Bishops did never protest or withdraw in Causes of Blood but only under the unsteddy Reign of Richard the Second Never before nor after the time of that unfortunate King to this present Parliament for ought appears in Record or History And that one Swallow should make us such a Spring and one Omission should create a Law or Custom against so many Actions of the English Prelates under so many Kings before so many Kings and Queens after that young Prince seems to me a strange Doctrine especially when I consider that by the Rules of the Civil and Common Law a Protestation dies with the death of him that makes it or is regularly vacated and disannulled Per contrarium actum subsequentem protestationem by any one subsequent act varying from the tenour of the said Protestation Regul Juris Bap. Nicol. part 2. Now that you may know how the Prelates carried themselves in this point and actually voted in Causes of Treason and sometimes to Blood before Richard the Second I refer me to what I cited before out of Mr. Selden and he out of Stephanides concerning Becket condemned by his Peers Ecclesiastical and Temporal 15 H. 2. Archbishop Stratford acquitted of High Treason in Parliament by four Prelates four Earls and four Barons under Edward the Third Antiq. Britan. p. 223. There was 4 Ed. 3. Roger de Mortimer Berisford Travers and others adjudged Traitors by Bishops as well as other Peers 16 Ed. 3. Thomas de Berkely was acquitted of Treason in pleno Parliamento And especially I refer my self to Roll 21 Rich. 2. Num. 10. which averrs That Judgments and Ordinances in the time of that King's Progenitors had been avoided by the absence of the Clergy which makes the Commons there to pray that the Prelates would make a Procurator by whom they might in all Judgments of Blood be at the least legally if they durst not be bodily present in such Judicatures And for the practice since the Reign of Rich. II. be it observed that in the fifth of Hen IV. the Commons thank the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for their good and rightful Judgment in freeing the Earl of Northumberland from Treason 3 Hen. 5. The Commons pray a Confirmation of the Judgment given upon the E. of Cambridge by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 5 H. 5. Sir J. Oldcastle is attainted of Treason and Heresie by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 28 H. 6. The Duke of Suffolk is charged with Treason before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 31 H. 6. The Earl of Devon in like sort and so down to the Earl of Bristol's Case 22 Maii 1626. ten Bishops are joyned with ten Earls and ten Barons in the disquisition and agitation of that supposed Treason I leave it therefore to any indifferent Judgment Whether these Protestations made all under one Kings Reign dying with the Parties that made them can void a Right and Custom grounded on a continual Practice to the contrary in all other Tryals that have been since the Conquest to this present Parliament 151. Secondly It is fitting we know the nature of a Protestation which some may mistake Protestatio est animi nostri declaratio juris acquirendi vel conservandi vel damnum depellendi causâ facta saith Spiegle Calvin and all the Civilians No Protestation is made by any man in his Wits to destroy his own Right and much less another mans but to acquire or preserve some Right or to avoid and put off some Wrong that was like to happen to the Party or Parties that make the Protestation As here in Courtney's Protestation the Prelates in the first place conceive a Right and Power they had voluntarily to absent themselves while some matters were treated of at that time in the House of Lords which by the Canon-Law the Breach whereof the Popes of Rome did vindicate in those times with far more Severity than they did the Transgressions of the Law of God they were not suffer'd to be present at not for want of Right to be there in all Causes but for fear of Papal Censures In the next place they did preserve their former Right as Peers which they still had though voluntarily absenting themselves More solito interessendi considerandi tyactandi ordinandi definiendi all things without exception acted and executed in that Parliament And in the last place they protest against any loss of right of being or voting in Parliament that could befall them for this voluntary absenting of themselves at this time And where in all this Protestation is there one word to prejudice their Successors or to authorize any Peer to command his fellow-Peer called thither by the same Writ of Summons that himself is and by more ancient Prescription to withdraw and go out from this Common-Council of the Kingdom Thirdly We do not certainly know what these matters were whereat Archbishop Courtney conceived the Prelates neither could nor ought to be present These matters are left in loose and general words in that Protestation Some conceive indeed it was at the Condemnation of Tressilian Brambre L. Beauchamp and others Ant. Brit. p. 286. But the Notes of Privileges belonging to the Lords collected by Mr. Selden do with more reason a great deal assign this going forth of the Prelates to be occasion'd by certain Appeals of Treason preferred in that Parliament by the Duke of Gloucester against Alexander Archbishop of York whom the Popish Canons of those Times as you know exempted as a sacred person from the cognizance of King or Parliament and therefore the rest of the Bishops as the Squares went then neither could nor ought to be present and Parties to break the Exemptions Immunities and Privileges of that great Prelate But the Earl of Strafford is not the Archbishop but the President of York and to challenge any such Exemptions and Immunities at this time from the cognizance of King and Parliament amounts to little less than Treason Therefore this Protestation is very unseasonably urged to thrust out any Protestant Prelate from voting in Parliament Lastly In the Civil and Canon-Law for the Law of this Land knoweth it not a Protestation is but a Testation or witnessing before-hand of a man 's own Mind or Opinion whereby they that protest provide to save and presorve their own Right for the time to come It concludes no more bende themselves no Stranger to the Act no Successor but if it be admitted sticks as inherent in the singular and individual person until either the Party dyes or the Protestation be drawn and revoked Therefore what is a Protestation made by Will. Courtney to Will. Laud Or by Tho. Arundel to bind Tho. Morton And what one Rule in the Common-Law of the Land in the Journaâ—-Books or
〈…〉 unsel being present keeping my Intention from my Chancellor himself from whom I never kept any of my weightiest Business Because if I had made him of my Counsel in that purpose he had been blamed for putting the same into my Head which had not been his Duty For it becometh no Subject to give his Prince Advice in such Matters In this Story it appears that the Father-King trod the way to his Son to undergo such an Audacious Journey in the pursuance of his Love Quid non effraeno captus amore Audeat Ovid. Then that he Persisted in his Principles of Secrecy for a generous End that he might not draw his Chief and Best Servants whom he loved most into a Snare of Guiltiness 127. Let Provision be made to the most that could be for the safety of all others yet Sir Ant. W. in his Court and Character of K. James hath one Exception That the King set this Wheel on Running to destroy Buckingham for the hatred which he had long bore him and would not think it ill to loose his Son so Buckingham might be lost also Pag. 149. O Horrid But the best is the Foundation is Rotten For Buckingham as all Men about the King would Testifie was in as high Favour at that time as any Subject was ever with his Sovereign But when Sir A. to make out the Proof he lays it upon Sir H. Yelverton displaced from the Office of Attorney General to the King and committed to the Tower 't was he that assured the Marquess that the King hated him more than any man Living pag. 159. Sir Harry was Unfortunate but too honest a Man to sow Discord between the King and his principal Peer and Attendant Now mark upon what Bottom the Contriver of this Tale doth wind his Forgery Sir W. Balfore at the time of his Lieutenancy of the Tower brought the Marquess at Midnight to Sir H. Yelverton's Chamber being then his close Prisoner Where Sir William heard those Passages and a great deal more between them And by one or other who came to the knowledge of it but this Sir Anthony O Wicked Servant to thy good Master O fowl Bird that defilest the Nest wherein thâ—u wert hatch'd and well fledg'd Thou art catch'd in thine own Lime for thou never couldst have Conserence with Sir W. Balfore or Sir H. Yelverton about such a matter For Learned Yelverton was never Prisoner to Valiant Balfore Sir Allen Apsley was Lieutenant all the time of that worthy man's restraint And Sir W. Balfore was not preferr'd to that Office of great Trust in more than four years after Sir Harry had obtain'd his Liberty when Knaves will turn Fools it is not amiss to be merry with them And I will fit Sir Anthony with a Jest out of Illustrius the Pythagorean p. 23. One Daphidas came to the Pythian Deity to beseech his Oracleship to tell him when he should find a Gelding of his that was gone astray You shall find him very shortly says Apollo's Minister I thank you for your good News says Daphidas but I have neither lost a Horse nor have a Horse to loose So I turn Sir Anthony over to the Committee of Oracles and proceed After the Princes Out Leap the King lingred at New-market till the time was nigh that every day Tidings were expected of his safe Arrival in Spain that he might shew himself to the Lords at White-hall with better Confidence which he did March 30. being the first day that the Lord Keeper spake with the King about his dear Sons Planetary Absence No sooner had he made most humble sign of his Majesties Welcome by Kissing his Hand but the King Laugh'd out this Question to him Whether he thought this Knight-Errant Pilgrimage would be lucky to win the Spanish Lady and to convey her shortly into England Sir says the Lord Keeper If my Lord Marquess will give Honour to Conde Duke Olivares and Remember he is the Favourite of Spain Or if Olivares will shew Honourable Civility to my Lord Marquess Remembring he is a Favourite of England the Woing may be Prosperous But if my Lord Marquess should forget where he is and not stoop to Olivares or if Olivares forgetting what Guest he hath Received with the Prince bear himself haughtily and like a Castilian Grandee to my Lord Marquess the Provocation may be Dangerous to Cross your Majesties good Intentions And I pray God that either one or both of them do not run into that Errour The King drew a Smile at the Answer but bit his Lip at the presage Discourse being Enlarg'd between them the King perceiv'd that his Counsellor had other Fears and that his Brain teemed with Jealousies of very hard Encounters which he knock'd upon softly that his Majesty might discern them and not seem to apprehend them Only thus far the King proceeded to ask him If he had wrote to his Son and to the Lord Marquess clearly and upon what Guard they should stand Yes Sir says he for that purpose I have dispatch'd some Packets Then continue says the King to help me and themin those difficulties with your best Powers and Abilities and serve me faithfully in this motion which like the highest Orbe carries all my Raccolta's my Counsels at the present and my prospects upon the Future with it and I will never part with you The Cause which made His Majesty so solicitous made the Lord Keeper need no Provocation to diligence He was before hand And upon the 25 of February by a Currier that was at Madrid almost as soon as the Prince he wrote two Letters following to his Highness and to the Lord Marquess A Letter to the Prince May it please your Highness 128 ALthough Prayer is all the Service That at this time either I the most obliged or any other the wisest of your Servants can perform unto you yet I Humbly beseech your Higness to pardon true Affections that cannot stay there but will be expressing of it self though peradventure neither wisely nor discreetly The Comick Writer held these two scarce competent Amare sapere And to exclude all shew of discretion I presume to write this First Letter of mine to your Highness without so much as excribing or taking a Copy of the same this opportunity admitting no leisure at all to do the one or the other Your Journey is generally reputed the depth of your danger which in my Fears and Representations your Arrival should be You are in a strange State for ought we know uninvited business being scarce prepared subject to be staid upon many and contrary pretenses made a Plot for all the Wisdom of Spain and Rome for all the contemplations of that State and that Religion to work upon And peradventure the detaining of Your Highness his Person may serve their turn as amply as their Marriage at least wise for this time and the Exploits of the ensuing Summer I write not this to fright you who have Testified to all the
and ever owing Thanks to your Grace The Dispensation is come and with it good Tidings that your Carriage hitherto hath been so discreet and the Event so fortunate that our Master is wonderfully pleas'd But we were formerly never so desirous to see that Box that carries this Dispensation than we are now to open it and to know by reading the same what God hath sent us We all wonder at his Majesties Reservedness for it came hither on Saturday last this Day sevennight But his Majesty hath enjoyned Mr. Secretary Calvert silence therein And I believe for my part at the least that Mr. Secretary hath perform'd his Commandment We all think and the Town speak and talk of the worst and of very difficult Conditions My dear Lord You have so lock'd up all things in your own Breast and sealed up his Majesties that now our very Conjectures for more they were not are altogether prevented If things succeed well this course is best if otherwise I conceive it very dangerous But it were a great Folly to offer any Advice unto you who only know what you transact in your own Cabinet How then shall I fill up this Letter To certifie this only that all Discontents are well appeased and will so remain without doubt as long as Businesses continue successful But if they should decline I am afraid the former Disgusts of your appropriating this Service will soon be resumed And then how dangerous it is to leave your Friends ignorant of your Affairs and disabled to serve you I refer to your Graces Wisdom and Consideration I do believe none of us all would keep your Counsel without a Charge to do so this keeping Counsel is a thing so out of fashion nor reveal it if it be otherwise required c. The Lord Keeper in this Letter miss'd the true Cause why his Majesty did not yet impart a sight of the Dispensation to any of his Counsellors The reason was because it came to him in a private Packet And he expected it to be deliver'd to him as it ought by Publick Ministers the Ambassadors of the King of Spain who kept it dormant about a Fortnight in their Hands whether it proceeded from their Native Gravida to retein that long in their Stomach which needed no Concoction or to listen what the many-headed Multitude would say in London or out of some other State-juggling As I have laid forth in this what was mistaken by the L. Keeper out of his own Memorials preserv'd So in another Line he hazarded his Love to be ill taken representing to the Duke the Truth That the King did somewhat disgust his appropriating the whole Service to himself that is repulsing the Earl of Bristol or restreining him to silence where their Counsels were held I know not whether the Duke did so soon regret at this for it is the first time and 't is well plaister'd over with mild Counsel So Statuaries says Plutarch do not only hew and peck the Alabaster upon which they work but smooth it likewise which is the neatest part of their Cunning. By another Letter from the same Hand dated near to the former May 11. I perceive that the Duke our Lord Admiral demanded the Navy Royal to be made ready and to be sent to the Coast of Spain to conduct the Prince and his Followers Home Which the King gave order to be done But the Lord Keeper wrote to his Grace if it were not with the soonest the main Matter not grown yet to any colour of ripeness That the Charge would be very heavy to the Exchequer Such a Fleet must be costly to be set forth but far more costly to be kept long abroad As for Cost it was the least thing that was thought upon It was no time for Frugality The Stratagem was to have the Navy lie ready at Anchor in some safe distance from the Spanish Havens That if the Prince could recover no Satisfaction to reasonable Demands from stiff Olivarez and other Grandees Or if they persisted to burden the Match with insupportable Conditions his Highness after a short Complement might take his leave and have all things prepar'd at a Days warning if the Wind serv'd for his Reduction into England With this Fleet some precious Ware never seen no nor heard of in Spain before at least among the Laicks was transported thither the Liturgy of our Church translated into the Spanish Tongue and fairly printed by the Procurement and Cost of the Lord Keeper The Translator was John Taxeda the Author of the Treatise call'd Hispanus Conversus a good Scholar once a Dominican whom his Patron that set him on work secured to our Church with a Benefice and good Prebend He studied this Translation Day and Night till it was ended He that writes this was often at his Elbow to communicate with him when he put Questions how to proceed But the Lord Keeper himself with other Overseers that had perfectly learn'd the Castilian Language perus'd it faithfully and if there were not aptness in any phrase corrected it With his Majesties Privity and great Approbation two Copies of it were carried Religious Tokens the one to his Highness the other to my Lord Duke as the best and most undeniable Certificate that a particular Church can shew to vindicate the right Profession of their Faith from all Scandals and to declare their Piety in all Christ's Ordinances squared and practis'd by a publick Rule after the Beauty of Holiness A Book of Common-Prayer which all call a Liturgie is suitable to the Form of good Churches in all Ages reduceth us to good Notions from wandring Extravagancies preserves Harmonious Conformity between all the Daughter-Churches that are called from one Mother in one Realm or State It is our Witness to assoil us when we are spitefully charg'd with Errours so Chamieras Gerardus Camero Spanhemius Amyraldus and divers more the best of Modern Writers in defence of the Reformed way draw their second Rank of Arguments next to the Sacred Scriptures out of their Liturgies to justifie their Tenents Finally with this Office of Divine Worship he that celebrates Gods Service is ready at all times to offer up to God the Sacrifice of Prayer when some perhaps at some times are affected with Languor of Health and then not so sit to speak suddenly to God in the behalf of the People and when the most have Infirmity of Judgment and are unsit at all times Beshrew the Tettar of Pride that runs over many Wits and makes them care for nothing that 's made ready to their Hand and puts them in love with nothing but their own Conceptions What have we lost Nay What hath God lost in the Honour due unto him How is his Truth How is his Name How is his Glory dis-reverenced over all this Land since our Liturgie hath been Mortgag'd to the Directory 139. It would be remembred that this comes in upon the mention of the Fleet call'd for and hastned to weigh Anchor
at Chattam and to ride near to St. Anderos to bring the Prince for England if there were a rupture in the Treaty But if they should suddenly strike Hands and make a Bargain my Lord Duke had his Thoughts upon a Question which if it should be ask'd he would not be surpriz'd as if he were ignorant what to answer that is What Dowry should be granted to the Princely Bride Therefore he consulted the Lord Keeper and required Satisfaction to be brought by a Courier that must not spare Horse-Flesh who was hied away as fast as he could be with this Answer May 14. My Illustrious Lord THe Dowry about which your Grace requires the speediest Direction must consist in some of the Kings fair Mansion Houses and in Revenue For both which the Mannor-Houses and the just Sum of the Joynture I must refer to you and can do no otherwise to my Lord of Bristol's former Conclusions with that Council But whether it should be allotted in Land or other Revenue I cannot yet convince mine own Judgment fully which were better Sometimes I consider it were good that a great part were named out of Customs and such other Incomes lest our Poverty in Crown-Lands be discovered Sometimes I find it for certain more advantageous to his Highness to have all the Joynture in Land and that the choicest of our Kingdom because being once in the Joynture it is sure to be preserv'd in the Crown and no longer subject to be begg'd or begger'd by Fee-Farms and unconscionable Leases And I believe your Lordship will so advise it Or if you please the Sum being agreed upon you may suspend the rest till you return that Counsel in the Law on all sides may put their Cases upon it Your Grace will give me leave to observe that now is the first time that any Daughter-in-Law of this Crown had any other set Maintenante than was granted to her voluntarily by her Husband But your Grace may reply That this is the first Portion of so great a Bulk And it is no way inconvenient for his Highness that she have a Copious Maintenance confirm'd to her in present as I could tell your Grace at large if I were present with you All is right here to your Lordship's Good and I will be vigilant to keep it so Nor will I serve his Majesty in that place wherein I shall not be so heedful as to be able to yield an account of any Disservice or Offer that way which may concern your Grace c. By the same Messenger at the same time another Dispatch was posted to the Prince in answer to his Highness who had signified his Pleasure was That the Recusants should be gratified for his sake warily and not by broad Day-light to shew that he was sensible of those Hospital Civilities which he then received from some Cards of their Suit Whereupon the Lord Keeper writes May it please your Highness I Would I had any Abilâ—â—â—â—â— to serve your Highness in this place wherein you have set me and what far more Grace and Favour Countenanced and Encouraged me To observe your Highnesses Commands I am sure the Spanish Ambassador resiant must testifie that since your Highnesses Departure he hath been denied no one Request for Expedition of Justice or ease of Catholicks although I usually hear from him twice or thrice a Week which I observe the more Superstiticusly that he might take knowledge how sensible we are of any Honour done to your Highness And yet in the Relaxation of the Roman Catholicks Penalties I keep off the King from appearing in it as much as I can and take all upon my self as I believe every Servant of his ought to do in such Negotiations the Events whereof be hazardous and uncertain God Bless your Highness as in all other so especially in this present Business of so main Importance c. These are the Negotiations which the Lord Keeper for his Share at this Season brooded under the Wings of Fidelity and Prudence How well let the Wise and Unbiassed be Judges Such will not be Cajol'd into a wrong Belief by Corruptors of History as Heraclides serv'd his Scholars Quos duplo reddidu sluitiores quam acceperat ubi nihil poterant discere nisi Ignorantiam Cicer. Orat. pro Flacco 140. It is enough declared how the great Matters about the Match went here The Dispensation of Pope Gregory the XV. turn'd them round in Spain till they were giddy with the Motion It was expected it should come in the common Church Style an absolute and Canonical Dispensation and no more only for her Sake that was in Submission to his Laws But it was Compounded with so many Reservations and ill-visag'd Provisoes that it swell'd like a Tympany The Pope knew with home he had to deal For there are none in the Earth more Superstitious to do him Honour then the King of Spain and his People That King would make the Pope too big for a Priest that the Pope might make him too great for a King Nor is there any other intent to make that Patriarch of the West the sole capacious Fountain from which all Pipes of Grace and Indulgence Ecclesiastical should be fill'd and run abroad but principally to Water his own Garden What between the Nuncio Resiant at Madrid who was Commanded to stop all Proceedings till safety were granted nay and put in Execution both for English and Irish Catholicks as much as they ask'd What with the Charge given to the Inquisitor General to use all possible diligence to draw the Prince to his Holiness's Obedience What with Olivarez's frowardness of whom the Duke could not obtain to put a Postscript in his Letter to the Pope that to add these new and un-relish'd Conditions with which the Dispensation was Clogg'd would be interpreted the worst of Unkindness what with all these together his Highness might say Fat Bulls of Basan have compassed me in on every side A little Honey God wot a little was allowed to to the Lip of the Cup if he would Taste of that Potion that was that from thenceforth his Highness might have access to his Dearly Affected Mistress not as formerly a bare Visitant but now as a Lover so some of their chief States were in presence to hear all their Conference a Rule which they say is never Infring'd in the grave way of the Castilian Wooing The old Man Gregory the XV. gave light himself to his Friends and Servants in Spain what they should do by the Flame of his own Zeal For he sent a Letter to the Prince Signed with the Signet-Ring of St. Peter to exhort his Highness with many words to reduce himself and the Kingdoms of which he was the Heir to the Subjection of the Roman See Hereupon some of our Hot-Heads in England made it a Quarrel and a Calumny that the Prince sent an Answer of Civility to the Popes Epistle Civility though it is a thing unknown among the Plebeians and Clowns
Opinion with his Highness and now a very fair and favourable Aspect from my Royal Master May I never enjoy the one or the other any longer than I shall return them both to their first Orignal and employ them to the last Drap in your Grace's Service Having not yet spoken with Sir Francis Cottington I shall not deliver my Opinion of the State of your Negotiation but go on with my Baeds and pray still unto God to bless and prosper it Only we have here many odd Relations of the same agreeing in this That the grand Business is much short of the Forwardness we expected and at this time in part dis-joynted First Some Distasts between your Lordship and Count d'Olivarez are reported to be of late in some sort skinned over rather than healed 2. Your casting of the Earl of Bristol from all Employment before suspected only is now freely discoursed 3. That Porter drew on your Grace and that your Grace drew on the Prince and pressed the King's Assent unto this secret Voyage and all upon a Foundation either imagined or mis-apprehended by Porter the first Mover Upon these Suspitions and five Weeks Silence taking a little Advice with my Lord Hamilton whom I observed most faithfully constant unto your Grace I touched upon his Majesty this Day Seven-night to feel how his Majesty stood affected in case you should return without your Errand And taking occasion to recommend that vigorous and active Course your Lordship was reported to run in pressing and forcing some speedy Resolution and averring that however it sped it was the only true Service an Agent could now do unto his Majesty His Majesty replied instantly That he did so interpret it and that none bat Fools or Knaves could otherwise censure it Which I profess before God I was glad at the Heart to hear fall from his Majesty And your Grace may do well to keep this Intelligence by you If I have offended in being thus bold I crave your Pardon it was the fervency of my Love and Affection And if I offend in the other Extream which is in omitting to say or do what I ought to do in your Service impute it to your own Silence and Reservedness your Grace being defective to your self and injurious to my Lord Hamilton and me if you shall not impart unto us freely and timely any ill Success which Good keep off that shall befall in this Negotiation For the good News I am content to take it upon Retail from Pauls but the worst I shall expect to hear at the first from your Grace I beseech your Lordship to take some Occasion to salute in a Letter to my Lord President the Lords of the Council who have ever been very observant in publick of you and yours and are much dejected with notice of some Letters wherein your Grace should intimate the contrary In good Faith your Grace hath found all Respect with the Body of the Council in all this time of your Absence And I hambly beseech you to take heed what Words you let fall concerning the Lord Treasurer All that are about you stand in need of his Favour as the World now goeth And in good Faith I never observ'd him since his coming to this Office more respectful to your Lordship and your Friends than he is at this Instant c. Truly no Proceeding could be more genteel to win the Hearts of all the Great Ones to his Grace and to keep them sure unto him than to perswade him that he had no Enemy 146. The Latter of the two Letters is come abroad in Cab. P. 78. whose Date should be June 28 whereof because it is in many Hands some Jaggs will suffice to be recited MY Love makes me sometimes write and many times fear fondly and foolishly for the which I hope your Grace will pardon me I have been srighted more three Weeks since about Quarrels and Jars which now Dick Greyham hath related in part to the King than at this present I am For God's-sake be not offended with me if I exhort you to do that which I know you do to observe his Highness with all Lowliness Humility and dutiful Obedience and to piece up the least Seam rent which Heat and Earnestness may peradventure seem to produce If the great Negotiation be well concluded let all private Disagreements be wrapped up in the same and never accompany your Lordship into England I beseech you in your Letter to the Marquess Hamilton intimate unto him your Considence and Reliance upon his Watchfulness and Fidelity in all Turns which may concern your Grace I have often said unto his Lordship that your Grace hath in many of my Letters expressed as much and so have pacified him for the time I have had an hours Discourse with his Majesty yesterday Morning and do find so disposed to yourdship as my Heart desireth yet hath been informed of the Discontentments both with the Conde d'Olivarez and the Earl of Bristol c. 'T is confest that these Advertisements so dutifully presented were sullenly taken It offended that the Lord Keeper look'd through his Grace's Infirmities with a quick Eye though with a noble Sadness He might have wrote somewhat else if he had been less Wise or less Honest Yet still he wrote for the Valuation of the Duke's Goodness to him was so great that the Sowerness of present Unkindness must be dipt in the sweet Sawce of former Benefits It is intoninus the Emp. Similitude cast Dirt into a pure Fountain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will purge it out and supply clear and wholesome Water Immemiately before that is while the former of these Letters was upon the Way the Duke entrusted the Prince's greatest Secret and his own to the Lord Keeper with a Charge to carry it with him to the King being cautious that no Foot-step of it should remain under his own Hand or any other Therefore thus he salutes the Lord Keeper June 17. My Dear Lord THIS inclosed is a Letter from his Highness to His Majesty I pray you deliver it with your own Hands and read it likewise to him but when you are alone with him If you show him this Letter he will I am sure give you leave When it is read the Prince bids you either burn it or keep it for him I beseech you excuse me for not writing oftner I shall now every day be so busie that I shall have less Leisure than before Yet I pray you let me hear sometimes from you and how his Majesty uses you in my Absence for I am sure he knows you my Friend which I shall strive while I live to continue c. That which was sit to be kept in tenebris for that time may now come to light without Injury by his Gloss upon it who the King excepted only knew it Our Prince either was weary or was perswaded to be so with Articles upon Articles and Additions upon Additions in that Spanish Junto Therefore
Infanta what you have merited and to accommodate all other Mistakes here concerning that Proceeding If your Grace would reconcile your Heart I would not doubt but with the Conclusion of the Match to compose all things to your good Satisfaction and to bring them to a true Understanding of you and of their Obligation unto you But his Lordship knew what he had deserved and that it was not possible to look for good Quarter from them So he cut off the Thread of the Match with these Scissors The Love of the English must not be lost the Love of the Spaniard could not be gain'd But it was passing ill done of him to deal so with his dear Master to whom he owed more than ever he could pay for whom he should not have been nice to hazard his Preservation He knew the bottom of the King's Bosom that his Majesty accounted this great Alliance to be the Pillar of his present Honour and the Hope of his future Prosperity That all his Counsels with foreign States turned upon that Hinge That he looked for golden Days with it which would fill our People with rich Traffick and spread Peace over all the Borders of Europe He knew his Lord the King desired to live but to see it finished and car'd not to live after he saw it vanished Crediderim tunc ipsam fidem humanam negotia speculantem maestum vultum gessisse Valer. lib. 6. Let the Duke have his deserved Praises in other things great and many but let Fidelity Loyalty and Thankfulness hide their Face and not look upon this Action Let his Friends that did drive him to it and wrought upon his flexible Disposition bear much of the Obloquy For it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Man but God that made the Law He that kindled the Fire let him make Restitution Ex. 22.6 148. He that hateth the Light loves not to come to the Light lest his Deeds should be reproved Joh. 3.20 The Politici that carried the Duke athwart with their excentrick Motion were very impatient to be discovered They thought they had beat their Plot upon a quilted Anvil and that their Hammer could not be heard But time is a Blab which will tell all Secrets and spared not this The Lord Keeper was much maligned as the Author of the Detection Yet he deserved not the Glory for it was the King himself by this Occasion The Embassadors of the Catholick King pressed that the Articles assented to by the Prince and those about him should be ratified And Preparation was made to give them Satisfaction So the Lord Keeper assures the Duke Cab. P. 78. The King is resolved to take certain Oaths you have sent hither and I pray God afterwards no further Difficulty be objected These Oaths being brought to discussion at the Council-Table there were among the Lords that supprest their Consent till better knowledge did warrant them and some Aspect of Necessity did make them resolute to Agreement While these few of the Lords were suspensive in their Judgment it was brought to the King that some profest Servants and Creatures of the Duke's cavilled at certain Articles in the matter of the Oath and were very busie to puzzle those who had not yet compleatly deliberated upon them The King laid this to other things he had heard and he was able to put much together in a Glance of Imagination and called one of them that was employed in this unacceptable Office to a private Conference whom his Majesty handled with such searching Questions conjured with such Wisdom wound into him with that Sweetness that he fetcht out the Mystery yet giving him his Royal Word to conceal his Person Sic suo indicio periit sorex So the Rat was catcht by his own Squeaking This his Majesty imparted to the Lord Keeper and Marquiss Hamilton and was not a little discomforted upon it for here was a Danger found out but not a Remedy Yet he went on chearfully to all seeming to that which was come to a ripe Head and gave Command to the Lord Keeper to prepare all things for the solemn Confirmation of the Covenants that were brought from Spain He went went about it and had about him those three Qualities which run together in St. Paul Rom. 12.11 Not slothful in Business fervent in Spirit serving the Lord That is Diligence Courage Conscience Zealots who are favourable to themselves that they think they have among them the Monopoly of Conscience had been able to discourage another who in common Discourse laid no less Crime than Atheism no Religion upon him that should give Furtherance to a Popish Marriage much more if for Reasons of State-Compliance he should refresh the Party adherent to Rome with any Mercy or Favour But this man regarded not Rumors before Reason God had given him a Spirit above Fear which he would often say had the greatest Influence in the Corruption of two brave things Justice and good Counsel So he was resolved as Illustrius says of Theod 〈◊〉 the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to spend or cast away some Wisdom not only for the Intelligent but for their Sakes that were ignorant and knew not how to use it The Precedent for this Work he conceived would be to turn over the Paper Stories of Queen Elizabeth's Reign when the first and second Dukes of Anjou were propounded for Husbands to that glorious Lady of whom the latter came so near to speed that wise Burleigh with others that had gray Hairs and grave Heads drew up a Book for the Consummation of the Marriage Lay that Treaty with the French Monsieur and this of Spain together and there needs no striving to bring them to great Resemblance in the Comparison There was as much Disparity in Religion between the one Pair as the other The Duke of Anjou came as unexpectedly to the Queen at Greenwich as the Prince came unlooked for to Madrid The Duke brought but two or three in Train Camb. Eliz. Fol. P. Ann. 1579. no more did the Prince The French Treaties continued eight years to obtain the Queen the same Term of time had been spent in the Prince's Behalf to enjoy the Infanta Eight years past and nothing past beside for both the Lovers were non-suited in the end The Duke of Anjou courted the Queen when her People regretted that he besieged the Protestants in Rochel at the same time Gladio ejus eorum cruore intincto qui eandem quam Angli profitentur Religionem Camb. An. 1573. Our Prince solicited for his Mistress in Spain when the Palatinate was wasted with Fire and Sword by Spinola which was dearer to us by far than Rochel Finally Take three things more in a Twist together Did some of our good People fear a Prejudice to Religion by the Prince's intended Match even so Religionis mutationem ab Andino Angli nonnulli timuerunt Did a Bride from Spain go against the vulgar Content So did a
Letter had followed the News of the Sermon if it had been a Chicken of the same Brood Finally There was nothing done that needed a Recantation Yet Opinions were so various that some spread it for a Fame That the Prince himself gave the Lord Keeper no Thanks for his Labour But that which follows will encounter it to break the Chaw-bone of the Lye as it is to be found in a Postscript of his to the Duke Cab. p. 85. May it please your Grace I Troubled his Highness with a long Relation of the Consulto we had about his Majesties taking the Oaths About which I was affrighted by Great Men that I had done his Highness a Displeasure to press his Majesty to assent to the same And I protest I was so poorly accompanied in my Opinion that I was truly afraid I had not done well And therefore I took occasion to write my Reasons at large to the Prince which I heard by Sir John Hipsley from your Grace was well taken I humbly thank your Grace who I know forwarded the same And so I perceive by a Letter from his Highness so full of sweetness as I am overwhelmed That sweet Letter is preserved written every Syllable with his Highness's own Hand which will shew the sufficiency of his Pen at those young Years but much more the Pleasure he took in those that did him faithful Service My Lord THere are three Circumstances which double any Good Turn that one Friend does to another To be done in absence being undesired and in time of Necessity You have not only done me a Friendly Office but in a time when my Reputation lay at the Stake I being absent upon an Occasion that few are fully satisfied with and in a thing that I did not particularly ask your help in And lastly With that which Crowns every Action Good Success I will not say how much I am bound to you for this For it were too much a Complementary way which I neither love nor am good at but only that I desire to have an Occasion to requite though not to put me out of this Debt How things stand here you have known before this time And I have nothing as yet to desire you to facilitate with you If you desire to know how soon I shall begin my Journey homeward I think certainly that it will be about the 27th of the next Month. But I fear that the Infanta shall not go with me So I end Your loving and constant Friend Charles P. Madrid July 30. 1623. This was sent away in 17 Days after the Agreement was struck up at Wansted Happy are they who being put to drudge at the Plough of State-Affairs do reap the Harvest of such Gracious Acceptance And a Prince will find it true that he gets as many Hearts when he receives the Devoirs of his Subjects comfortably and smilingly as when he rewards them bountifully So Pliny in the Paneg. to Trajan Non minùs regium summaeque humanitatis parva lubenti facilique suscipere animo quà m magna largiri A King cannot always reward but he may always commend the well-deserving of his Vassals Which is good Interest though it be not the Principal For an Ingenuous Servant that is not yet gratified is solaced with Hope But he that is not stroak'd with good Words is discourag'd for ever 153. Enough is contein'd in this little touch that his Highness in his Letter of surpassing Love was just to himself as well as gracious to his trusty Minister One Man's Wit wrought Miracles here to soder up all the broken pieces of the business Though the Prince had skilful Men about him yet there wanted such another Head-piece at his Elbow in Spain I cannot but think of him when I remember what Cuiacius said of his great Master in the Caesarean Law Nemo unus erit unquam Papinianus Neither let his Praise fall lower because he was not a Nestor in Years For he was elder at this time than Papinian was when he died He followed the Cares of the Prince in Madrid when his Imployment was call'd for but being far off not altogether with the like success It was hot Weather now in that Torrid Climate the Bocca Difurno as they call it and the Treaty of the Match was not a little scorch'd The Duke wrote to the Lord Keeper July 8. That he did not altogether distrust a good End His Highness in his July 30. seems to presage That he hop'd for a desired End The Words are sufficiently chearful but some Art was in them For perusing the very Reports of those gallant Persons when they came into England I find all things about this time look very sickly and with a Face of Consumption The Earl of Bristol an understanding Author in these Affairs writes That the Match was so really intended that it was past all danger of miscarrying if the fault were not on our side yet together he confesseth That the Spaniards have committed many Errours in their proceeding with the Prince Cab. P. 23. Right For 't is easie to tumble forth an huddle of them at this time The Ratification of the Articles was ready to be publish'd by the Nuncio after much ado But the Pope dies July 8. Benè fecit Regulus quod mortuus est melius si ante says Pliny Lib. 6. Ep. ad Arn. But well had it been if old Gregory had lived longer or died sooner The Life of his Dispensation and Confirmations expired with him All the Ground we had trod must be trod over again and we are carried back to the beginning of the Race from whence we started And no coming forward no not a foot till St. Peter's Chair was fill'd again Whose Successor was not chosen till August the 6th Nor he at leisure to mind this Matter in his new Pontificality till September Nor a second Impression of a Dispensation to be gotten till November even spent Who would not have consider'd the Disdain that a generous Love and a more generous Mind must conceive to have the Cherry bob at his Lip and to be snatcht from him Quo propiùs accesseris ad spem fruendi hòc impatientius careas says the same Pliny Lib. 6. Ep. 1. But let a free born Spirit see what it is to wait upon the Papal Pleasure so lingring so imperious I know not which is worst Christianity bids us submit to them which watch over our Souls Heb. 13. but it doth not make us Religious Slaves Therefore the Prince declar'd it for his resolute Mind That he would not abide the delay of the next Missive from Rome nor stay for the Birth of another Elephant Neither should all the Syrens in Spain stop his departure Which made them whisper That his Highness would rob them of his Company and take no leave and set some though not openly to keep Centinel to prevent him Which surmise he confronted with a Message equal to the best of the ancient Apophthegms That though he
came thither privily out of Love he scorn'd to steal away privily out of Fear But when he heard that some were set in ambush to interrupt his Return he bore it Heroically and without strife of Passion because he knew no Remedy to help it and wrote to the King his Father to be couragious in the sufferance with these Lines That if his Majesty should receive any Intelligence that he was deteined in that State as a Prisoner he would be pleased for his sake never to think of him more as a Son but to reflect with all Royal Thoughts upon the good of his Sister and the safety of his own Kingdoms That Family and those Children with whom King Philip held less Amity than with the English secur'd us afterwards from those fears But for other things the Grandees of the Consulto till their heat had vapoured out stood upon such Terms as had no Equity or Moderation For when Sir Fr. Cottington return'd with our Kings Oath plighted to the annexed Conditions for the ease of the Roman Catholicks the Spaniards made no Remonstrance of Joy says the Prince in his Report or of an ordinary liking to it Therefore the Lord Keeper observing that they had an insatiate and hydropical Malady that the more they gulpt down the more they thirsted he tried if they would take this Julip as he prepared it in his Letter to the Duke of Buckingham July 21. May it please your Grace I Have Received yours of the 8 of Julyby the Lord Andover and heartily thank your Grace for the News though not so compleatly good as we desir'd yet better then for many days together I expected beside the hope I retain it may still be better His Majesty and the Lords have taken the Oaths and the Laws against the Roman Catholicks are actually suspended as upon my Credit and Honesty they were a good while before Now July August September and a piece of October are left for a further Probation This being so what good will it do that Wise and Great Estate to Publish to all Christiandom their diffidence of so just a Prince especially being Sworn and Deposed Your Grace knoweth very well I would the State of Spain knew as much that all our Proceedings against Recusants is at our Assises which are holden at this instant and do not return again till after the first of March So as all the probate of the suspension of the Laws against them betwixt this and the first of March will be seen and discerned by the last of our August For between that and the first of March there can be no Trial at all I know if this were understood in that place it were unanswerable For the Proceedings in the King's-Bench which only can be objected are altogether depending upon Indictments at the Assises so that the Spring once stopt as now it is these Rivers grow Dry and run no more This will mollifie all Stubborness which is Resolv'd to stoop to Reason c. Here 's a Remonstrance then which nothing could be more placid or more solid upon which I look as upon Thaboren in Parthia as Justin describes it lib. 41. Cuius loci ea conditio est ut neque munitius quicquam neque amoenius esse possit Just at this time the Days of Trouble look'd darker and darker in Spain The Prince disgusted to Treat with a People that ask'd much and granted little and Wire-drew Counsels into Vexatious length resolv'd to take his leave and shew'd the King of Spain his Fathers Royal and Indispensable Pleasure that no Proffer should interpose but that he should hasten him for which his Navy did attend him upon the Coast of Biscay That it was no fault of his that he must depart when the Treaty was so imperfect but in them that made it a Justitium or Intermission of all Proceedings because upon the Death of the Pope the Court of Rome was not open Olivarez to divert his Highness made Two Propositions First That the Prince would come in to the Conditions as they came formerly from Rome or to stay till new ones might be agreed upon and Ratified at Rome Hoc illud cornucopiae est ubi in est quicquid volo says Pseudolus in Plautus Grant the Conde to make his Reference to Rome and you grant him all That 's the Goats-Horn or Jugglers Box out of which he can fetch any thing with a sleight The Prince answer'd him very gravely for one so young as he made the Report at St. James's The first motion he had declin'd before neither had he chang'd his Judgment nor should they find him a Shechem to pass over into a New Religion for a Wife Gen. 34. The other Motion he accepted this way He would go for England to perfect the Articles there and let them do the like at Rome Olivarez admired at his Reply but took it up with this Answer That to be gone so soon and nothing Model'd to the Content of any side would be a Breach therefore he humbly besought his Highness to stay but Twenty Days and he swore by all the Saints of Heaven then he was sure it would be a Marriage The Duke of Buckingham standing by said It is well but it might have been as well Seven years ago Which put the Conde to a great Anger and in his Anger made him Fome out a Secret That there was no Match intended Seven Months ago and says he I will fetch that out of my Desk that shall assure you of it So he produced a Letter written to one Don Baltasar with King Philip III. his own Hand as he Vowed The Prince was allowed to Read it then as much as he would but not to take a Copy all this was declared to the next Parliament in the Banquetting-House His Highness with Sir Wal. Aston better Skill'd in the Castilian Language Translated the Letter as their Memories would bear it away and kept it for a Monument This is the Letter which I think Mr. Prinn was the first that divulged out of the Lord Cottington's Papers which he had Ransack'd Whether it were a true Letter of King Philip's lies upon Olivarez Credit it never came out of his Custody or whether the Prince and Sir W. Aston mist nothing of the right Sense of it through Frailty of Memory when they came to Recollect the Sum of it in private is not yet decided Salomon alluding to the Contradictions that are in some Mens Parables says They are like the Legs of the Lame that are not equal Prov. 26.7 Let the best Bone-setter in the Hundred set these Legs even if he can An Authentical Notary in Spain Conde Olivarez shews it under Black and White that Philip the Father of the Infanta who died Anno 1621 held our King in Hopes but never intended to give his Daughter to the Prince of Wales Hear the Evidence of the other side His Highness Remembred the Parliament That Sir Wal. Aston was struck Mute at the Reading of
infinitely desire that he did much Esteem the good Offices his Lordship bad done therein but that he conceived that any motion he had made in that kind had been despis'd rather then received with Thankfulness 156. He might have said more then despised for they were received with that sad Interpretation that upon it the Duke removed his Affections from the Lord Keeper for ever quite contrary to Solon's Rule neither to choose a Friend suddenly nor to loose him suddenly But after all the Lord Keepers Faithfulness and that he watch'd the good of the Dukes Affairs in his absence with as much tenderness as a Nurse doth a sucking Child at her Breast his Grace resolv'd to pluck down the highest Roof of his Dignity as soon as he could Nor was he the surer to escape that Anger for fair Words Tacitae magis occultae inimicitiae timendae sunt quà m indictae apertae Cic. 7. Verrin Yet the threatning broke out by one man who was glad to cherish it For Sir John Michel did not hide it that my Lord Mandevile Lord President of the Councel shew'd him a Letter from Spain assuring that the first Action the Duke would Embark himself in when he came home should be to remove him out of his Place Cab. p. 89. With which the threatned party was not much daunted knowing what a Master he served that King whose Speech utter'd at Sterling at fourteen years of Age hath Wisdom becoming one of fourty Spotwoods p. 288. I will study to be indifferent and to bestow my Favours impartially and never repose my self upon any one so much as to deny others the regard that is due unto them The Duke was a generous and incorrupt Patron an exactor of great Duty from those he prefer'd or a great Enemy Let him allow himself what he could ask for all his Favours this Man was ready to pay him If he would be deceiv'd by crafty Underminers into the distrust of his truest Friend when he could not serve him in unfit ways the fault is in the want of his Grace's insight or inconstancy But as I find it in the Posthumous Meditation of the most Noble Lord Capel p. 21. Favour is a fine Thred which will scarce hold one tug of a crafty Tale-bearer The Observator on H. L. lights upon this Quarrel I do not pursue the Lord Keepers Enemies But if I meet them I will not shun them Thus He being Drunk with Wormwood Lam. 3.15 That he had done many ill Offices to the Duke when he was in Spain p. 36. Many and yet Name none If he will pick his Ears clean from the filth of Hatred I will tell him what my Lord Duke took to be ill Offices The First Displeasure and never laid down was That the knowledge came to the King by his means who those Gentlemen were that importun'd his Grace by their Expresses sent into Spain to rend the Treaty of the Match in sunder or to Act against it with all Wit and Power The accused Lord protested upon his Salvation he was not the Discoverer The acclearment is fair and the Proof nothing who is able to make Answer to Jealousie that grows out of the Mud of a man's Brain like a Bull-rush I will Relate what the Earl of Rutland the Duke's Father-in-Law return'd again when he had gone between them often to dismount this Objection that the Duke said Whensoever I Disagree with him he will prove himself to be in the Right and though I could never detect him hitherto to be Dishonest I am afraid of his Wit The Second Offence taken was That he would have perswaded the Duke into a good Opinion of the Earl of Bristol and Reason for it because he would have kept his Lordship in a good Opinion with the King To which all his Allies all that Studied him all that Honour'd him did not contribute so much nor had the King's Ear so much as he had to effect it To sit Heraclides his Adagy to him Nemo benè merito bovem immolavit praeter Phariam He was another Pharias that offered the best Sacrifice to that Lord that had deserved the best of him When I find the King had his part in that which was so ill taken anent the Earl of Bristol I can find no blame in it But if it had been an Error it was a sanctified one to labour to convert Enmities unto Love unfeigned And should a Talent of Anger be weighed against a Grain of Offence There was no Error there was no Offence but that Infelicity which the Wise Man Bias observ'd to be in such Cases That it is better to be Judg in a Cause between two Enemies then two Friends for of two Friends I shall make one mine Enemy but of two Enemies it is likely I shall make one my Friend Laert in vità The Third Scandal was That he set forward the Treaty of the Marriage with Oars and Sails of Ingeny and Industry A new Crime Caius Caesar and never heard before He was a Servant in it He was Conjur'd unto the Care of it by the King and he was as Trusty to it as the Soul of his Majesty could wish The best Head-piece of our Councel in Spain look'd upon him as the chief Adjutant Cab. p. 23. Thus the Earl of Bristol If there should be any doubt I am sure that your Lordship would put to a helping hand to keep the business from being overthrown since you have done so much for the overcoming of former difficulties and the bringing it to the pass it is now in The Duke was fallen by the wyliness of others and by his own wilfulness into a contrary Motion when the Lord Keeper saw the Councils of his greatest Friend esloigned from those of his dread Sovereign he had been a Beast if he had not given the Right Hand to Loyalty Patrem primum postea Patronum proximum nomen habere says Cato in A. Gel. lib. 5. A King is a common Father Observance is due to thy Father first and afterward to thy Patron 157. Yet why should things subordinate be at odds as if they were contraries The lesser Circle is not opposite but within the greater Moses and his Minister Josuah the King and his Choicest Servants are not Represented as two but as one person to Allegiance The Lord Keeper held fast to them both that both might hold fast to themselves nor would he leave the Duke to his own â—â—king as far as the King dislik'd him but persisted to displease him into the good Opinion of his Majesty Vera amicitia est idem velle idem nolle says â—â—elius If this young unforeseeing Lord should persist to hate that which the King lov'd his vigilant Counsellor knew that the King would use him no longer a Friend but would remove him from that privacy wherein he had bred him This and much more was prosecuted in August Sancta Patres Augusta vocant Ovid. Fast lib. 1. In the Language of
Old Latium August and Sacred signified the same 'T were good if it would prove so now But it began with discontent on every side and never mended Our Wise King no longer smother'd his Passion but confess'd at sundry times a great fault in himself that he had been so improvident to send the Duke on this Errand with the Prince whose bearing in Spain was ill Reported by all that were not partial He put the bafful so affectedly upon the Earl of Bristol at every turn that those Propositions which his Majesty had long before approved with deep Wisdom and setled with the Word of Honour were struck out by my Lord of Buckingham only because Bristol had presented them Nay if the Prince began to qualifie the unreasonableness he would take the Tale out of his Highness's Mouth and over-rule it and with such youthful and capricious Gestures as became not the lowly Subjection due to so great a Person but least of all before Strangers It was an Eye-sore to the Spaniards above any people who speak not to their King and the Royal Stems of the Crown without the Complement of Reverence nor approach unto them without a kind of Adoration The more the Prince endur'd it the more was their judgment against it For every Mouth was fill'd with his Highness's Praise and nothing thought wanting in him to be absolutely good and Noble but to know his own Birth and Majesty better and to keep more distance from a Subject So the Earl of Bristol Writes Cab. p. 20. I protest as a Christian I never heard in all the time of his being here nor since any one Exception against him unless it were for being supposed to be too much guided by my Lord of Buckingham which was no Venial Sin in their censure For how much their gall Super-abounded against that Lord the same Earl could not hold to write it to the Lord Keeper bearing Date August 20. I know not how things may be Reconciled here before my Lord Duke's departure but at present they are in all Extremity ill betwixt this King his Ministers and the Duke And they stick not to profess that they will rather put the Infanta head-long into a Well then into his Hands One thing that fill'd up the Character of my Lord Duke before in this Work was that he had much of the brave Alcibiades in him In this they differ that Plutarch's Alcibiades suited himself so well to the Manners and Customs of all Courts where he came that he gave satisfaction to all Princes and they were best pleased with him that most enjoy'd him The great Lord Villiers was not so Fortunate for he thrived not in the Air of Madrid and he brook'd the Air of Paris as ill about two years after upon the like Occasion And no marvel For as Catulus said of Pompey in Paterculus Praeclarus vir Cn. Pompeius sed reipub liberae nimius So this Lord was a worthy Gentleman but too big to be one in a Free Treaty with other Ministers The Lord Keeper who was the Socrates to this Alcibiades had Noted his Lordships Errors and unbeseeming Pranks before For which he look'd for no better then he that rubs a Horse that is gaul'd Yet he resolv'd to shoot another Arrow the same way that the former went though the Duke had threatned to break his Bow as soon as he came Home But he was too prudent to be scared from doing Duty to so great a Friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Aristotle He is neither Wise nor Faithful but a Flatterer that denies his Spirit ingenious Freedom And it is a Speech worthy of Sir Ph. Sidney which the Lord Brooke ascribes to him Pag. 42. of his Life That he never found Wisdom where he found not Courage Therefore the Lord Keeper writes to the Duke Aug. 3. of which this is the Moral to him that reads it intelligently That no Man living can keep Favour who keeps not Conditions that merit to perpetuate Favour May it please your Grace I Have no more to trouble your Grace at this time withal than the Expression of that Service and those Prayers which as I do truly owe so shall I ever as faithfully perform to your Grace New Comers may make more large and ample Promises but will in the end be found to fall short of your old Servants in Reality and Performances If your Grace hath by this time thought that I have been too bold and too near your Secrets in those Counsels I presumed upon in my last Letters I beseech you to remember how easie it was for me to have held my Peace how little Thanks I am like to receive from any other beside your Grace for the same how far I am in these Courses from any end of mine own beside your Prosperity and Security If your Grace would give me leave to deliver my Opinion upon the main though no Hunter after Court-News it is this Your Grace stands this Day in as great Favour with his Majesty as your Heart can desire And if I have any Judgment in far more Security of Continuance than ever you did if you remain as for ought I can perceive you do in the same State with the Prince in the same Terms as your Pains have deserved with the Princess and out of Quarrels and Recriminations which will but weaken both Parties and make way for a third with the rest of his Majesties Agents in this Negotiation I cannot but presume once more to put your Grace in mind that the nearer you are drawn to his Highness in Title the more you are with all Care and Observance to humble your self unto him in Speech Gesture Behaviour and all other Circumstances yea although his Highness should seem to require the Contrary This cannot be any way offensive to your own and is expected to the utmost Punto by that other Nation I do presume of Pardon for all my Follies in this kind and that whatsoever is wanting in my Discretion your Grace will be pleased to make up out of my Sincerity and Affection However your Grace and the Earl of Bristol shall conclude I hope your Grace will pardon my Zeal though peradventure not according to Knowledge aiming only at your Grace's Service the Amplitude and Continuance of your Greatness For whatsoever your Grace shall determine and conclude I do and shall implicitly yield unto the same Yet am still of Opinion the way of Peace to be the broad way to enlarge and perpetuate your Grace's Greatness and Favour with his Majesty c. This was bold but faithful and ingenious Dealing The Duke's last Messenger whom he sent into England before he arrived Sir J. Hipsley gave him a touch of the same Cab. P. 316. For God's-sake carry the Business with Patience betwixt my Lord of Bristol and you And again in the same For God's-sake make what hast you may Home for fear of the worst For the King's Face began to gather Clouds upon the
Quarrel between his Ministers in Spain which did so much disturb the Match Sir John Hipsley and such as he the Duke could pass them over for rash Writers but he would never forgive it to the Lord Keeper who invited him to see his Errors But like old Galesus in Virgil Aen. 7. who was knocked down while he went betwen the Latins and Trojans to reconcile them Dum paci medium se offert justissimus unus Qui fuit So it hapned to him that pleaded in this Mediation to be offered upon the Sacrifice and Service of making Love 159. Nevertheless to draw out the Thread of Favour to more length which the Duke had with the King and that the Destinies might not cut it off the Lord Keeper wrote to his Majesty upon Sir John Hipsley's Arrival in the midst of August That he had heard more of the Duke's most laudable Diligence in Spain from Sir John than ever he could learn before that Malice it self could not but commend his Zeal and that Humanity could not but pity the Toil he had to reduce that intricate and untoward Business of the Palatinate to some good Success He might well call them intricate and untoward for the Spanish Motions were circular Nothings much about and nothing to the Point Most true it is that the Articles anent the Marriage were drawn up and restricted to some Heads and Numbers though not perfected three years before the Emperor had entred into the Palz with any Hostility Therefore the Spaniards disputed thus Bring not the motion of it into this Treaty as a thing born out of due time What were it else but as the Proverb says Extra chorum saltare to Dance well but quite out of the measure of the Mascarata We answered if things had been as they are now at the beginning this had then been a principal Capitulation Nor had we honerated the Articles with a new Proposition unless themselves that is the House of Austria had cast us into the Gulph of a new Extremity Reduce the King and his Posterity to the same Peace they were in when we began to treat and we ask no more But as Seneca says Lib. 4. de ben c. 35. Omnia esse debent eadem quae fuerant cum promitterem ut promittentis fidem teneas But upon so great a Change there is neither Inconstancy nor Encroachment to fall into new Consultations For all this though nothing but Pertinacy durst stand the Breath of so much Truth the others came no nearer to us but kept further off affirming as it is in the Report made at St. James's that they conceived our King expected no Restitution at all for his Son and Daughter and that they supposed his Majesty had already digested that bitter Potion We told them they must not dissemble before us as if they knew not the Contrary For his Majesty never intermitted to rouse up their Embassadors to give him a fair Answer about it and had stopt the Treaty of the Match if they had not opened the Way by Protestation made in the Faith of their King that the Palatinate should be rendred up with Peaceable Possession What Shape could Olivarez put on now none but his own a stately Impudency For he told us in the broad Day-light that all former Promises spoken before the Prince's Coming whether by Embassadors to our King or by Count Gondamar to my Lord of Bristol and others were but Palabras de cumplimiento Gratifications of fine Words but no more to be taken hold of than the Fables and Fictions of Greece before the Wars of Theseus The Prince came over him at this with a blunt Anger that if there were no more Assurance in their Word it was past the Wit of Man to know what they meant but he would tell them really his Father's and his own Meaning That without his Sister 's and her Husband's Inheritance restored they neither intended Marriage nor Friendship When King Philip had heard with what Courage and Determination his Highness had spoken like Caesar in Velleius Se virtute suâ non magnitudine hostium metiens it put that King and his Counsel to a middle-way as they called it To treat upon the old Articles and no other as falling perpendicularly on the Marriage but to take into a concurrent Deliberation the Restitution of the Prince Elector's Country Let Metaphysical States-men scratch their Heads and find a real Distinction if they can between these Formalities Yet Sir Walter Aston followed them in that Way and paid them in the same Coin with this Distinction Cab. P. 38. That the King his Master prest for the Restitution of the Palatinate and Electoral Dignity to the Prince his Son-in-Law not as a Condition of the Marriage but to be setled together with the Marriage And again Not as a Condition but as a Fruit and Blessing of the Alliance And to make the Coming of the Excellent Princess the Infanta of more Esteem to his Subjects bringing with her beside the Glory of her own Virtue and Worth the Security of a perpetual Peace and Amity These were Punctilio's in Honour but just Nothings in Wisdom the Cause of the Palatinate must not be tempered at the same Forge but apart not a Rush was gotten by it and time wasted for our Ministers were resolved to conclude neither unless they perfected both 160. The Sennor Duca Olivarez made such Work upon this Theme and turn'd it into so many Forms that it makes him ridiculous in the History Vertumnis quotquot sunt natus iniquis Horat. And so disastrous a Counsellor through his Variableness that it was his Fault that caused a Distrust in the main as wise Spotswood says Pag. 544. The Prince conceived there was nothing really intended on the King of Spain's Part but that the Treaty was entertained only till he and the House of Austria had reduced Germany into their Power which might be suspected without Injury by looking upon this Vertumnus in all his Changings Seven Months before the Prince took his Journey and came to cast the Die upon the whole Stake to win or loose all Mr. End Porter was sent to Spain and spake with the great Conde who snapt him up and gave him this unkind Welcome in a Chase That they neither meant the Match nor the Restitution of the Palatinate Presently the Earl of Bristol gave him a Visit and a Discourse about it In a trice he winds himself out of his former Fury and vows he would do his best to further both The next Discovery breaks out by Mr. Sanderson's Diligence Pag. 540. in a Letter of the Conde's to King Philip Novemb. 8. 1622. That the King of Great Brittain affected the Marriage of his Son with the Infanta and was more engaged for the Palatinate And as a Maxim I hold these two Engagements in him to be inseparable For us though we make the Marriage we must fail in the other Then you will be forced to a War with England with
which all Convenencies that were formerly thought upon will cease The Remedy which he propounds to fail without all these Shelves I never did light upon out of this Letter 'T is thus The Emperor as your Majesty knows by his Embassador desires to Marry his Daughter with the King of England ' s Son and I doubt not but he will be glad to Marry his Second Daughter to the Palatine's Son So all the Conventencies of Alliance will be as full in this For it accommodates the Matter of the Palatinate and the Succession of his Grand-Children without Blood or Treasure Here is a new Bride appointed for his Highness the eldest Daughter of the Emperor which is unlikely to be intended because it comes from none but such an Author as Olivarez and in as much as when Count Suartzenburg came about eighteen Months before Embassador to our King from Caesar this was not moved at that Oportunity and when the Prince came to Spain no shadow of it remained but it was vanished like a Morning-mist before the Sun Now follow their Whimsies and their In and Ou ts at the Consulto when the Prince was among them The first Onset that Olivarez gave was That they were ready to follow all the Demands of the King of Great Brittain concerning the Match for his Son to the Demands for his Son-in-Law he said they were not in their Power to effect his Country was extended upon by the Emperor his Electoral Dignity invested in the Duke of Bavaria And within this Charm they kept us long till we were weary with their Obstinacy and sate down a while as when Boys Scourge a great Top till they make it sleep At last the Prince's Highness offended that he could gain nothing by this Alliance for his dear Sister 's Good offered to give King Philip a Farewel that he might look timely at Home for the Relief of her Misery On this no man courts his Highness to stay so much as Olivarez and to slacken his Return revives the Consult of the Restitution promiseth the strongest Mediation that the King his Master could make with the Imperialists and Bavarians which if it were rejected but they hoped better he would be forward for his Part to stir up his Catholick Majesty to give his Brother the King of England Assistance by Arms to procure him his Satisfaction Yet whatsoever he said his Heart lay a thought farther and he had a Trick to redeem himself out of this Promise for he told his Highness in a Weeks space after that he found their Nation so linked to the Love of the House of Austria that they would never march chearfully into the Field against it For all this the Weather-cock turn'd and he was affrighted in a moment into a good Mind again So did his Highness report at St. James's that a false Alarum being brought to Madrid that Count Tilly with his whole Body of Foot and Horse was routed in Germany instantly the Conde Duke came with as much Fear as Hast unto the Prince and with as much Lowliness as his Knee upon the Ground vowed he would give him a Blank for the Restitution of the Palsgrave's Interest but when the Second that is the worst News came that the Duke of Brunswick was quite defeated the Mood was changed with the Man and he spake as loftily from that Matter as if the great Armada had been failing again upon our Brittish Ocean Into how many Paces did Hipocrisie put him Sincerity would have got him Honour dispatch the Work and saved him all this Trouble for with the same Study nay with far less men may attain to be such as they ought to be which they mis-spend in seeking to be such as they are not Quibus id persuasum est ut nihil mallent se esse quà m bonos viros iis reliquam facilem esse doctrinam Cic. de orat lib. 3. After that great Don Jasper had put himself to the Expence of all this Folly he riveted in two Straws more like than Wedges to cleave the Knot First Let the Marriage be Consummated and then despair not but the Princess Infanta would beg the Palatinate with her earnest Prayers that she might be received with Honour and Applause among her Husband's People That is Seal their Patent and we shall have an empty Box to play with Or else marry the Lady and leave her behind till the Business for the Palsgrave's Patrimony were accommodated which is like Velez's Trick in Gusman of Alfarach to 〈◊〉 away both the Bride and the Bride-Cake The great Projector held close to one Proposition at the last that since Prince Frederick the Elector had highly offended Caesar in the Attempt and Continuance of it in the Matter of Bohâ—mia no Account should be had of his Person but Restitution should be made to his Eldest Son by Marrying the Second Daughter of the Emperor in which Clause the Prince concurred But the Sting in the Tail was that he should be bred up in the Emperor's Court to mold him into a Roman Catholick Upon which his Highness broke off the Earl of Bristol as a sharp Letter chargeth him written by the Prince Cab. Pag. 17. swallowing down that Difficulty at a Gulp because without some such great Action neither Marriage nor Peace could be had But Sir Wal. Aston flew back saying He durst not give his Consent for fear of his Head Now we have the Duke Olivarez in all his Party-colours who knew that the Breach of Alliance with England would be transcendently ill for Spain yet he would hazard a Mischief unless he might tear a Princely Limb from the Protestant Religion not unlike to the Paeotlans in Justin lib. 8. Tanto edio Phoâ—sunn ardentes ut obliti cladium 〈◊〉 perire ipsi qâ—à m non perdere eos praeaptarent How the Duke Olivarez smoothed it a Letter of his which would make a Pamphlet for the length will manifest which to this day hath lain in Obscurity but is worthy to come abroad It follows 161. HIS Majesty being in the Escurial I desired these my Lords the Embassadors that they wou'd repair hither to the end that we might treat of perfecting those things which concern the Palatine forasmuch as might be done from hence wherein we procure as you know to give Satisfaction to the King of Great Britain through whose Intercession together with that of the most Excellent Prince his Highness we have procured to dispose things in Germany and have used those Diligences which you know The Means which hath ever seemed most easie and apt for the well addressing of this Business is to Marry the Eldest Son of the Palatine to the second Daughter of the Emperor bringing him up in the Court of his Caesareal Majesty whereby the Restitution both of the States and Electorate to the said Son might be the better and more satisfactorily disposed And in this Conformity we have ever understood and treated and propounded it here But now coming close to
for Legal Notions When the Lord Keeper had done with the Living he began with the Dead and scrupled how their Dead should be Interr'd so as to give no offence nor be obnoxious to be offended The Resolution was brought to him that sent it That their Burials should be in their private Houses as secret as might be and without any sign of Manifestation but Notice to be given to the Parish-Clerk of their departure 164. Never was Man so entangled in an Els-lock all this while that could not be unravell'd as Marquiss Inoiosa till he publish'd his Choler in all sorts of Impatiency The Reader may take in so small a matter by the way that the Writer of these Passages said to the Lord Keeper That the Marquiss was the most surly unpleasing Man that ever came to his House His Lordship answer'd They were his Manners by Nature But he had been so vain to profess That he came an Enemy to us into England and for this Dowty Cause His Father was a Page to King Philip the Second while he lived here with Queen Mary and was discourteously used in our Court perhaps by the Pages Which was a Quarrel of Seventy Years old and bearing date before the Marquiss was born Which will cause a Passage of Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily to be remembred who had robb'd and spoil'd some of the Islands under the Protection of Athens and when the Injury was expostulated he told them Their Countryman Ulysses had used the Sicilians worse 700 Years before as he believ'd it to be very true in Homer This Ambassador was a restless Man and held the Lord Keeper so close to turn and plow up the fallow of this Business that he would not give him the Jubilee of a Day to rest Yet the time do what he could had run at waste from the 20th of July to the end of August Then and no sooner the Frames of the Pardon and Dispensation were contriv'd and dispatch'd Yet the Mill would not go with this Water The Ambassadors call'd for more That two general Commands should be issued forth under the Great Seal the first to all the Judges and Justices of Peace the other to all Bishops Chancellors and Commissaries not to execute any Statute made against the Papists Hereupon the Spanish Faction was suspected that they had no hopes to bring some secret Drifts to pass but by raising a general hatred against our Government The Lord Keeper repulsed the Motion and wrote to the King being at Aldershot That whatsoever Instance the Ambassador makes to the contrary there was no reason why his Majesties Wisdom should give place to them He propounded That a private Warrant might be directed to himself to will him to write to the respective Magistrates fore-nam'd to acquaint them with the Graces which his Majesty had past for Recusants in that Exigence and to suspend their Proceeding till they heard further For as the Civilians say Cessant extraordinaria ubi ordinariis est locus Thus he contriv'd it that the King as much as might be should escape the Offence and let the Rumour light upon his private Letters For which he never put the King to stand between the People and his Errour nor besought him to excuse it to the next Parliament But as Mamertinus in Paneg. said of his own Consulship Non modò nullum popularium deprecatus sum sed ne te quidem Imperator quem orare praeclarum cui preces adhibere plenissimum dignitatis est Yet lest the Ambassador should complain of him to the Prince in Spain he writes to the Duke Cab. P. 8. Aug. 30. THat he had prevailed with the Lords to stop that vast and general Prohibition and gave in three Days Conference such Reasons to the two Ambassadors although it is no easie matter to satisfie the Capriciousness of the latter of them that they were both content it should rest till the Infanta had been six Months in England For to forbid Judges against their Oath and Justices of Peace sworn likewise not to execute the Law of the Land is a thing unprecedented in this Kingdom Durus sermo a harsh and bitter Pill to be digested upon a suddain and without some Preparation But to grant a Pardon even for a thing that is malum in se and a Dispensation with Poenal Statutes in the profit whereof the King only is interested is usual full of Precedents and Examples And yet this latter only serves to the Safety the former but to the Glory and Insolency of the Papists and the magnifying the service of the Ambassadors too dearly purchas'd with the endangering of a Tumult in three Kingdoms His Majesty useth to speak to his Judges and Justices of Peace by his Chancellor or Keeper as your Grace well knoweth And I can signifie his Majesties Pleasure unto them with less Noise and Danger which I mean to do hereafter if the Ambassador shall press it to that effect unless your Grace shall from his Highness or your own Judgment direct otherwise That whereas his Majesty being at this time to Mediate for Favour to many Protestants in Foreign Parts with the Princes of another Religion and to sweeten the Entertainment of the Princess into this Kingdom who is yet a Roman Catholick doth hold the Mitigation of the Rigour of those Laws made against Recusants to be a necessary Inducement to both those Purposes and hath therefore issued forth some Pardons of Grace and Favour to such Roman Catholicks of whose Fidelity to the State he rests assur'd That therefore you the Lord Bishops Judges and Justices each of those to be written to by themselves do take Notice of his Majesties Pardon and Dispensation with all such Poenal Laws and demean your selves accordingly This is the lively Character of him that wrote it Policy mixt with Innocency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Nazianzen Cunning enough yet not divided from Conscience For Wit when it is not sheathed as it were in the fear of God will cut like a sharp Razor 165. All his Art would be requir'd to reconcile two things That the Ambassador should be put off no longer for so the King had now commanded by Dispatches from both the Secretaries And that he would finish nothing till he had heard either his Highness or the Duke's Opinion upon the Proceeding The general Pardon and the Dispensation were both sealed So he began But kept them by him and would not open the least Window to let either Dove or Raven fly abroad The King being return'd to Windsor signification was given that none of the Lords should come to him till he sent for them and was ready for Matters of moment No Superstructure could go on very fast when that Stone was laid From Windsor Sept. 5. Sir G. Calvert writes to him My very good Lord His Majesty being resolv'd to extend his Gracious Favour to the Roman Catholicks signifies his Pleasure That your Lordship should direct your Letter to the Bishops Judges
Palatinate The Prince making earnest obtestation for it K. Philip Engaged the Honour of a King upon it That he would intermit neither fair means nor soul means with the Emperor that it might be resigned into his Hand and then should be bestowed as a Gift upon the Marriage Hereupon his Highness seemed to depart well satisfied Yet having removed no further then from St. Lorenzo to St. Andreas Expostulates to have the Palatinate surendred to the Right owner and the Espousals to be procrastinated till it was done the King of Spain tells our Messenger He would do all he had promised upon the last Agreement and for his Life he could do no more So the Earl of Bristol remembers it to the Prince Cab. p. 25. They go on chearfully and confidently and I conceive will punctually perform all that they have Capitulated with you The Prince knew well where he was now when all their Capitulations were held to be Star-shootings Flashes and Meteors without the Bird in the Hand Plato hath a Crotchet lib. 8. de leg to shew the Citizens of his imagin'd Common-Wealth what they should do to escape all or the most Suits in Law that trouble men with Charge and Delays Marry says he Trust no Man without ready Mony in Buying and Bargaining wherein if you fail you shall have no Action to recover your Debt This Platonick dealing with which the Spaniards Challeng'd us was a New Erection of Justice by which the Marriage was consum'd into no Marriage but into a Platonick Love Whether the Prince were at Freedom having said and done so much at the Escurial to break off upon his own Conditions is such a Knot as I cannot find the Ends of it Therefore whether we came off clear or were sullied with some Dishonour is too intricate to be decided In a Report made to the Parliament hereafter the Lord Keeper being called unto it stretch'd his Learning to prove That any Man might lawfully Revoke his Procuration but he came not up to the Top of the Question whether it be Justifiable to Revoke the Obligation of Faith and Honour Aliud est jura spectare aliud justitiam Cicer. pro Balbo Conscience is a plain dealing Piece of Honesty though the Laws have many quirks Mr. Sander hath look'd commendably into this Treaty in this matter he is brief saying no more p. 552. But e're our Prince departed from that King Promises were made each to other to make Espousals ten days after the next Dispensation was brought Promises trasht in with Restrictions are absolute Debts Let your yea be yea says our Saviour to his Disciples And Learned Grotius says That the most of the Disciples Converted to him were of the Sect of the Essens of whom Josephus Writes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Negligent Men kept not their Oath so strictly as they kept their Word Ar. Wilson most spiteful against the Match and as spiteful against the breaking it flies high p. 253. That the Prince had not Power to re-call his Proxy having tied up his Hands That he Sealed the Proxy at the Escurial and Swore to perform the Marriage The Earl of Bristol who knew the most of any English man goes far Cab. P. 23. That his Majesty and the Prince stand engaged for it as far as Princes can be But much more in his Letter dated Novem. 1. first Read by the Clerk of the Parliament at the Report which the Lord Keeper made to the House of Peers That the Prince had engaged his Faith and Power not to retract the Procuration Yet after all these hear one that was ever Honest and understood himself The Prince when he came to take his Fathers Blessing at Royston Octob. 6. protested says the Lord Keeper in his Report That he came from Spain an absolute Free man but with one Limitation the Restitution of the Palatinate then he was bound in Honour to go on with the Deposories All which I believe to be most true Yet the Scales still hanging upon the Beam of the Palatinate this Question Resolv'd will turn them whether the Agreement between the other King and our Prince was that K. Philip should precise restore the Palatinate or to conditionate do his utmost to endeavour it 171. Perhaps I am too Curious to hunt this Scent too far Yet I find no remorse in my self to have prest Conscience and Honour the Urim and Thummim with which the Noblest whom God hath made should consult in all things It was commonly said That mis-understandings fomented by the Duke of Buckingham which had a small Relation to the principal business disturb'd all Who was not skill'd in the Duty of a publick Minister that is to contemn all considerations concerning himself that might hinder his Majesties Ends as Sir W. Aston wrote to him As Illustrius the Pythag. said of Stilpo that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made up well for a private man and no further so the duke was a gallant lord to have the king's ear in private suits but not to have the king's trust in foreign dispatches being ever in custom to carry all with violence before him some may be great by chance but never wise it is admired to this day that his lordship should have such a command over the princes affections that he could so quickly make his highness forget such an incomparable beauty with whom he was so passionately enamour'd and she with him so Bristol Cab. p. 26. The World supposoth you infinitely Esteem her for her person and questionless for her Vertue and setled Affections to your Highness deserves you better then all the Women in the World Mr. Clarke likewise a man whom the Duke had Raised up for his own Use Writes to his Grace cab p. 307. The Infanta's Preparation for the Disposoria was great but greater her sorrow good Lady to see it deferr'd She had Studied our Language our Habit our Behaviour every thing but our Religion to make her self English She talk'd continually to her Attendants of the Prince and of her Voyage in the Spring What could the Duke say to blot the Image of such a person out of his Highness Heart This is strange to those that knew not his Highness who had a Quality to his Lives End I will call it Humility it is somewhat like it but it is not it to be easily perswaded out of his own Knowledg and Judgment by some whom he permitted to have Power upon him who had not the half of his intellectuals But for this Trick the Wag was Merry with the Duke who writes to K. James Cab. p. 223. In this his Highness coming off from Spain the Duke hath Advis'd him to no worse then he did himself For how many hath he abus'd and cozen'd with Promise of Marriage by his Grace in Court and Power with your Majesty If afterward things had been carried in a full Stream of Luck perhaps this Breach would not have been call'd a Fault Principally because the Wedlock that
being Eleven of them in the Tower Wisheech Newgate and no more This Favour had many Reasons to speak for it First To let all those who were inquisitive about the Event of his Highness Journey take notice that there was yet life in the Treaty by the motion of this Pulse Secondly To gratifie the most obnoxious of that Religion for requital of the Entertainment his Highness had among them Thirdly In Retaliation for the Prisoners that were set at Liberty in Spain to Congratulate the Princes welcom Fourthly That his Highness might keep his Word with those of that way who had done him good Offices abroad to whom he had said Cab. p. 251. That though the Marriage were broken his Catholick Subjects should not fare the worse for it Therefore hear what Mr. Secretary Conway Writes to the Lord Keeper October 7. Right Honorable HIs Majesty calling to Mind His promise to the Spanish Ambassadors for giving Liberty to the Priests requires your Lordship to prepare the Ordinance for their Liberty and to put it in Execution the rest of the Pardons being suspended till the Solemnizing the Marriage And His Majesty would that you should signifie so much to the Ambassadors in your own Person to acquaint them with His Mindfulness And then that your Lordship will be pleased to move the Ambassadors as giving them a good opportunity to do an acceptable Work that they would move for the Releasement of Dr. Whiting from Imprisonment who for his Sermon Preach'd at Hampton-Court stands committed but His Majesty will have him remain suspended from Preaching untill His further Pleasure be known Now for the Letters which his Majesty was made to believe were dispersed to the Magistrates Spiritual and Temporal about the Suspension of the Laws because his Majesty was disobeyed in it the Lord Keeper after he had seen the Inclination of the Court in three or four days wrote to the Secretary who knew all the Passages to put the Duke upon it to acquaint the King with the Naked Truth and fore-speak Displeasure Upon which Mr. Secretary Conway returns this Octob. 11. from Royston Right Honorable SO soon as I received your Letter with the like Observation that I will use in all your Command I took the Duke of Buckingham just as he was going to the King and had no more time with him but to tell him that Point touching your Wise and Moderate Retention of the Letters to the Bishops and Justices The Duke prepared the King so well as His Majesty gave me order to signifie to you that those Letters should still be retained unless some Complaints should make change of Counsels or the Accomplishment on the other side equal that of ours and occasion another step forward That Wise and Moderate way of your Lordships will ever get you Estimation and Ease I am glad to see how brave a Friend you have of the Duke And I know your Lordship will give me leave to make you as glad as my self that absence hath made no change towards my Lord Duke in the Kings Favour but his return if it be possible hath multiplied it And the Prince and He are for Communications of Counsels Deliberations and Resolutions as if they were but One. The King requir'd but one Thing more of the Lord Keeper that as he had addulced all Things very well to his Mind so the Ministers of the King of Spain might not Grudge that their Teeth were set on Edge with sower Grapes which he did effect most Artificially albeit the Ambassadors by his means had lost many Suits and more Labour as the Secretary was willed to acknowledge from Hinchingbrooke Octob. 25. Right Honorable I Delivered to his Majesty the good Temper you left the Embassadors in which gave his Majesty Contentment and moved his Thanks to you Your Humane and Noble Usage you may be sure will best beseem your Lordship and please others And when there is any Cause for you to take another Form on you be confident you shall have seasonable Knowledge For my Lord Duke hath as well a Noble Care of you as Confidence in you and Affection to you of which I am assured though a mean Witness So much was contrived and a great deal more to keep the Treaty from an utter dissociation till the next Parliament sate For the Coppy of the Memorials given January 19 by Sir Wal. Aston to the King of Spain professeth That because the Faculty for the Use of the Procuration expired at Christmas the King my Master that you may know the sound Intentions of his Proceedings with the good End to which it aims hath renewed the Powers and deferred the delivery of them only to give time for the Accomplishment and setling that which hath been promised for the satisfying his Expectations Cab. P. 39. Neither did the Spaniards return the Jewels which the Prince had presented at the Shrine of Love till the end of February at which Surrendry and not before the golden Cord was broken Nothing is more sure than that the Prince's Heart was removed from the Desire of that Marriage after the Duke had brought him away from the Object of that Delightful and Ravishing Beauty But all the while the King had his Head full of Thoughts brooding upon two things like the Twins that struggled in the Womb of Rebeckah the Consummation of the Marriage and the Patrimony of his Son-in-Law to be regained with the Dignity Electoral His Wisdom hovered between them both like the Sun at his Noonday Height Metâ distans aequalis utraque He knew he should be disvalued to the wounding of all Good Opinion if he did not engrast that Alliance into his Stem which he had sought with so much Expence of Time and Cost to strengthen and aggrandize his Posterity And he knew he should loose Honour with all the Potentates of Europe beside other Mischiefs if nothing were done for re-possessing the Palatinate Yet in sine he sate down and it cleast his Heart that he affected neither As a Canker eats quickly into soft and sappy Wood so an Error was gotten into his gentle Nature the same that Spartianus says had crept into Didius Julianus Reprehensus in eo praecipue quos regere authoritate sud debuit regendae reipub praesules sibi ipse fecit He submitted himself to be ruled by some whom he should have awed with Authority but he wanted Courage to bow them to his own Bent. A Prince that preserves not the Rights of his Dignity and the Majesty of his Throne is a Servant to some but therein a Friend to none least of all to himself 174. But he did so little bear up with an Imperatorian Resolution against the Method of their Ways who thrust his Counsels out of Doors that the Flies suck'd him where he was gall'd and he never rub'd them off He continued at Newmarket as in an Infirmary for he forgot his Recreations of Hunting and Hawking yet could not be drawn to keep the Feasts of
All-Saints and the Fifth of November at White-Hall being wont to shew his Presence at those Solemnities Against Christmas he drew towards the City and no sooner Some better Offers were expected from Spain by that time or more certain Discoveries be found out of Carriage on both sides for hitherto all was received upon second hand Faith Therefore his Majesty was no sooner at White-Hall but he commissioned a Select Council to consider two things Whither the King of Spain had not been real to the last to satisfie the Desire of the Prince about the Marriage and whither in the Treaty for the Restitution of the Palatinate he had violated the League between the two Kingdoms as to deserve an open War to be proclaimed against him The Lord Keeper was one of the Junto but so far against his Mind that he wished before a Friend or two in private that a Fever in his Sick Bed might excuse him The Duke of Buckingham was mortally Anti-Spanish and his Anger was headed with Steel He assayed the Lord Keeper to hale him to his Judgment as an Eddy doth a small Boat and would have used him to the King to incline his Majesty to renounce Amity with that Nation but he found him as inflexible as a dried Bough He vowed to his Grace as he should have God to be his Protector that he would suffer all the Obliquy of the World before he would be drawn to the least Ingratitude against his Lordship Cab. P. 89. But when the King asked his Judgment he must be true and faithful Which was to say to do the Duke a Pleasure he cared not to deserve ill of himself but he would not deserve ill of the King which gave no Satisfaction Oh! How better is a poor Man's Liberty than the golden Servitude of a great Officer Must I lose my Patron unless I lose my Judgment Can there not be a true Heart where there is not Sameness of Opinion What a Structure is Advancement which hangs in the Air and consists upon no solid Foundation That great Lord desied the Keeper to his Face and in the hearing of many threatned to sink him because he could not board him And as Fulbertus said of Queen Constantia Cui satis creditur dum mala promittit Baron Annal. 12 28. com 12. If he promised an ill turn he would be sure to pay it if he could Once upon a time he could have done as much as that came to with half a Word to the King Now as his Lordship conceived his Strength lay among the Anakims and the self-will'd man plotted to sacrifice his old Friend to the Parliament the Intelligence came from the Venetian Embassador to appease the Dislike of Immunities which were none at all exercised towards the Roman Catholicks Yet there his Lordship faired and found it as hard to suppress him as to drown a Swan There is an Electuary which Physicians give to comfort the Heart called Pasta rogia the Lord Keeper was fed Lusty with this Royal Paste The King had wrought him so apt to his own Plight that the Power of a mighty Favorite could not wrest him from the Sanctuary of his Love Ye still his Danger was that the Duke thought out of Disdain more than Envy that he wore too many Copies of his Majesty's Favour He took nothing more Scornsully than what the King spake to the Earl of Carlisle in a Fit of Melancholly That if he had sent Williams into Spain with his Son he had kept Hearts-ease and Honour both which he lack'd at that time So it was thought to be next to an Affront that the first time the Lord Keeper came into the King's Presence after his Highness's Return into England which was a little before Christmas his Majesty looking intently upon him said thus to the Prince Charles There 's the Man that makes us keep a merry Christmas His Highness looking as if he understood not his Father Why 't is he says the King that laboured more dextrously than all my Servants beside to bring you safe hither to keep Christmas with me and I hope you are sensible of it Another Act of the King's Goodness drew a greater Frown upon him That in those Holy-days his Majesty of his own Accord no Solicitation preceding caused an Act of Council to be entred into the Book of that Honorable Table that an Arch-Bishoprick and he named York should be conserred upon him in the next Vacancy For which the Lord Keeper most humbly thanked his Majesty that he was pleased to think of him when his Majesty knew best that he thought not of himself Yet my Lord Duke resented it ill as if he climbed without his Hand to lift him up Arch-Bishop Mathew understanding how his Place was designed took occasion to be pleasant upon it It was a Felicity which Nature had given him to make old Age comfortable with a light Heart Non ille rigoris Ingratas laudes nec nubem srontis amabat Sil. lib. 8. But that much beloved Prelate sending his Proxy to the Lord Keeper against the following Parliament wrote to this Purpose That he was not a little troubled in former times to hear that the Bishop of London Doctor Mountain a decay'd Man and certainly near to the Grave should look to be his Successor For either himself must die before three years expired or that Bishop's Hopes would be all amort who must come suddenly to the See or not at all But it pleased and revived him that his Lordship was most likely to take his Place after him for he was young and healthful and might stay the Term of twenty Years and take his Turn time enough at the end of that Stage Then he shuts up his Letter As the Psalmist begins so I end Dixi Custodiam I love you Lordship well but I will keep you out of this Seat as long as I can 175. Now let the Collections of the last Antecedency be observed and there is not to be found in them why the Lord Keeper should forfeit a Dram in the Benevolence of his great Friend They are the Party-coloured Coat with which Jacob appareâ—â—ed him and which himself put not out to making But in the Select Council which met to resolve the two foregoing Questions he was active as any man If he come not off well in that let him be condemned To the first matter in proposal the Lords agreed that the Prince came Home with great and happy Renown because he had resisted so many and so strong Temptations to pervert him in Religion and that the Lord of Buckingham's Assistance was praise worthy in excess who held him steady and counter-work'd all Underminers They conceived that the Proceeding of the Spaniards to the most were generous in some things rather subtle than ingenuous as there is no Pomegranate but hath some rotten Kernels and that in all they were so tedious that it was able to provoke the Meekness of Moses though he had not a Drachm of
Humanity Grotius who best could do it hath sweetly translated such a Contemplation out of Euripides Lib. 2. de Bel. Pa. Cap. 24. Co. 4. Quod si in Comitiis funera ante oculos forent Furiata bello non pâ—risset Graecia Some will adventure to say more that every Sheba that sounded the first Trumpet to Battail hath been unlucky in his own Person So Sir W. Aston to the Duke Cab. P. 37. The most prosperous War hath misfortune enough in it to make the Author of it unhappy Else Isocrates was mistaken who lived to be an old and a Prophetical Orator among the Athenians Orat. de Pace says he Your Humour Athenians is well known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you like them best that incite you to War Yet I wonder if old Men do not remember and young Men have not heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we never receiv'd hurt by listning to them that exhorted us to preserve our Peace but the Counsels of others have brought Dishonour and put us to Shifts and Calamities 177. I would these Notions might be read considerately when any rash Spirit shall attempt to open Janus's Temple after it hath been long shut Yet wo be to the Vicar that should have read this Homily to my Lord Duke The Lord Keeper's Name was in his black Book of Remembrance for it till his Lordship did not only cross him but blot him out Revenge is the effect of smother'd Anger as Flame is but lighted Smoak The Scene wherein an Argument of a kind of Tragedy is couch'd upon it is in the Lord Duke's Secretaries Letter Cab. Pag. 86. challenging the Lord Keeper That at the select Council he had run a course opposite to his Lordship and by consequent to sill up the Crime dangerous to the Kingdom prejudicious to the cause of Religion That the two last times they met in Council the Duke found that he took his Kue from the Kings Mind just as other Men did and joyn'd with them in their Opinions whose aim was to tax his Proceedings in the managing of the Prince's Business How imperious is this And how all that follows it like the roaring of a Lyon And for no more offence but because he would not condemn the King of Spain out of the proof of his Grace's Mouth and ammerce him with an implacable War wherein an Hundred Thousand Lives might be spilt for a Quarrel begun between himself and Olivarez which was not worth a bloody Nose Certainly the Lord Keeper could not be afraid of the Duke being so much alienated for any hurt that could come of it at the present I was not in his Heart to espy whether he look'd forward upon another Age in the next Reign One thing I am conscious of that he courted no Man but him with supple Submission being unwilling to nothing more than that the World should observe him dissever'd from his Promoter though he were innocent as to making a breach or the least thought of Opposition The best part he could act was to protest how much and how unseignedly he was that Lords in a most Pathetical Vow as it is to be found Cab. P. 89. Let this Paper bear Record against me at the great Parliament of all if I be not in my Heart and Soul your Graces most faithful and most constant poor Friend and Servant Somewhat also may be pick'd out of that Letter by a sharp Censure as if he had sought the Duke with Phrases too low and too Petitionary And I am my self within a little of that Opinion But this was ever a venial Fault at Court where it was usual for Men in Place to drink down such hot Affronts as would scald their Throats that could not endure the Vassallage which was tied to Ambition The best Apology is That a Thankful Man looks for leave chuse you whether you will grant it for he will take it to lay himself under the Feet of his Benefactor to be reconciled to him I learn it from Tully pleading for himself against Lateranensis Orat pro Plancio Nimis magnum beneficium Plancii exaggero Quare verò me tuo arbitratu non meo gratum esse oportet Lateranensis says I do too much extol the Favours which I have received from Plancius As if it were not Reason that I should be Grateful by my own Acknowledgment and not by his Opinion In short that the Duke might be the better aslur'd of the reading of so able a Minister in the Parliament at Hand the Prince with his never-failing Sweetness made up this Gap between them but with a loose Pale Yet leave should have been given where leave was look'd for The Lord Keeper did not give the Duke content in this select Junto no more did the Duke give content to the King In the same Measure that he did mete it was measured unto him 178. Look back about a Twelve-month and a story will drop in where the Duke did hearken to the Party with more content That which was acted a Year ago is in season to be produced now because it was publish'd upon Consideration against the Parliament that sate now Those dangerous and busie Flies which the Roman Seminaries send abroad had buzzed about the Countess of Buckingham had blown upon and infected her She was Mother to the great Favourite but in Religion become a Stepmother She doated upon him extreamly as the Glory of her Womb Yet by turning her Coat so wantonly when the Eyes of all the Kingdom were upon her Family she could not have wrought him a worse turn if she had studied a mischief against him Many marvelled what rumbled in her Conscience at that time For from a Maid to an Old Madam she had not every ones good Word for practice of Piety And she suffered Censure to the last that she lest the Company of Sir Tho. Compton her Husband It hath been so with many others But why should a Libertine that cares not to live after the way of the Gospel pretend to seek Satisfaction more than ordinary about the true Doctrine of The Gospel They that have Beams in their own Eyes unsanctified Manners beyond the most why should they cavil at Moats in the Eye of the Reformed Religion Let them answer it to Him alone who hath Power to judge them But divers that had sense of a Godly Fear as they pitied the Revolt of this Lady so they dreaded the Consequents that did hang upon her Power and Opportunity Ar. Wilson complains P. 275. That the Countess of Buckingham was the Cynosura that all the Papists steered by I believe it was above her Ability to bear the weight of that Metaphor The common Jealousie was that the Duke would be ring-streaked with spots of Popery by resorting to his Mothers Trough Nay there was a trivial Gradation in Vulgar Mouths which reach'd higher That the Mother had a great Influence upon her Son the Son upon the King and the King upon the People The Lord
Keeper did not unforesee how far this Cord might be drawn And that those Discontents which were but Vapours in common talk might thicken into a Thunder-Clap in an ensuing Parliament Which though it assembled not in 14 Months after yet this Prometheus had learn'd his Lesson That Safety is easiest purchas'd by Prevention An Instrument that is strung may be us'd upon a little warning Having thus studied the Welfare of the Duke he spake to him to this effect My Lord YOur Mother is departed out of the Bosom of the Church of England into whose Confession of Faith she was Baptiz'd a strong Schism in any to go away from that Society of Christians among whom they cannot demonstrate but Salvation may be had I would we could bring her Home so soon that it might not be seen she had ever wandered For it is a favourable Judgment among Divines Hormisda in Epist ad Anastasium Imperatorem Propè ab Innocentiâ non recedit qui ad eam sine tarditate revertit He seems almost not to have faln from Innocency that returns into it without delay But my Care I cannot dissemble it is more for your self Your Integrity My Lord is wounded through your Mothers Apostasie Perhaps you hear not of it For I believe it is late before any Truth meets you that is offensive It is one of the greatest Miseries of Greatness which Pollio imputes to Gallienus Nemo ei vera nec in bonis nec in malis nuntiat But it is time to let your Lordship know That the Mouth of Clamour is opened that now the Recusants have a Potent Advocate to plead for their Immunity which will increase their Number When this is banded in the High and Popular Court by Tribunitial Orators what a Dust it will raise I have touch'd a Sore with my Finger I am furnish'd with an Emplaster to lay upon it which I presume will Lenifie Only measure not the Size of Good Counsel by the Last of Success My Lord Your Mother must be invited or provoked to hear Debates between Learned Men speaking to those Points of Controversie that have staggered her Let her Ladiship bring her Champions with her Entertain her with many of these Conferences Let them be solemn as can be devised the King himself being ever present at the Disputes and the Conslux of great Persons as thick as the Place will permit Let your Lordships Industry and Earnestness be Conspicuous to catch at every Twig of Advantage much more to give Applause to every solid Reason which may bring your Mother home to a sound Mind again If her Ladiship recover of her Unstableness by these Applications you have won a Soul very precious to you and will raise your self up into the Fame of a Sincere Protestant But if the Light within her be Darkness and that she frustrate all hopes of her Reparation the Notice of your Lordships Pious Endeavours will fill the Kingdom with a good Report and will smell to every good Nostril like a sweet Savour My Lord Courage I set my rest upon 't that this Counsel will not deceive because you will labour your Mothers Conversion not as a Stratagem of Counterfeacance but upon my Knowledge from the very Mind of your Heart The Conferences went presently to work His Majesty singularly versed in Polemical Theology was Superintendent The Champion in whose Sufficiency the Lady most affied was Fisher the Jesuit With whom Dr. Francis White then Dean of Carlile first encountred and gave him Foil after Foil as the Colloquy did let the World know most impartially publish'd But Female Weakness was not evinced by Manly Performance The Logick of the Serpent had strong force upon Eve and that Infirmity is descended upon her Daughters Another Meeting was prepared wherein the Lord Keeper entred the Lists with Fisher because he had advised to those Disputes he was willing to be Active as well as Consultative As the old Rule would have Precept and Example to go Hand in Hand Cum dixit quid faciendum sit probat faciendo He had observ'd when he was an Auditor at the former Conflict that if divers of the Jesuits Postulata were yielded to him datis non concessis that the Church of England repurging it self from the super-injected Errors of the Church of Rome would stand inculpable So he labour'd to evidence if unnecessary Strifes were discreetly waved what little was wanting to a Conclusive Unity Ut quae non licuit per omnia ex necessariis partibus allegentur as the Emperor Justin wrote to Pope Hormisda The King did greatly commend his Charitable and Pacificatory handling of Controversies which gentle usage though it put the Jesuit out of his ordinary trot yet he fell into a shuffling pace and carried away the Lady behind him The Lord Keeper exposed not his part in Print as Fulgentius says of Frier Paul That he writ nothing with Intention to publish it unless Necessity constrein'd him The third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that contended with the Jesuit both for the Palm of Victory and to bring Eye-Salve to the dim-sighted Lady was Dr. Laud then Bishop of St. David's who galled Fisher with great Acuteness Which the false Loiolite traduced and made slight in his Reports Whereupon the Bishop for his just Vindication Corroborated all that he had delivered with very strong Enlargement paying his Adversary both with the Principal and Interest and divers Years after finish'd it with an Auctarium which hath rendred it a Master-Piece in Divinity But all this labour was spent in vain as to the Countess's part and she left to be numbred among those of whom Christ foretold that they loved Darkness more than Light Qui scis an prudens huc se dejecerit Atque Servari nelit Horat. Art Poet. Yet on my Lord her Sons part that which was desir'd was Atchieved He had appeared in the Field an Antagonist to her Revolt whom he Honour'd and Observ'd with the most of Filial Duty So she was less Valued ever after and sent from the Court for her Obstinacy But he was Blazed abroad for the Red-Cross-Knight that was Unàs Champion against Archimago Yet it was not Printed to be Read and Judg'd of till the Parliament Sate which was now call'd 179. And lest the precedents of the King's Writs should be lost as his Houses and Revenues are embezel'd here follows the Copy of the Summons directed to the Lord Keeper under the Signet James Rex TRusty and well beloved Counsellor we Greet you well Whereas we are Resolv'd to hold a Parliament at our Palace of Westminster the Twelfth day of February next ensuing These are to Will and require you forthwith upon the Receipt hereof to Issue forth Our Writs of Summons to all the Peers of our Kingdom And also all other usual Writs for the Electing of such Knights Citizens and Burgesses as are to serve therein And withal to issue out all usual Writs for the Summoning of the Clergy of both Provinces
in their Houses of Convocation And this shall be your Warrant so to do Dated at our Palace of Whitehal in Westminster this 28 Decem. 1623. The Tenth of February was first appointed being Tuesday the day of the Week which K. James observ'd to auspicate his great Affairs but proving to be Shrove-Tuesday wherein the Younkers of the City us'd to exceed in horrid Liberty that day was scratcht out of the Writ and Thursday the Twelfth was chosen in the Room But God scratcht out the Twelfth day when the day was come Nay when the King and his Train were putting on their Robes so far in readiness to begin their Solemnity For the King look'd about him and miss'd the L. Steward Duke of Richmond and Lenox He was absent indeed absent from the Body and present with God 2 Cor. 5.8 He had Supp'd chearfully the Night before complain'd of nothing when he went to Bed slept soundly Et iter confecit dormiendo he finish'd this last Journey in his sleep His Servant was commanded to waken him and hasten him to attend the King but found that he had breathed out his Spirit about an Hour before said the Sons of Art because his Corps was but inclining to be Cold. What a do was made to no purpose to suspect some foul means to rock him into this Everlasting Sleep which would never have been question'd in a meaner Man And cannot God prepare a Worm to smite the Gourd of our Body that it shall wither in a moment He was deplor'd generally I am in with them for he deserv'd it French he was born and bred You might have seen the Gallican Decency in his manners of good Aspect and well shap'd Affable Humble Inoffensive contented with so much Favour as was never Repin'd One that never Wrestled with the King's Privado's and was never near a fall One whose Wit and Honesty kept him great and much belov'd of all which rarely meet One that deserves the Elogy which Lampridias gives to Quintilius Marcellus Counsellor to Alexander Severus Qs. Meliorem ne Historiae quidem continent More was spoken to his never-dying Honour by the Graceful Eloquence of the Lord Keeper upon a fit Text taken out of the 1 King cap. 4. verse 5. Zabud the Son of Nathan was principal Officer and the King's Friend This was perform'd at his Funerals in Westminster Abby April 27. Which were the most costly and set out with the most Princely Pomp for a Subject that ever I saw His Dutchess thinking nothing too sumptuous in his Obsequies to do him the greatest Renown that could be Which Love in her survived towards him to her last hour But good Lady what a penurious House-Wife and scorn to the World hath Ar. Wilson made her p. 259. That her Tables in her Hall were spread as if there had been Meat and Men to furnish them but before Eating time the House being voided the Linnen Return'd into their Folds again and all her people Grased on some few Dishes Out of what Rascal Fame he scrapt up this I know not The Author liv'd not one day after he had Publish'd his Work to Answer it But there are yet as many Living that know this to be maliciously false as there are Pages in his Book For my own part I knew the Order the Comliness the Bounty of her House-keeping in Holborn and at Exeter-House whether I came often on Message from a Lady of a great understanding and a great will the Lady Elizabeth Hatton to streiten an Account of 8000 l. between them I have been kept upon my business until Meal-times very often Noon and Night and have staid with her Worthy Steward Mr. William Bolton at his Table which I could not Civilly Refuse I never saw but that every Board in the Hall was bountifully serv'd the Stewards Table chiefly so costly in well Cook'd-Meats so Rich in the Plate wherein it was serv'd so well observ'd by the Attendants as I preferr'd it before the like in any Noble Family that ever I was present at in the Kingdom I am bound I take it to defend the Hospitality in Truth where I have been a Guest Neither doth it belong only to Knight Errands in Wildwitted that is no Witted Romances to defend a Ladies Honour but it is due from every man that professeth Justice and Ingenuity Principally as Aristotle Writes Prob. 9. Sect. 30 Defunctis opitulari magis Justum est quam vivis hominibus The Exequies of the Dead are call'd Justa and it is more Just to defend the Dead then the Living Let me Weave into the Fringe of this Paragraph a touch at as Wise and Faithful a Letter as ever the Lord Keeper wrote to the Duke of Buckingham He that Reads it all as it is Cab. p. 101. Shall find it no loss of time mending the Fault of the Date a mistake very common in that Rhapsody of Letters it should bear the Style of Feb 13. 1623. instead of Mart. 2. 1624. The Office of the Lord Steward of the King's House was become void by the Death of the Duke of Richmond The next Morning he writes to my Lord of Buckingham That it was a place sit to be accepted of by his Lordship What more Places but peruse the Letter and the Scope of it all along will appear to instruct him upon the Assumption of this to part with another place the Admiralty more beneficial to his Followers then to himself who therefore kept him from discarding But how far had his Lordship been more Fortunate if he had follow'd better Counsel First he had made himself a less Object of their Malice who look'd with Meager Countenance upon him for holding so many Places of Publick Trust Mastership of the Horse Admiralty Wardenship of the Cinque Ports Justice in Eyer over all Chaces and Forrests on this side Trent Whereas the Lord Steward serves the King only in his Houshold Therefore the Lord Keeper omits not to remember him there Your Grace may leave any Office you please to avoid Envy The plurality of the Dukes Offices were one and the first of the Grievances heard and Prosecuted in the Houses of the Lords and Commons throughout all his troubles while his Life lasted Secondly but for the Name of Lord Admiral he had never withdrawn himself from Court to head a Navy at the Sea where never any Commander of the English Fleet made so improsperous a Voyage As Renowned Camden anno 1601. Eliz. says of Robert Earl of Essex That he was a Brave Warrier but Fortune did much forsake him and he would not say with Astrologers That Mars being Lord of his Nativity ' in the Eleventh Station Afflictissimus nascenti affulserat So this Lord Admiral was Valiant and feared not his Foes but Mars was not a propitious Ascendant at his Nativity He that feared it and knew him to be both wilful and unskilful advis'd him to take a White Staff instead of an Anchor but the Duke return'd him no Gra-mercy
good the time So he spent four hours in Repetition without Halt with such Assurance such Gesture such Carving and Gilding that he might wonder at himself what Spirit was in him that day All that took the height of his Report by a skilful Parallax concluded that he had striven with his former Peices and had outgone himself Yet the fourth Part will suffice to be remembred because the Flower of it is anticipated in the Spanish Transactions after a monthly Method Beside I cannot help the Reader to that which I never saw the several Letters which were read to the stronger Confirmation of every Particular Business the Contents of them must be supplied by him that is Wise to make Conjecture and not by my Pen. For though it be not according to Nature yet it is agreeing to Honesty Vacuum potius relinquere quà m verum to leave a void Space rather than to fill it up with a Fable as Barrenness is incomparably to be less blamed than Adultery So I go on to make such Room as is fit for the Heads of that long Report which should not seem to be unsavory Coleworts sod too often for their Tast to whom they are well known already Debet enim talibus in rebus excitare animos non cognitio solum rerum sed recordatio as Tully speaks Philip 2. 186. The Lord Keeper plotted his Conceptions into that Order wherein the Duke of Buckingham the Discoverer had gone before him beginning from Michaelmas 1622 when the King sitting close with his Council at Hampton-Court the Dispatches of Sir Richard Weston his Majesty's Ambassador at Brussels were scanned before them Sir Richard being a Man in whose Election to that Place the Spanish Ministers were greatly pleased and commended the King's Wisdom that he did light upon him Yet Sir Richard sent Packet upon Packet that he found nothing from the Arch-Dutchess but inconstant and false Dealing For though she acknowledged she had Power from the Emperor to cause Cessation of Arms in the Palatinate and undertook to put that Power forth yet with the same Breath she blew hot and cold For at that Instant when no Excuse could be made for the Cheat Tilly fell to it spightfully to besiege Heidelburg when the War was now between the Emperor and our King for they had no body to invade but his Majesty's Subjects and Servants that kept it And what spark of Patience could be left us when by every Post we received comfortable Words from Spain and contrary Effects from Brussels Hereupon Mr. Porter was sent to Madrid and commanded to stay in that Court but ten Days for an Answer The Letters that he carried with him were to signifie that this should be the last Sending if no less would serve the Emperor's Revenge but the utter Extermination of his Majesty's Children both in Honour and Inheritance That the Neighbour Kings and States of Christendom did malign the Match between the Prince and the Insanta and laboured to stop that Conjunction which would make England and Spain formidable to them But they should not need to contrive a way to prevent it This unsufferable Unkindness would bring it to pass to their hand For what Comfort could the Prince have in such a Wife the nearest of whose Blood had utterly ruined his Sister and her Progeny The Messenger carried this Arrand with him to the President of all Affairs in that Kingdom Conde Olivarez one that may justly be censured to have more of Will than of Wit one that play'd foul with us and could not hide it Sometimes he would run back from our Propositions as if he would never come near us sometimes he would run into our Arms as if his Heart and all his Powers did grow unto us Nec constans in side nec constans in persidiâ Mr. Porter came back from him with a half-sac'd Satisfaction but withal the King of Spain's Letters which were there read contained a Talent of Hope but we found not a Grain of Reality Upon this Journey Porter did so well remember somewhat that sell carelestly from the Conde Duke wishing the Prince himself were there to see how ready the King his Master was to fasten an indissoluble Knot of Amity and embrace Alliance with him that his Excellent Highness I speak in his Presence what he knows hearing it with more Attention than was imagined put on that heroick and undauntable Boldness craved Leave of his Father that he might visit the great Ingeneers at their own Forge to see what they were working and how they would receive him and as we use to say Either win the Horse or loose the Saddle Here again says the Reporter my Lord Duke acquainted us how acceptable at the first the Arrival of the Prince did seem to Olivarez who in the Enterview in the Garden assured with great Oaths that all should be dispatched with sudden Resolution and that his Highness should be pressed to nothing that was not agreeable to Conscience and Honour and stood not with the Love of the People of England Then it was related That King Philip seemed most sensible of the Courtesie that such a Guest had visited him and that he would permit all to his own Asking as he did express it at their Meeting in the Prado The Lord Duke was very copious upon all the Negotiations in Spain from his Highness's Arrival to his Parting and the Lord Keeper mist not one Particular but beautified all and gave it Lustre which may here be spared in Repetition because nothing was added in Substance to that which is methodized upon it in the Months of the former Summer Much of the Day was spent to shew how deceitful Conde Olivarez was who like a crafty Marchant he gave a Tast of one Wine and upon the Bargain would sell of another Swear us often into the Possession of the Palatinate and yet embroiled us at the same Instant more and more with an Army Waved all Differences of Religion between us and them at the first and presently turned the Wheel from the Top to the Bottom and fell into insolent Propositions that the Prince could not make a fit Husband for their Lady unless he would become a Papist Sometimes he would aggravate how far we differed from the Catholick Confession of Faith as if the Gulph reach'd from Heaven to Hell Sometimes he colleagued as if we were near upon a Point and but a little Stride between us Et Stoica dogmata tantùm A cynicis tunicâ distantia Juvenal Then the Articles for the Marriage were brought in play and with what a number of new ones his Highness's Commissioners were surcharged and how irrespectively they stuffed the Book with strange and undisputed Additions and commonly the last which they presented were the worst Verres secum ipse certat id agit ut semper superius suum facinus novo scelere vincat Tul. Act. 7. in Verrem But our Ministers rejected those bastard Slips and all that Conscience English
Honour and Safety could not approve 187. After this says the Reporter my Lord Duke hath informed you of the Dispensation the Whirly-Gig of the Dispensation which run round from Pope to Pope and never could be said to settle And though an orbicular Motion is fittest for the Spheres of Heaven yet a circular Motion which is ever beginning and never ending is stark naught for dispatch of Affairs on Earth Both the Dispensation and the Labour of the Junto of Divines upon it and their Fumbling Fingers were never fit to tye a Love-Knot Nay the Conde Duke brake out into such a Chase against their Theologues that he said the Devil put it into his Head to commit the Matter to their Learning So that it seems the Resolution of the Divines came quite contrary to the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost The next thing says he reported out of his Grace's Digestions was the Loathing that the Prince did take at the Length of the Treaty as well as the Matter but chiefly at that In the Matter that he was offered the present Conducting of the Lady into England so he would sell his Soul for the Favour and be a Client to Saints and Images to beg a Blessing of them upon his Marriage And whereas his Highness had travelled into so far a Country as well to relieve a Sister and her Posterity as to fetch a Wife he was at such a loss about the Loss of his Sister's Inheritance that the Spanish Council would fasten upon nothing to content him Hereupon his Highness declared himself plainly to the Conde in these Words Look to it Sir for without this you must not conclude of either Marriage or Friendship For I must go to my Father and acquaint him with your Resolution Here the Lord Keeper grew warm and besought their Lordships to observe how constant his Highness remained to the principal Ground of all the Restitution of the Palatinate which was the Hinge upon which all his subsequent Actions did move Look to it for neither Marriage nor Friendship can be made without the Restitution of that Dominion Which Protestation effecting little good his Highness look'd homeward But his Purposes and Preparations for his Return were often slackned But because the King of Spain expected a Betrothing with his Sister before his going away the Conde Duke revived the Treaty for the Restitution of the Paltz And after Conference with the Emperors Ambassadors there was projected a Restitution of the Country to the Son upon a Condition of a Marriage with the Emperors second Daughter which the Prince entertained But then the stabbing Condition comes after That for his Religion he must first be bred in the Emperors Court at which his Highness stopt his Ears But for the Electorate it was a thing in Nubibus out of their Power and it seems out of their Affections for they would not be drawn to meddle in it And whereas they had once made a chearful Proffer To assist us with the Arms if the Emperor did not keep his Word to put the Prince Palatine into his own again Now they slew back and confest the Emperor had been inconstant and did not deal well with them but if he would beat and buffet them they would not promise to employ a Leavy of Forces against the House of Austria 188. Now says the Voice of the Reporter since his Highness could prevail for nothing to come on well his wisest Project was to take care that himself might come off well For which there is not one of your Lordships I presume but would have given much and done much And it cost you nothing but the Perturbation of some Suspicions and Fears I say Fear was the worst you susser'd For Religion God be thanked suffer'd not at all though it was greatly mistrusted There the Lord Keeper delighted their Expectations in that which they listned after how the Kings Ministers and himself principally for he shrunk not in his Head did proceed from time to time in the last Summer about the Pardon and Dispensation about which the Spanish Ambassadors struggled for the Recusants sake In Contemplation whereof the Prince had a free and friendly Dismission yet not a Joint of Religion sprained nor a Law actually dislocated But as a Wound that is cured by a Weapon Salve sine contactu so the Law was never touch'd only the Point and Edge of the Weapon a little anointed and by the Operation of it our Noble Prince past the Pikes of Danger and is come Home to his Fathers House from a far Land without a Pater peccavi GOD be thanked he neither sinned against Heaven nor against his Father nor against you nor against the Laws or Religion for which we have cause to offer up a great Thanksgiving to GOD because there is not a spot in the Sacrifice He goes on then as the Tract of my Lord the Duke did lead him and enters into a large Field to rip up that which had been told them before how near the Prince and the Infanta were drawn together where the Marriage staid and upon what Conditions they parted Which though it had been many Years in Destination as we were credulous and do not yet lay down our Faith yet if Conde Olivarez may be trusted until they had seen the Gallantry of the Prince and his Deservings being daily now in their Eyes they held us with fair Words before but Performance till then was never meant Which he made good at least to his own Opinion by two Letters the first bears date Nov. 5. 1622. it was the late King of Spain's as the Conde said read over six times by his Highness and Sir Walter Aston and presently out of their Memories for they were not permitted to excribe it set down in Writing and I hope says the Lord Keeper when you consider the Notary you will hold it authentical The second Letter is written with Olivarez his own Hand Novemb. 8. 1623. Translated by the Prince himself very neatly and exactly Let the Clerk read them both These declare the Resolution of the Spanish Court at least in my Opinion that the great Conde's Heart was not with us till the Prince lodg'd in their Palace and sate in Council with them himself the last Summer But by that opportunity their Eyes were opened and they perceiv'd that their Lady whom they magnifie so much could never make a more happy Wife than with so brave a Husband So that no doubt the Desposorios and perhaps the Nuptials had been past by this time with mutual liking if the scandal of invading the Palatinate had been removed out of the way This the Duke's Grace says the Lord Reporter hath impartially spread out holding a just Balance in his Hand And most prudently knowing that he spake in the hearing of the wisest in the Kingdom and most faithfully for as Valerian said of Posthumius in the History of Pollio if Posthumius deceive us Sciatis nusquam gentium reperiri qui
not in God's Harvest The antient Christians that desaced Idols of Silver and Gold would Purse none of the Metal for fear of giving Scandal to the Heathen Stilico demolished some such Images and he and his Wife were found to wear the Ornaments that had belonged to them for which they were cry'd out upon says Baronius An. 389. c. 57. Quia apud antiquae probitatis Christianos nefas erat in Idola grassari ut in usum privatum aliquid verteretur ut appareat pietate nos ista destruere non avaritiâ A very wise and a pious Course for an avaricious Zeal is a poysoned Cordial And few will captivate their Understanding to edifie by a Sacrilegious Reformer I hope Loosers may have Leave to breath out their Sorrows especially for Sion's sake However I beseech God to preserve his Ark among us though the Pot of Manna be lost to bless the pure Doctrine and the Sacraments of the Gospel to all to whom they belong that the Infant be not rob'd of the one nor such as are of grown Age of the other Then as the Earth is the Lords in all its Fulness so the true Church is Christ's in all its Penury and Emptiness And this is enough to let the Reader see what was intended to be made good before that a most Church-loving was a most happy Parliament 195. Yet no feast was ever so bountiful but some went away unsatisfied and no Court was ever so Righteous upon Earth but some Appellants thought they were prejudiced If any man had Cause to complain of the Justice of this Parliament it was the Lord Treasurer Cranfield About whose Tryal if I should ask as the Pharises did about Divorces Is it lawful to censure a principal Officer for eve-Cause I must say as Christ answered them From the Beginning it was not so A Parliament is a Judge among Gods a Terror to Magistrates that are a Terror to any but to them that deserve Evil the only or the best Inquisitor into the Ways of them that Rule in high Places that he that stands may take heed least he fall But if it grow common if every Session make it their Work or their Recreation to hunt such Game down and root up Cedars that might have stood without Offence Moderation will be desired and the Prudent will think it is not fit many a Week should be lost anent the providing of good Laws when a Month or two pass over in bringing a white Staff or some such Grandee to the Stake to be baited by Informers The Lord Treasurer had some Petitions preferred against him in March which at first he laugh'd at and thought to scorn them down with Unguiltiness For who regards the first Grudgings of a Sickness Yet none perish sooner than they that are not provident against the first beginning of an Evil. The Petitioners were countenanced because he whose Harm they sought was one that was not beloved 'T is true he was surly and of hard Access But be it remembred he sate in his great Places not to be popular and get Affections but to be Just and to Husband the Revenue of the Crown with Prudence But subtle Knavery is like to be longer unquestioned than rough-cast Innocency He was charged with Corruption and sordid Bribery all the while many Sages contended that the Proofs came not home to a full Discovery One press'd it close that he gave him Five hundred Pound to break well through a long Suit in the Court of Wards To which the Treasurer answered That the Money was paid him for a Place in the Custom-House for which the Complainant had often moved him which his Secretaries and other Witnesses made good and that upon the Payment of that Sum one of the Six and thirty Portions in the Custom-House was reserved for him Albeit the weight of this suspected Bribe not a Bur hanging upon his Gown beside press'd him down in the Conclusion This was not to turn Foxes into Fleas a Bed as H. Grotius doth in his Notes upon the Canticles but it is to turn Fleas into Foxes or rather Flea-bites into the mortal Spots of the Pestilence Whether the Treasurer had great Faults it is uncertain and waits Report but 't is sure he had great Adversaries The Duke of Buckingham and all his Party appeared against him Whereupon Sir A. Wel. the most virulent Defamer of the Lord Treasurer writes That a small Accusation as his was would serve to turn him out of his Honor whom the Duke did then oppose But why did his Grace heave at his Cousin by Marriage 't is very dark It seems the Courtiers had no Mind to let us know it For as Lampridius Notes in Vit. Alex. Sev. Secreta omnia in aulâ esse cupiunt ut soli aliquid scire videantur It is perhaps that the Treasurer would have brought a Darling Mr. Arthur Bret his Countess's Brother into the King's Favour in the great Lord's Absence Or that he grudg'd that the Treasury was exhausted in vast Issues by the late Journey into Spain and denied some Supplies Or that he dealt too plainly at the Council-Table in giving no kind Ear to his Cousin's Relations of his Doings at Madrid having not the Art to catch his Affections in the Springes of Flattery But down the Duke cast him as me-seems being not aware how every man hath so many Relations that he that destroys one Enemy makes himself ten more Or as I heard another say long ago much better upon it that my Lord of Buckingham did never undo any of his Enemies but he ruin'd many of his Friends And in this Lord 's Overthrown the Prince abetted him was Privy to the Undertakings of his Adversaries and accompassed Suffrages to Condemn him The bitter Welden P. 168. could not resâ—ain to Comment upon it That the Prince discerned so much Juggling in the Parliament in Cranfield's Case that it was not much to be wondred at being come to be King that he did not affect them King James being all that time of this Storm not at Newmarket as our late Mistakers say but at Greenwich was so sad that a trusty Servant and an able should be thus handled forced from him and quipt every day with ignominious Taunts that the kind Correspondencies between him and the Parliament began to have a Cloud over them He courted many to take side with his Treasurer and prevailed little because the most did love to warm themselves in the Light of the Rising Sun He tutored his Son the Prince that he should not take part with a Faction in either House but so reserve himself that both Sides might seek him and chiefly to take heed how he bandied to pluck down a Peer of the Realm by the Arm of the Lower House for the Lords were the Hedge between himself and the People and a Breach made in that Hedge might in time perhaps lay himself open But the Duke had thrust on the Prince so far that he could not retreat
strong and violent Machination in hand which had turn'd the Prince a most Obedient Son before to a quite contrary Course to his Majesties Intentions Thirdly That the Counsel began last Summer at Madrid but was lately ripen'd and resolv'd in England to restrain his Majesty from the Exercise of the Government of his three Kingdoms and that the Prince and the Duke had design'd such Commissioners under themselves as should intend great Affairs and the Publick Good Fourthly That this should be effected by beginning of a War and keeping some Troops and Companies on Foot in this Land whereby to constrein His Majesty to yield to any thing chiefly being brought into Streits for want of Monies to pay Souldiers Fifthly That the Prince and Duke inclosing his Majesty from the said Embassador and other of his own Loyal People that they might not come near him in private did Argue in them a fear and distrust of a good Conscience Sixthly That the Emissaries of the Duke had brought his Majesty into Contempt with the Potent Men of the Realm traducing him for slothful and unactive for addiction to an inglorious Peace while the inheritance of his Daughter and her Children are in the Hands of his Foes and that this appear'd by a Letter which the Duke had writ into Holland and they had intercepted Seventhly That his Majesties Honour Nay his Crown and Safety did depend upon a sudden Dissolution of the Parliament Eighthly They Loaded the Duke with sundry misdemeanors in Spain and his violent Opposition of the Match Ninthly That the Duke had divulged the King's Secrets and the close Designs between his Majesty and their Master K. Philip about the States of Holland and their Provinces and labour'd to put his Majesty out of the good Opinion of the Hollanders Tenthly That the Duke was guilty of most corrupt dealing with the Embassadors of divers Princes Eleventhly That all things were carried on in the Parliament with a headlong Violence and that the Duke was the Cause of it who courted them only that were of troubled Humours Twelfthly That such Bitterness and Ignominies were vented against the King of Spain in Parliament as was utterly against all good Manners and the Honour of the English Nation Thirteenthly Is a flat Contradiction to the Precedents wherein they made the Prince privy to dangerous things yet in this they say That the Puritans of whom the Duke was Head did wish they could bring it about that the Succession of the Kingdom might come to the Prince Palatine and his Children in Right of the Lady Elizabeth Thus lay the Notes of the Lord Keeper This is the Dirt which the Swallows or rather unclean Birds pickt up and made their Nest of it And this is not all But that which remains shall be burnt in the Fire Latere semper patere quod latuit diu Saepè eruentis veritas patuit malo Senec. in Aedipo In a Postscript the Paper prayed the King That Don Francisco Carondelet Secretary to Marquess Inoiosa might be brought to the King when the Prince and Duke were sitting in the Upper House to satisfie such doubts as the King might Raise which was perform'd by the Earl of Kelly who watch'd a fit Season for Francisco at one time and for Padre Maestro the Jesuit at another time who told their Errand so spitefully that the King was much troubled at their Relations 202. He that says U. Sanderson P. 562. that not a day past but that he was present and acquainted with all the Transaction of these pernicious Delators to the end should have said he knew it at the end when the Monster was brought to light then his History indeed will justifie it self that it did not startle the King But his Majesty's Sorrow increased while it was smothered and Fear set in apace till a wise Remonstrance resisted it And it was no Wonder that he was abused a while and dim sighted with a Character of Jealousie For the Parliament was about to land him in a new World to begin and maintain a War who thought that scarce any Mischief was so great as was worth a War to mend it Wherein the Prince did deviate from him as likewise in Affection to the Spanish Alliance but otherwise promised nothing but Sweetness and Obedience He stuck at the Duke most of all whom he defended in part to one of the Spanish Ministers yet at the same time complained that he had noted a turbulent Spirit in him of late and knew not how to mitigate it Thus casting up the Sum he doubted it might come to his own Turn to pay the Reckoning The Setters on expected that their Pill could not choose but have a most violent Operation And it wrought so far that his Majesty's Countenance fell suddenly that he mused much in Silence that he entertained the Prince and Duke with mystical and broken Speeches From whence they gathered all was not right and questing for Intelligence they both heard that the Spanish Secretary and the Jesuit Maestro had been with him and understood that some in the Ambassador's House had vaunted that they had netled the Duke and that a Train would take Fire shortly to blow up the Parliament While his Majesty was gnawn with this Perplexity he prepared for Windsor to shift Ground for some better Ease in this Unrest and took Coach at St. James's-House-Gate in the end of April being Saterday Afternoon He received his Son into the Coach and sound a slight Errand to leave Buckingham behind as he was putting his Foot in the Boot which brought Tears from him and an humble Prayer that his Majesty would let him know what could be laid to his Charge to offend so gracious a Master and vowed it by the Name of his Saviour to purge it or confess it The King did not satisfie him in it it seems the time of Detection in his deep Judgment was not come and he had charged all that were privy to the Occasion to be very secret Cab. P. 77. But he breathed out this Disgust That he was the Unhappiest alive to be forsaken of them that were dearest to him which was uttered and received with Tears from his own Eyes as well as the Prince's and Duke's whom he left behind and made hast with his Son for Windsor The Lord Keeper spared not for Cost to purchase the most certain Intelligence of those that were his feed Pensioners of every hours Occurrencies at Court and was wont to say That no man could be a Statesman without a great deal of Money Of this which had hapned his Scout related presently what he could see for he heard little Which News were no sooner brought but he sought out the Duke at Wallingford-House and had much ado to be admitted to him in his sad Retirement Whom he found laid upon a Couch in that immoveable Posture that he would neither rise up nor speak though he was invited to it twice or thrice by courteous Questions The Lord Keeper
gave his Grace the Faith of a deep Protestation that he came purposely to prevent more Harm and to bring him out of that Sorrow into the Light of the King's Favour That he verily believed God's directing Hand was in it to stir up his Grace to advance him to those Honours which he possess'd to do him Service at this Pinch of Extremity He besought his Grace to make haste for Windsor and to shew himself to his Majesty before Supper was ended to deport himself with all amiable Addresses not to stir from his Person Night nor Day For the Danger was that some would thrust themselves in to push on his Majesty to break utterly with the Parliament and the next Degree of their Hope was upon that Dissolution to see his Grace committed to the Tower and then God knows what would follow The Keeper adjured his Lordship to lock up this in his own Breast which was imparted as charily to him as under the Seal of Secrecy but to be quick and Judicious in the Prevention more was not to be said because loss of time might loose all The Duke parted with many Thanks and lingred not but came to Windsor before he was look'd for Though he suspected not so much Evil yet he knew the Danger might be the worse for being contemned Nihil tuto in hoste despicitur Quem spreveris valentio rem negligent iâ facies Curt. lib. 6. 903. No doubt but all this was disclos'd to the Prince 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Eurip. in Oenomao we conjecture at unevident things by that which is evident The Duke stirr'd not from Windsor but waited on his Majesty and was inseparable as his shadow The Prince was early at the Lords House before their Lordships began to sit on Munday Morning His business was with the Lord Keeper whom he took aside into a Lobby and protested how well it pleas'd him that he had given Buckingham faithful warning for his safety And you says his Highness that have gone thus far may receive greater Thanks of us both if you will spread open this black contrivance which hath lost him the Good Opinion of my Father and my self am in little better Condition Sir says the Lord Keeper Let my Soul suffer for falshood if I know any more than that some in the Spanish Embassador's House have been preparing mischief and infused it about four days since into his Majesty But the Curtain of Privacy is drawn before the Picture that I cannot guess at the Colours Well my Lord says the Prince I expected better Service from you for if that be the Picture-Drawers shop no Counselior in this Kingdom is better acquainted then your self with the Works and the Workmen I might have been says the Keeper and I am pang'd like a Womâ—n in Travail till I know what mishapen Creature they are Drawing But your Highness and my Lord Duke have made it a Crime to send unto that House and they are afraid to do it who are commanded from his Majesty It is a Month since I have forbidden the Servants of that Family to come at me But says the Prince I will make that Passage open to you again without Offence and Enterprise any way to bring us out of this Wood wherein we are lost Only before we part keep not from me how you came to know or imagin that the Spanish Agents have Charged Buckingham to my Father with High Misdemeanors or perhaps Disloyalty I would hear you to that Point that I may compare it with other Parcels of my Intelligence Sir says the Keeper I will go on directly with you Another perhaps would Blush when I tell you with what Heifer I Plow but knowing mine Innocency the worst that can happen is to expose my self to be Laugh'd at Your Highness hath often seen the Secretary Don Francisco Carondelet He loves me because he is a Scholar for he is Arch-Deacon of Cambray And sometimes we are pleasant together for he is a Wallcon by Birth and not a Castilian I have discover'd him to be a Wanton and a Servant to some of our English Beauties but above all to one of that gentle Craft in Mark-Lane A Wit she is and one that must be Courted with News and Occurrences at home and abroad as well as with Gifts I have a Friend that hath brib'd her in my Name to send me a faithful conveyance of such Tidings as her Paramour Carondelet brings to her All that I instructed the Duke in came out of her Chamber And she hath well earn'd a piece of Plate or two from me and shall not be unrecompenced for this Service about which your Highness doth use me if the Drab can help me in it Truly Sir this is my Dark Lahthorn and I am not asham'd to inquire of a Dalilah to Resolve a Riddle for in my Studies of Dlvinity I have glean'd up this Maxim Licet uti alieno peccato though the Devil make her a Sinner I may make good use of her Sin Yea says the Prince Merrily do you deal in such Ware ' In good Faith Sir says the Keeper I never saw her Face So this Conference Ended 204. The Lord Keeper took his Place in the Lords House to moderate Affairs as Speaker But all the while his Fancy was Whistling to another Tune how he might play his Game discreetly He held the Prince his Cards and would not for his Life that he should loose He had well consider'd and brought the Case to this Touch stone of Judgment that he should never know how the whole Scene had been Acted but by Secretary Francisco He had requested him to refrain his house above the whole space of a Month. If he sent for him on even Terms nothing would run freely from him Well fare a good Invention or a good Genius that prompted him For a knack came into his Head to fetch Francisco to him without any invitation as if a Conjurer had brought him in a Whirl-wind So he becken'd to a Servant and bad him that his Pursivant Captain Toothbie should wait him without fail as soon as the House was up The Pursivant at that hour took punctual Directions from him to seize upon an English Mass-Priest lodg'd in Drury â—me Named and Describ'd exactly for he had the Art to fetch such a Fowl or twain out of the Coope at an hours warning to receive him without any Noise into his Custody and upon Entreaty as that and proffer of Mony would not be wanting to carry him to his own House till further Order and not to the common Goal The Priest was apprehended and laid up The Man that was dearer to Francisco which the Lord Keeper know then his own Confessor or any of that Coat which made him wild when he heard of the mischance for he knew the Law and how hard it would be to save his Life if he came to be Tried at the Sessions the Parliament then Sitting He was in a fort banish'd from the
dare Swear it was he that bolted the Flower and made it up into this Paist Sir says the Prince I was precluded by my Promise not to Reveal him but I never promis'd to tell a Lye for him Your Majesty hath hit the Man And God do him good for it says the King I need not tell you both what you owe him for this Service and he hath done himself this Right with me that I discern his sufficiency more and more All this the Prince Related at his next Meeting to the Lord Keeper This passage so memorable hath pluck'd on a Prolix Narration for divers Reasons It was a secret manag'd between few persons though the greatest and likely to be buried for ever unless it rise from the Dust where it was smother'd upon this occasion It will expound to inquisitive Men why after this time the old King never retrieved the Spanish Match as if suddenly it were sunk and set beneath the Horizon of his Thoughts it demonstrates why in a year after being the First of King Charles there was such Willingness in the young King and such Readiness in the Duke to Rigg a great Navy and to send it with Defiance of Hostility to Cales for though the Grandee Inoiosa received a sharp Rebuke here to vex his Gorge and suddenly pack'd up his portable Gods and went to his own Country in a Fume yet he received no Disfavour or Frown upon it from the Court of Spain Nihil nefas est malitiae It tells you what a Stone of Offence was laid before the King able to make him to Dissolve the Parliament just upon the Expectation of a happy Winding up if the Lord Keeper had not removed the Jealousie away which is one of the best Offices of a Christian for it is God's own Attribute in the Prophets to be a Repairer of Breaches Lastly His Wit was in Conjunction with the Safety of his great Friend the Duke Et vincente Odenato triumphavit Gallienus says Pollio The Keeper had Content enough that the Duke triumphed over those Foes whom he had vanquished for him 206. Soon as those Hobgoblins which haunted the King to fright him were frighted away themselves and the Magicians which conjured them up were rendered odious his Majesty was never in a better Mood to please his Subjects and the Subjects in Parliament never from that day to this in so dutiful a Frame to please their Soveraign Fatebimur regem talibus ministris illos tanto rege fuisse dignissimos Curt. l. 4. As Alexander deserved such brave Commanders under him so they deserved to be commanded by so brave a Prince as Alexander Their long Counsels which had been weather bound came to a quiet Road and their Vessel was lighted of those Statutes which are of immortal Memory The wise Men of those times ask'd for good Laws with Moderation for Moderation had not yet out-liv'd the Peoples Palate and they were brought forth with Joy and Gladness And that which was gotten with Peace and Joy will out-last that were it ten times more which is extorted in a Hurly-burly There were no Rents no Divisions among the Members much less did the Stronger Part spurn out the Weaker The Voices went all one way as a Field of Wheat is bended that 's blown with a gentle Gale One and all And God did not let a general Concurrence pass without a general Blessing Sic viritim laboraverunt quasi summa res singulorum manibus teneretur Nazar Paneg. The Laws devised were confirmed in Clusters by the Royal Authority And though one of them about the strict Keeping of the Sabbath was then stop'd the Name of Sabbath being unsatisfactory to the King's Mind yet Amends were made that the Kingdom had a Sabbath granted it from many Suits and Unquietnesses That which Crowned all was the Pardon the most general that ever was granted which was the sooner got because the Pillars of the Common-wealth had discharged their publick Trust without Offence The next Session of this Parliament was appointed in April following and this Session shut up with the End of June The Lord Keeper was not a little joy'd with the sweet Close of it for which he had gained a noble Report Praeter laudem nullius avarus Horat. Ar. Poet. And after three years Experience having now spent so much time in the High Court of Chancery his Sufficiency was not only competent but as great as might be required in a compleat Judge He was one of them in whom Knowledge grew faster upon him than his Years As Tully praised Octavius Cesar Ex quo judicari potest virtutis esse quà m aetatis cursum celeriorem Philip 8. In eminent Persons Virtue runs on swifter than Age. And it is a Slander whereof late Writers are very rank in all Kinds which one hath publish'd that this Man's Successor the Lord Coventry reversed many of his Decrees and corrected his Errors I do not blame Lawyers if they would have us believe that none is fit for the Office of Chancellor but one of their own Profession But let them plead their own Learning and able Parts without traducing the Gifts of them that are excellently seen in Theological Cases of Conscience and singularly rare in natural Solertiousness Lord Coventry was a renowned Magistrate and his Honour was the Honour of the Times wherein he liv'd the vast Compass of that Knowledge wherein he was always bred and his strong Judgment in searching into those Causes did transcend his Predecessor yet not to obscure him as if he were wanting in that which was required to his Place A good Carpenter knows how to frame a House as well as the Geometer that surveyed the Escurial Let me quote a couple of Witnesses what they asserted herein and they are rightly produced as God the great Witness of all things knows The Duke of Buckingham in the beginning of the next Term at Michaelmas perswaded the Lord Chief Justice Hobart either to deliver it to the King with his own Mouth or to set it under his Hand that Lord Williams was not sit for the Keeper's Place because of his Inabilities and Ignorance and that he would undertake thereupon to cast the Complained out and himself should succeed him My Lord says Reverend Hobart somewhat might have been said at the first but he should do the Lord Keeper great Wrong that said so now After this Grave and Learned Lord I bring forth Mr. G Evelin one of the Six Clerks and in his time the best Head-piece of the Office who delighted to divulge it as many yet living know that Lord Keeper Williams had the most towring sublime Wit that he ever heard speak magnified his Decrees as hitting the White in all Causes and never missing That Lord Coventry did seldom after any thing he had setled before him but upon new Presumptions and spake of him always in Court with due Praise and Justification of his Transactions He that hath insinuated the contrary aiming to
do Honour to none but to the Students of the Laws hath run out of the Ring And is it not honester to say nothing than to go about to do good with a Mischief 207. And that Man might see better to do Justice who would never receive a Bribe to blind his Eyes 1 Sam. 12.3 This was known not only to me a Domestick but to all that walked the Streets who were informed what Repulses they had who tempted him with Gratifications This I am sure of as I know what is sweet by mine own Tast and by the common Opinion One thing I will remember not because it is of great Moment but because it is pleasant His Lordship being retired to Nonsuch in the Summer took the Air in the great Park and viewing from one of the Hills the little Village of Malden he espied a Church new built and asked at whose Charge it was done Mr. George Minors that attended him told him who was the greatest Benefactor And hath he not a Suit now depending in Chancery says the Keeper The very same says the other And the very same says the Keeper shall not fare the worse for building of Churches Which being related by Mr. Minors to his Neighbour the Gentleman the next Morning sent a Tast of the Fruits of his Orchard and of the Poultry in his Yard to Nonsuch-House Nay carry them back George says the Keeper and tell your Friend he shall not fare the better for sending of Presents If any were so uncharitably suspitious that this Lord sold Justice for Gold or Silver though not for meaner things and gathered where he should not there could be no Ground to surmise it but because he scattered much For he was magnificent in great Works profuse in Hospitality very expensive in Liberality to poor Scholars and decay'd Persons To maintain all this he had plenty coming in which wanted not the Art of good Husbandry to lay it out He was as Provident as he was Bountiful He never feasted the King and very rarely exhausted himself upon Courtiers in lavish Entertainments But according to the honest and thrifty Rule of Cassiodor Fundit potiùs qui mittit in plenum illud reconditur quod vasis vacuis congregatur He spread not out his Compost upon rich Soil but upon hungry Land He gave so fast to Scholars that it was not possible his Lest-hand should know what his Right-hand did Quod momentum aut beneficio sterile Aut vacuum laude Plin. Paneg. If they were young he did it to encourage them if aged to reward them And Gentlemen that were brought low not by their Vices but by Misfortune Poveri vergognesi as the Tuscan calls them Bashful and could not Crave though they perished he prevented their Modesty and would heartily thank those that discovered their commiserable Condition to him The Prisoners of the Gate-House found the way to their Neighbour's Purse every Week It were endless to take notice of his good Works but in great Constellations Fugiunt sine nomine signa Manil. lib. 1. Stars that appear Small and dim were never numbred And though he was better at Liberality than Patience yet when he had overgone three years in the Court of Chancery he watched his Passions so well that the Heat of his old Brittish Complexion was much abated and carried all things with far more Lenity than Choler Would chide little and bear much Vehement he was often to recall Pleaders to the Point and to press Order and Dispatch Vehemency is mistaken if it be called Anger As Cicero defends himself to Fusius Calenus Vehementer me agere fatcor iracundè nego Philip 8. But if his Passion break out too far beyond the Measure of Vehemency he never rested till he had made some Amends to him whom he had sadded or offended which is the Apology that St. Ambrose makes for the good Emperor Theodosius the Elder in his Funeral Rites Tunc proprior fuisset veniae cum fuisset commotio major iracundiae Optabatur in eo quod in aliis timebatur ut irasceretur So the Clients at the Bar had studied the good Nature of this Lord and presaged that after he had chased at their Mis-usance they might promise to themselves a good Cast of his Office long before the Sun set which never set before he was returned to Patience and loving Kindness 208. Difficulties in Parliament Labours in Chancery were well pass'd over but to keep in long with the Duke of Buckingham was insuperable unless the Lord Keeper would be stupid and oppose him in nothing though the Dukes as well as his Ruine were upon Contrivance and the notorious Hurt of them that were better than them both Since his Grace's Return from Spain you shall find the Keeper in every of his Letters in the Cabal few excepted endeavouring to take off the Edge of some late started Quarrel As P. 96. in a Date July 21 1624 in this Submission If ever I have offended your Grace I take Almighty God to witness it was for want of a perfect Understanding of those high Matters let the Reader be informed it was about the Earl of Bristol's Recriminations not out of any Corruption of Affections towards your Grace or the least struggling in a continued Resolution to live and dye your Grace's most constant and most faithful Servant But whether it would succeed to good Liking or no he was resolved to divert him from some desperate Courses into which his Grace was entring to raise vast Summs of Money the Nerves of a sudden War with Spain which he meant to begin as soon as he could be furnished with Coin The Keeper was very sick of a Fevor and a Flux at this time and after Danger of Life recovered by that great Secretary of Nature Dr. William Harvey being not able to go into the Air he writes to my Lord Duke what he conceived about his former Project Octob. 21. May it please your Grace I Hear a Whispering rather than a Report out of Westminster-Hall that some great Alteration is presently to be made of the small Remainder of his Majesty's or rather the Crown Lands Although I know not certainly being unimployed and unprofitable whether I ought to take notice hereof at all or what to advise yet presuming upon that Favour I have ever found and of late as much as ever with your Grace I have sent you this Ticket to read and burn If there be any Resolution taken for the general Alteration of the Crown Lands yet this is not a convenient time to go about it First Because there is not yet a Lord Treasurer that it may be Christned to be his Act. Secondly Because it hath not been debated at the Council-Table for want of whose Advice it will be appropriated to be your Grace's Act. Thirdly It cannot be ripe for Execution till the next Session of Parliament is dissolved for otherwise it will undoubtedly serve as an Excuse for not Granting Subsidies But setting those
Commanders Or if he came to be tried in the Furnace of the next Session of Parliament he had need to make the Refiners to be his Friends 210. Here steps in Dr. Preston a good Crow to smell Carion and brought Conditions with him to make his Grace malleable upon the great Anvil and never break This Politick Man that he might feel the Pulse of the Court had preferr'd himself to be Chaplain to the Prince and wanted not the Intelligence of all dark Mysteries through the Scotch especially of his Highness's Bedchamber These gave him countenance more than others because he prosecuted the Endeavours of their Countrymen Knox. To the Duke he repairs And be assured he had more Skill than boisterously to propound to him the Extirpation of the Bishops remembring what King James had said in the Conference at Hampton-Court Anno 1. No Bishop No King Therefore he began to dig further off and to heave at the Dissolution of Cathedral Churches with their Deans and Chapters the Seminary from whence the ablest Scholars were removed to Bishopricks At his Audience with the Duke he told him He was sorry his Grace's Actions were not so well interpreted abroad as Godly Men thought they deserved That such Murmurings as were but Vapours in common Talk might prove to be Tempests when a Parliament met That his safest way was to Anchor himself upon the Love of the People And let him perswade himself he should not sail to be Master of that Atchievement if he would profess himself not among those that are Protestants at large and never look inward to the Center of Religion but become a warm and zealous Christian that would employ his best help strenuously to lop off from this half-reformed Church the superfluous Branches of Romish Superstition that much disfigured it Then he named the Quire-Service of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches with the Appennages which were maintained with vast Wealth and Lands of excessive Commodity to feed fat lazy and unprofitable Drones And yet all that Chanting and Pomp hindred the Heavenly Power and Simplicity of Prayer And furthered not the Preaching of the Gospel And now says he let your Grace observe all the ensuing Emoluments if you will lean to this Counsel God's Glory shall be better set forth that 's ever the Quail-Pipe to bring Worldings into the Snares of Sacrilege The Lands of those Chapters escheating to the Crown by the Dissolution of their Foundations will pay the King's Debts Your Grace hath many Alliances of Kindred all sucking from you and the Milk of those Breasts will serve them all and nourish them up to great Growth with the best Seats in the Nation Lastly Your Grace shall not only surmount Envy but turn the Darling of the Commonwealth and be reverenced by the best Operators in Parliament as a Father of a Family And if a Crum stick in the Throat of any considerable Man that attempts to make a contrary part it will be easie to wash it down with Mannors Woods Royalties Tythes c. the large Provent of those Superstitious Plantations Thus far the Doctor and to these Heads as the Duke in a good Mind reveal'd it The most crafty and clawing Piece of all was That the Destruction of these Sacred Foundations would make a Booty for a Number of Gentlemen And as the Greeks say proverbially 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When a great Oak falls every Neighbour may scuffle for a Faggot You may be sure the Duke sent this Doctor away with great Thanks and bad him watch the best times of leisure and come to him often who did not lose the Privilege of that Liberty but thrust into his Bedchamber at least thrice a Week with a sly Audacity The Lord Keeper heard of it and wondred what occasion'd their private and frequent Meetings Nor could he knock off the Bar of the Secret with his Golden Hammer till it was revealed to him by some of the nearest about his Majesty For the Duke had cast forth the Project in a dark imperfect Form before the King and the King muffling his true Face that it could not be seen heard him with a dissembled Patience because he was pleas'd to have him nibble upon this Bait that he might divert the Yonker as long as he could from forcing him to undertake a War which was a violent Caustick that seared up the Comfort of his Majesties Heart All this was conveyed to the Lord Keeper and being feeble and scarce upon his Legs again it wrought upon his sick Spirits with great Anxiety He was sure his Majesty had no Stomach to devour such an unsanctified Morsel Yet against that assurance he objected to himself That the Duke was wont to overturn all Obstacles that stood in his way And that the Imperial Eagle of Necessity would stoop to any Prey Then he took Chear again that he had never Noted in the Lord Duke a Displicency against the Prosperity of the Church Again his Comfort was rebated that Self-Preservation will make a Saint a Libertine and that Nice Points of Religion are not usually admitted to give Law against it Howsoever he resolv'd to hazard all to crush this Cockatrice in the Egg. Causa jubet superes mâ—lior sperare secundos He that stickles for Gods Cause sails by the Cape of Good Hope 211. At the first Onset he had small Encouragement For he came to Wallingford-House to break with the Duke upon this matter who was then shut up with Dr. Preston in close Consultation where the Great Seal and the Keeper of it waited two Hours in the Anti-Camera and was sent Home without the Civility of Admission Next Day he got Speech with Dr. Preston by Friends employ'd to bring him to Westminster And after much Pro and Con in their Discourse supposing the want of Preserment had disgusted the Doctor he offer'd to him if he would busie himself no more in contriving the Ruine of the Church that he would the next Day resign the Deanery of Westminster to him But the wily Doctor did not believe him For he came to cheat and not to be cheated So they parted unkindly The Lord Keeper saw now that this Nail was driven in far Yet he did not despair to pluck it out with his Wit And thus he went into the Adventure He obtain'd an Opportune Conference with the Duke and in the Defence of the Church he could never be taken unprovided He pray'd his Grace to believe That no Man wish'd his Safety more cordially than himself by whose Hand he was lifted up to that Place of Pre-eminence wherein he sate Therefore it was his Duty to admonish him timely that he was building that Safety upon hollow Ground He had spoken with Preston who had offer'd his Grace flitten Milk out of which he should churn nothing There were other ways to level Envy than by offending God And if he meant to gather Moneys for War let him Wage it with the Prayers of the Clergy and not with their
Curses That Generation of male-contents to whose Love an Evil Counsellor woed him was ever false and untrusty not suspected but known ever since the Faction was first rock'd in the Cradle to be tied by no Benefits Importunate Suitors and ever craving And having sped think their Cause and their Deservings have paid Thanks sufficient to their Patron And look what Colours the King our Master hath laid upon them and they are in Oyl which will not be got out in his Instructions to his Prince Henry where upon bitter Experience he tells him That he was more faithfully served by the Highlanders Then what a Merchant have you got of this spiteful Minister who would have you to commit your Stock to their Managing who would bring you Hatred for Love and Infamy for Honour But if your Grace conceive that I am hitherto rather upon the Invective than the Proof I will step into another Point and clear it against all Contradiction That if your Grace appear in distracting the Church-Lands from their holy and rightful use your Endeavours shall be cried down in Parliament not to terrifie you that your Adversaries will increase and batter you with this great Shot that you attempted to dissolve the Settlement of Church and Laws You lose your self says the Duke in Generalities Make it out to me in particular if you can with all your Cunning what should lead you to say That the Motion you pick at should find repulse and baffle in the House of Commons I know not how you Bishops may struggle but I am much deluded if a great part of the Knights and Burgesses would not be glad to see this Alteration The Lord Keeper had a List of their Names in readiness a Scrowle which he always carried about with him which he pluck'd out and pray'd his Grace he might give him a Cypher of the Inclinations either of the most or of the Bell-weathers And having entred a little into that tedious Work the Duke snatch'd the Scrowle out of his Hand and running it over with his Eye said no more but I find abundance of Lawyers among them Yes Sir says the Keeper most of them Men of Learning and Renown in their Profession I think by my continual Negotiating with them I know their Addictions in Religion whether they stand right or which way they bend I will not prejudge the Speaker and one or two more God knows their Hearts But for the rest I know they will be strong for the supportance of the Cathedral Chapters Is it so said his Grace And what do you think of Sir Edward Coke Marry says the Keeper no Friend to an old Friend In the 39 of Queen Elizabeth when he was Atturney-General he Damm'd a Patent surreptitiously gotten before his time by those Lime-Hounds employ'd for Concealments by which they went far to swallow up the greatest part of the Demeasns of the Bishop of Norwich revived the Right of those Religious Possessions by his own Industry and Prosecution and for the most part at his own Charge and rested not till for more Security after the Patent was overthrown he had confirm'd those Lands to the Bishop by an Act of Parliament Therefore I would we had no worse Strings to our Bow than Sir Edward Coke But whom doth your Grace name next Nay says the Duke you are come to me my Lord in a lucky Hour I was never further than in an Equipoise about this Project Now I have done with it 'T is still-born and let it be interr'd without Christian Burial My Good Lord says the Lord Keeper I thank God for it And I would all the Kingdom knew as well as I do how soon your good Nature is brought to a right Understanding 212. Both did well The one prest his Doctrine home the other caught it up quickly like a good Disciple The best refuge to come out of an Errour is undelaying Repentance And as Curtius speaks for Alexander Lib. 10. Bona ejus Naturae sunt vitia temporum So I am sure the times put the Duke upon these Shifts and not his own Inclination If he had not been cleansed from those pernicious Infusions what a Sin had he drawn upon himself What Folly Worse then Ahab's that would cut down a poor Neighbors Vineyard to set Pot-Herbs But this were to root up God's Vineyard to succour a War that is to set Thorns and Thistles in the Room They that care not to be good will think how to be wife Yet did they ever think of that that make away the Inheritance of God's Holy Tribe in an Out-sale 'T is an unthrifty Sin And in Twenty Years or in half the time the Sacrilegious themselves will find that the common Purse of the State is the poorer by the Bargain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says an Heathen and to the purpose Athenae Lib. 6. Cap. 20. Prudent Men will continue the Oblations of their Forefathers Piety They were ever readier to supply the publick need in the Custody of the Church than in the Maws of Cormorants But where was he that taught the Duke so well VVhere was he you will say in the hour of darkness when the Thief came in and the Troop of Robbers spoiled without Hos Chap. 7. Vers 8. VVhen all that had been given to God in a Thousand Years by them that had the Godliest and the largest Hearts melted like Wax before the Fire of Hell To the Friends of Sion and to them that lament her waste places I return thus to them and to their Question Every one that wore a Mitre and a Linnen Ephod before the Lord was driven out of that place where Wickedness was Enacted as a Law He that was Couragious among the the Mighty did flee away naked in that Day Amos 2.16 But what if he had been in the Throng He might as well have commended a Beauty to a Blind Man or the smell of Nard to him that hath no Nostril as to have contested with them not to divide the Prey whose Ears God had not opened Multum refert in quae cujusque tempora Virtus inciderit Plin. N.H. Lib. 7. Cap. 28. Virtue is beholding to Good Times to act its part in as well as Good Times are beholding to Virtue Our most Laureat Poet Spenser Lib. 1. Cant. 3. tells of a sturdy Thief Kirkrapine Who all he got he did bestow To the Daughter of Corcea blind and slow And fed her fat with Feasts of Off'rings And Plenty which in all the Land did grow To meet with him and give him his hire Una had a fierce Servant for her Guard that attended her a Lyon who tore the Church-robber to pieces And what is meant by Una's Lyon That 's not hard to guess at But rather what 's become of Una's Lyon The Poet says afterward that Sans-Loy a Paynim-Knight had slain him Belike none is left now to defie Kirkrapine 213. Also some Care is to be taken against them that are unworthily promoted in the Church
Wherein the Lord Keeper interceded with the Duke to the incurring a mighty Anger as may be seen by the Letters of Decem. 24. and Jan. 4. Cab. p. 99. If Threatings had been mortal Shot he had Perisht for he never had such a Chiding before but he kept his Ground because he held the fairer side of the Quarrel Dr. Meriton the Dean of York was lately Dead and much Deplor'd For he was an Ornament to the Church My Lord Duke entreated by great ones named a Successor that had no Seasoning or Tast of Matter in him one Dr. Scot But a Doctor Inter Doctores Bullatos for he never stood in the Commencement to approve himself beside too many Faults to be ript up I have known a Scholar in Cambridge so bad a Rider that no Man for Love or Price would furnish him with a Horse I would have thought no Man would have furnisht such a Scholar as this with a Deanery chiefly of York It came about strangely Scot was a Prodigal Gamster and had lost upon the Ticket to a Noble Person far more then he was worth Which Debt his Creditor knew not how to recover but by Thrusting him aided with my Lord Dukes Power into this Rich Preferment The Casuists among all the Species of Simony never Dream'd of this which may be called Simonia Aleatoria when a Gamester is Installed into a goodly Dignity to make him capable to pay the Scores of that which he had lost with a bad Hand And yet the Man Died in the Kings-Bench and was not Solvent The Lord Keeper intending to put of Dr. Scot from this place besought for the remove of those most worthy Divines Dr. White or Dr. Hall or to Collate it upon Dr. Warner the most Charitable and very Prudent Bishop of Rochester But he was so terrified for giving this good Counsel that he writes now he knew his Graces Resolution he would alter his Opinion and would be careful in giving the least Cause of Jealousie in that kind again Yet it is a received Maxime Defuturos eos qui suaderent si suasisse sit periculum Curt. l. 3. Certainly with others this might work to his Esteem but nothing to his Prejudice And I dare confidently avouch what I knowingly speak that I may use the Words of my industrious Friend Mr. T. F. in his Church History That the Solicitation for Dr. Theodore Price about Two Months after was not the first motive of a Breach between the Keeper and the Duke the day-light clears that without dusky conjectures no nor any Process to more unkindness then was before which was indeed grown too high The Case is quickly Unfolded Dr. Price was Country Man Kinsman and great Acquaintance of the Lord Keepers By whose procurement he was sent a Commissioner into Ireland two years before with Mr. Justice Jones Sir T. Crew Sir James Perrot and others to rectifie Grievances in Church and Civil State that were complain'd In Executing which Commission he came of with Praise and with Encouragement from His Majesty that he should not fail of Recompence for his Well-doing Much about the time that the Prince return'd out of Spain the Bishoprick of Asaph soll void the County of Merioneth where Dr. Price was Born being in the Diocess The Lord Keeper attempted to get that Bishoprick for Dr. Price But the Prince since the time that by his Patent he was styled Prince of Wales had Claimed the Bishopricks of that Principality for his own Chaplains So Dr. Melburn and Dr. Carlton were preferr'd to St. Davids and Landaff And Asaph was now Conferr'd upon Dr. Hanmer his Highness's Chaplain that well deserv'd it A little before King James's Death Dr. Hampton Primate of Armach as stout a Prelate and as good a Governor as the See had ever enjoy'd Died in a good old Age. Whereupon the Keeper interposed for Dr. Price to Succeed him But the Eminent Learning of Dr. Usher for who could match him all in all in Europe carried it from his Rival Dr. Price was very Rational and a Divine among those of the first Note according to the small skill of my Perceivance And his Hearers did testifie as much that were present at his Latin Sermon and his Lectures pro gradu in Oxford But because he had never Preach'd so much as one Sermon before the King and had left to do his calling in the Pulpit for many years it would not be admitted that he should Ascend to the Primacy of Armach no nor so much as succeed Dr. Usher in the Bishoprick of Meth. To which Objection his Kinsman that stickled for his Preferment could give no good Answer and drew of with so much ease upon it that the Reverend Dr. Usher had no cause to Regret at the Lord Keeper for an Adversary Neither did Dr. Price ever shew him Love after that day and the Church of England then or sooner lost the Doctors Heart 214. It is certain that all Grants at the Court went with the Current of my Lord Dukes Favour None had Power to oppose it nor the King the Will For he Rul'd all his Majesties Designs I may not say his Affections Yet the L. Keeper declin'd him sometimes in the Dispatches of his Office upon great and just Cause Whereupon the King would say in his pleasant Manners That he was a stout Man that durst do more than himself For since his Highness's return out of Spain if any Offices were procur'd in State of Reversion or any Advouzons of Church Dignities he interpos'd and stopt the Patents as Injurious to the Prince to whose Donation they ought to belong in just time and preserv'd them for him that all such Rewards might come entire and undefloured to his Patronage Wherein his Highness maintain'd his Stiffness for that foresight did procure that his own Beneficence should be unprevented And he carried that Respect to the Dukes Honour nay to his Safety for notice was taken of it that he would not admit his Messages in the Hearing of Causes no not when his chief Servants attended openly in Court to Countenance those Messages to carry him a-wry and to oppress the Poorest and whose Faces he had never seen with the least wrong Judicii tenax suit neque aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit as Capitolinus makes it a good Note of Maximus He would believe his own Judgment and his own Ears what they heard out of Depositions and not the Representation of his best Friends that came from partial Suggestions Such Demands as are too heavy to ascend let them fall down in pieces or they will break him at the last that gives them his Hand to lift them up In this only he would not stoop to his Grace but pleas'd himself that he did displease him And being threatned his best Mitigation was That perhaps it was not safe for him to deny so great a Lord yet it was safest for his Lordship to be Denied It was well return'd For no Arrand was so privily conveyed
long time never enjoy'd a calm Sea He was made for such a Tryal which was sanctified by Gospel-Promises giving unto just Men assurance of vigour to endure them Every one pittieth himself everyone covets Ease and Prosperity which is more Childish than Manly And a Design that is commonly mistaken Adversity out of doubt is best for us all because we would not carve it out to our selves but God chooseth it for us and he chooseth better for us than we can for ourselves By his Providence some Mens Sorrows are greater than others and few had a deeper Cup to drink than this Prelate But every Man's Calamity is fittest for himself trust the Divine appointment for that And if all Adversities of several Men were laid in several heaps a wise Man would take up his own and carry them home upon his Shoulders Hâ—rmolaus Barbarus in an Epistle to Maximilian King of the Romans Polit. Epis p. 447. distinguisheth between Happiness and Greatness Secundae res felicem Magnum faciunt adversae But if he that is beset round with distresses bear them to the Estimation of good Men to appear great in them then is he happy as well as great Which is to be demonstrated in the Subject that I write of as followeth 2. King Charles began his Reign Mart. 27. 1625. The next day he sent for the Lord-Keeper to his Court at St. James's who found his Majesty and the Lord-Duke busied in many Cares The King spake first of setling his Houshold among whom the Keeper commended two out of his own Family to be preserr'd but it was past over without an Answer only his Domestick Chaplain was taken into ordinary Service for whom he had made no suit But to begin the well-ordering of the new Court he was appointed to give the Oath to the Lords of the Privy-Council Sir Humphrey May taken into the Number a very wise States man and no more of a new Call Then likewise order was given for the Funerals of the deceased King and the Keeper chosen to Preach on the occasion of which enough is said already by a convenient Anticipation The Coronation was spoken of though the time was not determin'd Yet the King told the Keeper he must provide a Sermon for that likewise but he that bespoke him was of another mind before the Day of the Solemnization was ripe That which was much insisted upon at this Consult was a Parliament His Majesty being so forward to have it sit that he did both propound and dispute it to have no Writs go forth to call a new one but to continue the same which had met in one Session in his blessed Father's days and prorogued to another against that Spring The Lord-Keeper shewed That the old Parliament determined with his death that call'd it in his own Name and gave it Authority to meet Since necessity requir'd a new Choice the King's Will was That Writs should be dispatcht from the Chancery forthwith and not a day to be lost The Keeper craved to be heard and said it was usual in times before that the King's Servants and trustiest Friends did deal with the Countries Cities and Boroughs where they were known to procure a Promise for their Elections before the precise time of an insequent Parliament was publisht and that the same Forecast would be good at that time which would not speed if the Summons were divulged before they lookt about them The King answer'd It was high time to have Subsidies granted for the maintaining of a War with the King of Spain and the Fleet must go forth for that purpose in the Summer The Keeper said little again lest Fidelity should endanger a Suspicion of Malice and he little dreamt that the Almanack of the new Year or new Reign was so soon calculated for the Longitude of a War and the Latitude of vast Sums of Money to pay the Service Yet he replied in a few words but with so cold a consent that the King turned away and gave him leave to be gone He that was not chearful to say good Luck have you with that Expedition was not thought worthy to have an Oar in the great Barque which was launching out and making ready for the King's Marriage with the sweet Lady of France Yet who but he to treat with Embassadors of that Nation and on that Score in his old Master's time Among all the Cares that came into Consideration that day in the sulness of business this had the start and was hastned the same Morning with Posts and Pacquets Cupid's Wings could not possibly fly faster Yet his Majesty spake nothing of it to this able Counsellor although the Rumor of it in a Week was heard from Thames to Twede And the Duke began to hold no Conference with him neither from that day did he call for this Abiathar and say Bring hither the Ephod to ask Counsel of the Lord. Evident Tokens to make any Man see what would come after that was far less than a Prophet Which this wife Man past over and seem'd to observe nothing that was ominous or unfriendly But as Lord Mornay says in his Answer about the Conference at Fountain-bleau when Henry of France the 4th forbad him coming to the Louver Specto eclipsin expecto intrepidus securus quid illa secum vehat So the Lord-Keeper was better acquainted with Heaven than to be troubled at an Eclipse which is an accident prodigious to none but to a Fool but familiar to a Philosopher And he had learnt in the Morals by heart that the way to lose Honour is to be too careful to keep it 3. While the great Assairs did run thus the Keeper went close to his Book as much as publick business would allow to frame a Sermon against the Obsequies of blessed James He did not conceive that the Counsels which he gave to the King on the second day of his Reign were so ill taken as he heard not long after He that speaks with the trust of a Counsellor and which is more with the Tongue of a Bishop should be priviledged to be plain and faithful without offence As St. Ambrose mindeth Theodosius Ep. 29. Non est imperiale libertatem dicendi negare neque sacerdotale quid sentias non dicere But News knockt at his Study-door two days after that my Lord-Duke threatned before many that attended to turn him out of his Office And the French Ambassadors were not the last that gave him warning of it These Rumors he lookt upon with his Eyes open and saw the approaching of a Downfal and so little dissembled it that he warn'd some of his Followers secretly who were in best account with him to procure dependance upon some other Master for his Service e're long would not be worthy of them It were to small purpose to enquire why the Duke's Grace did so hastily press the Ruine of one that had been his old Friend and Creature It was his game and he lov'd it I
have seen a Manuscript of Arch-Bishop Abbots stating the Reason of his own Relegation to Ford in Kent the Papers were written with his own Hand to my knowledge wherein he paints the Fickleness of the great Duke to set up and pluck down with these Lines First He wanted not Suggestors to make the worst of all Mens Actions whom they could misreport Secondly He loved not that any Man should stick too long in a Place of Greatness He hit the Nail in that For this Keeper continued the longest in a great Office of any that he had lifted up and did live to use them Which proceeded not from his Grace's Constancy but from the good-liking of the old King But as Symmachus said of Polemio Lib. 2. Ep. 14. Sic amicis utitur quasi sloribus tam diu gratis quà m diu recentibus So my young Lord chang'd his Friends as Men do Flowers he lik'd a Scent no longer than it was fresh Indeed he lookt from his Vassals for more than they could do and hurried to make tryal of those that would do more Thirdly says the Arch-bishop again He stood upon such fickle Terms that he feared his own Shadow and desperately adventur'd upon many things for his own Preservation Too true for by this time he had lost the People in whose good Opinion he thought he stood for the space of Nine Months Alas he had a slight fastning in them for he never got their Love further than his Hatred to Spain procur'd it And that was spent out upon an exacter Information of his bearing at Madrid This was the Jealousie which gave the Lord-Keeper the deadly Stoccada who would not abuse his own Knowledge so far to extol my Lord for his Spanish Transactions which broke the Peace the Credit the Heart of his King and his Patron never to be requited Therefore that he was fallen in less than a Year from the abundance of a great Esteem he thought he might thank the Keeper whose down-right Honesty gave the Example More may be said but once more shall suffice the Duke had attempted with King James that which he threatned now but his Majesty that then was did not allow of it and charged them both to unite and to work friendly together for his Service But that mighty Lord waited the opportunity to root up the Tree which he had gone about to unfasten For commonly the offended Person is an Eye-fore to him that did offend him And such as have done great wrongs are afraid of those whom they have provok'd and can never after affie in them So it was among the Rules of Michael Hospitalius the best of the Chancellors of France and yet in a Pet cashiered from keeping the Great-Seal as Thuanus remembers it Anno. 1568. Principum documentum esse ut iis nunquam serio reconcilientur quos temerè offenderint This as it is related was our Duke's Temper And the Keeper understood that no Peace was to be had from an Adversary seeded with such Qualities All that he could do to help himself was not by preventing but by retarding a Mischief For though with the Stoick's Fate was inevitable Yet Servius says in 8. Lib. Aen. that his great Poet thought it might be deferr'd though not avoided Two things stuck to the Keeper like Sorrows and gave him all the unrest that he had First He wish'd that his deposing might have come from any hand but his Patrons that raised him before whom he would fall rather than wrestle with him as an Enemy Secondly He had read much to teach him and seen the Proof of it that when Princes call back their Honours more Misery ensues But as yet he stood his ground and did become his Place as well as ever 4. He never made use so much of his whole stock of Worth and Wisdom as in matter of Religion which appears before in the Mazes wherein he led the Spanish Embassador with whom he shisted so cunningly that they could obtain nothing for the Toleration of Popish Recusants but Delays and Expectations from time to time Neither could the Monsieurs squeeze any more out of him against the Ratification of the French Marriage as appears in a bare Fortnight before K. James died witness the Letter written to the Duke March 13. 1624. Cabal p. 105. If your Grace shall hear the Embassador complain of the Judges in their Charges of their receiving Indictments your Grace may answer that those Charges are but Orations of course opening all the Penal Laws And the Indictments being presented by the Country cannot be refused by the Judges But the Judges are ordered to execute nothing actually against the Recusants nor will they do it during the Negotiation And your Grace may put him in mind that the Lord-Keeper doth every day when his the Embassadors Secretary calls upon him grant forth Writs to remove all the Persons Indicted in the Country into the Kings-Bench out of the Power and Reaches of the Justices of Peace And that being there the King may and doth release them at his Pleasure In all this there is no bar against the common Course of Law but Mercy reserv'd to the Royal Pleasure Now what cause had my Lord Duke to defie him by his Secretary Cab. p. 87. That his Courses were dangerous to his Country and prejudicial to the Cause of true Religion Forsooth because he proffer'd a Gap to be opened to the Immunities of the Papists in a desperate Plunge to bring the Prince home safe out of Spain where he stuck fast for want of such a Favour to be shewn to those Complainants Which was a liberal Concession in Promise but no Date set nor observ'd for the Expedition of it And so all that Indulgence which hung in nubibus and never dropt down is frankly granted now and he is commanded by this Warrant that follows to signifie to all Officers to suspend the Laws which are grievous to the Romish Profession dated 1 Car. May the first Charles Rex RIght Reverend and Right Trusty c. Whereas we have been moved in Contemplation of our Marriage with the Lady Mary Sister of our dear Brother the most Christian King to grant unto our Subjects Roman Catholicks a Cessation of all and singular Pains and Penalties as well Corporal as Pecuniary whereunto they be subject or any way may be liable by any Laws Statutes Ordinances or any thing whatsoever for or by reason of their Recusancy or Religion and every matter or thing concerning the same Our Will and Pleasure is and we do by these presents Authorize and Require you That immediately upon the receipt hereof you do give Warrant Order and Directions as well unto all our Commissioners Judges and Justices of the Peace as unto all others our Officers and Ministers as well Spiritual as Temporal respectively to whom it may appertain that they and every of them do forbear all and all manner and cause to be sorborn all and all manner of Proceedings against our said
for spiteful and seditious therefore not fit to continue but to be dissolv'd Which Resolution being brought to the Clerk of the Crown to dissolve them on the 12th of August the Keeper did never so bestir him since he was born as to turn the Tide with Reasons with Supplications with Tears imploring his Majesty to remember a time when in his hearing his blessed Father had charg'd him to call Parliaments often and continue them though their rashness sometimes did offend him that in his own Experience he never got good by falling out with them But chiefly Sir says he let it never be said that you have not kept good Correspondence with your first Parliament Do not disseminate so much unkindness through all the Counties and Boroughs of your Realm The Love of the People is the Palladium of your Crown Continue this Assembly to another Session and expect alteration for the better If you do not so the next swarm will come out of the same Hive To this the Lords of the Council did almost all concur but it wanted Buckingham's Suffrage who was secure that the King's Judgment would follow him against all the Table So this first Parliament was blasted Et radicis vitium in fructibus nascentibus ostenditur The Root fail'd and the Fruit was unsavory in all the Branches that grew up after it I would the Builders had laid a better corner Stone then the Lord had not smote the great House with Breaches and the little House with Clefts Amos 6.11 Yet I would the King's Aequanimity had suffered it to stand that Concord might have cemented the Hearts of all the Nation to his Government It is a Trivial but a dangerous Oversight Senec. lib 3. de prâ Initia morborum quis curat Providence is not sensible of a little harm when it begins and when the increase is felt the Evil is incurable 17. Now the time came that as the Parliament had chased the Duke so the Duke chased the Keeper Torva Leaena Lupum sequitur Lupus ipse Capellam Was it for Michaias's Crime he doth not prophesie good concerning me but evil 1 Kings 22.8 His Fidelity would not let him conceal it Or did his Grace doubt him for under-dealing He could never prove it And he that can leave to be a Friend for Suspicion is justly suspected that he was never a Friend What shall we say to such Men as would fall out and are angry when they cannot find a justifiable occasion This was the Misfortune like Caelius the Orator in Seneca Lib. 3. de irâ c. 8. meeting with one that observ'd him in all that he said and longing for a Quarrel says Caelius Dic aliquid contra me ut duo simus The Keeper could not be provok'd to give the Duke the least jostle All 's one when Power contests there 's no safety for Innocency great Men can maintain their Violence by some colour of Right So the Accusation broke out that this Man had fomented Suggestions against my Lord of Buckingham among the chief Tribunes of the Parliament Wherein the King was satisfied to the contrary while he staid at Woodstock by an Apology that follows drawn up hastily in an hour into short Heads Yet it stuck in the Credulity of those that were remote from the Scene and saw not the Part acted Therefore I believe that some intelligent Man might tell so much to the Observator p. 36. Yet he knows that for an intelligent Man to judge upon Report is worse than to take Judgment of a sick Man's Distemper only by his Water And as intelligent a Man as the Observator himself may have the Infirmity which Longinus imputes to Timaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 censorious of others partial to himself and insensible of his own Errors But let truth break forth by a Paper which the Lord-Keeper put into the King's Hand Aug. 14. which discloseth all Judex ipse sui totum se explorat ad unguem Ausonius REASONS to satisfie your most excellent Majesty concerning my Carriage all this last Parliament 18. First negatively That I did nothing disserviceably to your Majesty or the Duke For first I never spake at Oxford with any of the stirring Men as was untruly suggested to your Majesty excepting once with Philips with the Privity and for the Service of the Duke And with Wentworth at his first coming to Town and before his coming to the House Who promised and I do verily believe he perform'd it to carry himself advantageously to your Majesty's Service and not to joyn with any that should sly upon my Lord Duke The rest are all Strangers to me and I never spake with any one of them concerning any Parliamentary matters Secondly I did cross the popular way more than any of the Council which I durst not have done if I had intended to run along with them 1. In advising your Majesty knowing how you were engaged to the Queen to reserve to yourself the Execution of the Laws against Recusants at least-wise for a time as at Rycott 2. In maintaining this Advice afterward before the Council at Oxford 3. In lingring and staying the Bill against Recusants 4. In direct Opposition to the Lord Saye in staying the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage which was the Darling of the Active part in the House of Commons Had I intended to run any way with the People I had been a Mad-man to have appear'd in any of these Affirmatively I offer'd my poor Service to your Majesty for the executing of any Directions should be given me in private First I waited upon your Majesty three or four times before your Journey to Dover to know if you would give me any private Directions but received none 2. I waited upon your Majesty and the Duke three several times while the Parliament sat at Westminster and my Answer was still you had nothing to say to me 3. I waited to know if your Majesty had ought to command me privately at Windsor at Bissam at Ricott towards the Oxford Sitting and was ever answer'd as before 4. I did the like to my Lord-Duke at Oxford desiring his Lordship to send me his Commands by any trusty Servant and I would serve him to the utmost of my Power from time to time His Grace said he would send but never sent to me So that if I had any Power in either House I had much the less at this time by reason of the Paucity of the Lawyers who were in the Circuit what use could I make of it without Directions And to tell the plain truth I durst do nothing for fear of offending the Duke otherwise than by Direction Only 't is known that they that were for giving of Subsidies repaired to me as often as to any other Lord who can witness of my Care both in Matters of Subsidies and the Business of my Lord-Duke Rationally it was unsafe for me to stickle at this time without Countenance and
Commons which your Majesly was pleas'd most graciously to intimate unto me at Woodstock for which Goodness I am oblig'd to serve you faithfully and industriously as long as I live and am able and to pray for you when I can do no more as I remonstrated before so I vow again to Almighty God I never spake directly or indirectly to above three of them in my Life nor to any one of them that one time to Philips excepted with the Privity and as I hoped for the Service of my Lord-Duke during the Continuance of the Sitting at Oxford Were it otherwise it were impossible in a Family of Sixty Persons as mine was to have it conceal'd I add farther That if it can be proved that I let fall the least word to any Person of the one or other House opposite to any known or revealed end of your Majesties I am content to remain guilty of whatever the Malice or Suspicion of any Man shall suggest against me Secondly If I have offended your Majesty in that bumble Motion I made at Christ-Church that your Majesty would say in your Speech unto the Parliament that in your Actions of Importance and in the Dispositions of what Sums of Monies your People should bestow upon you you would take the Advice of a settled and a constant Council I do humbly submit my self to your Royal Judgment therein and do beg your gracious Pardon for any thing I said amiss in matter or manner But I take God in Heaven to witness I had no aim at all to draw your Majesty to asperse thereby either the times past for that was now past all Counsel or the time present for your Majesty is but entred into your Reign Or to admonish your Majesty for I take God to witness I held it no ways necessary but did and do believe it is your absolute Resolution to govern by Council And much less was it to make you go less in your Power For many Kings in Parliament have said as much Se actumoâ— majora negotia per assensum Magnatum de Conciliis who intended not to turn Dukes of Venice but as they proved indeed great and mighty Monarchs at home and abroad But my only aim was as I shall answer it at the last day to save my Lord of Buckingham from those Invectives in this kind which I saw falling upon hiâ—â— and to dispose the Commons by that Clause of your Majesty's Speech to a short and a giving Session If I had not been free herein from all Sinister ends I had never dealt so earnestly with my Lord-Duke the night before that he himself would be pleased to move it to your Majesty Lastly what Protestation I have made for your Majesty I do now before God and you make the like for my Lord-Duke's Service a Person so much and so deservedly favour'd by your Majesty that I have not run any way at all with any Person of the one or the other House for the stirring fometâ—ing or countenancing of any Accusation Aspersion or other disservice whatsoever against his Lordship either in the first or the second Access of this last sitting Nor have I ever wish'd his Grace any more hurt than to my own Soul from that very hour your Majesty's most blessed Father sent me unto his Grace at Royston to this very instant And this I avow to be true as I desire to find Favour from God and my King I write unto your Majesty under these Protestations to give your Majesty only not any Man else all fitting satisfaction to whose Goodness I confess my self unexpressibly bound Les me not I beseech your Majesty in point of Justice lose your Favour upon groundless Suspicious of other Mâ—n who may themselves hereafter be better informed But let me stand or fall upon year Majesty own Knowledge derived from the Information of indifferent and dis-interossed Persons upon which I will most willingly and thankfully repose my part in your Favour and mine own Happiness In Confidence whereof I cast my self at your Majesty's Feet c. 23. This came to Salisbury and was shewn to my Lord-Duke which put his Cabinet to meet together again And 't was a notable Shift which came into their Heads and wrought upon the King's Judgment as that which had likelihood of Reason Which was thus that as the Keeper had been complain'd of so he should be charg'd home with his own Words nay with his own Letters But none durst accuse him till he was out of his Greatness Upon the Expiration of that the Proofs should be brought in who coming about the first Week in October to Salisbury and hearing this told such as were desired to carry it to the King and the great Lord that he would not sly the Tilt nor start from any colour of Accusation That the World would see how preposterous it was first to punish and then to bring to Judgment Multis minatur qui uni facit injuriam The wrong that was done to one Man would affright all others with that Oppression What Lord or Gentleman in England that had Place and Means would think himself safe upon the Example of such Proceedings From the hour that the Keeper committed this Message to trusty Friends to deliver it the Gorgen's Head had a Veil drawn before it and it never confronted him either at the Council-Table or in any Court of Justice but was laid still for ever Yet was not a jot the better for it The Suspicion was smother'd and yet liv'd and wrought as much to his prejudice as if he had been tried before the Court of Areopagites and convicted by their Verdict Only this Happiness did live with him and doth survive him that such as have no Interest in it but the discovery of Truth do see it was Crimen sine accusatore Sententia sine Concilio damnatio sine defensione Tul. Act. 7. in Verrem He that was degraded without hearing Tryal Proof Witness Judges is overthrown by Calumny not by Accusation For Accusation admits a fair and a legal Process Calumny is believed without a Contestation After this it was not long before some quick Eye espied a way to execute the King's Resolution for divesting the Party of his honourable Place but with such Moderation as would load him with no impeachment of his Service but barely recalling the Great-Seal from his Custody because it was committed to him at first upon triennial Trust and no longer Which was no unwonted Revocation says the great and learned Luminary of Records Sir Henry Spelman in his Glossary upon the word Cancellarius Non perpetuus olim fuit honor sed triennalis vel quadriennalis This device struck the Tally for all Debts and Claims and left the loser a more light Heart though he parted with a heavy Purse For he took his farewel without the least Charge of Trespass or Miscarriage he was cast down but fell not in the Dirt. Sua vulnera ridet Germanam comitata fidem as Pruden
in Psychom upon the Persecuted Church Yet though nothing was alter'd in him to appearance when he was doom'd to resign his Office with such a plausible Dismission pruning away the Circumstances of it I cannot see how the substance of the Act could choose but displease him For whether it come from a white or a black Whip the Wound will be blew The Transactions with which all that remain'd were wound up were first between the Lord Conway and the Lord-Keeper Lastly with his Majesty if they belong let him skip them that doth not like them He that would satisfie Posterity knows not how to leave them out And it will be worth the noting to learn from a wise Man how to manage a broken Fortune One of the first things that Comines praises in King Lewis his Master is Optimòrationem tenebat ex adversis rebus eluctandi To be fallen into great disfavour and yet to come off with no blot of Credit proves him that could do it a great Master in State-wisdom A Boat-swain will tell you That a rotten Ship had need of a good Pilot. On the 15th of October the Lord Conway came to the Lord-Keeper's Lodgings in Salisbury and began thus My Lord His Majesty some four days ago gave me a Command to deliver a Message unto you the which because it was sharp and there might be occasion for change of Councils I forbore to deliver till this Morning That is That his Majesty understanding that his Father who is with God had taken a Resolution that the Keepers of the Great-Seal of England should continue but from three Years to three Years and approving very well thereof and resolved to observe the Order during his own Reign he expects that you should surrender up the Seal by Allhallowtide next alledging no other cause thereof And that withal that having so done you should retire your self to your Bishoprick of Lincoln Answer I am his Majesty's most humble Servant and Vassal to be commanded by him in all things whatsoever The Great-Seal is his Majesty's And I will be ready to deliver up the same to any Man that his Majesty shall send with his Warrant to require it And do heartily thank God and his Majesty that his calling for the Seal is upon no other ground No indeed said Mr. Secretary no other ground that I know Only this last Clause seemeth strange unto me that I should be restrained to my Bishoprick or any place else And I humbly appeal to his Majesty's Grace and Favour therein Because it is no fault in me that his Majesty or his Father hath made such a Resolution Nor do I dispute against it although the King that dead is continued me in the Place after the three Years ended and the King that now is deliver'd me the Seal without any Condition or limitation of Time And therefore deserving no restraint I humbly desire to be left to my discretion which I will so use as shall be no way offensive to his Majesty Lord Conway I conceive it not to be a restraint but to mount in effect that his Majesty intends not to employ you at the Table but leaves you free to go to your Bishoprick Answer My Lord I desire your favourable Intercession for an Explanation of that Point And I beseech your Lordship to move his Majesty that I may attend upon him considering there is no offence laid to my charge to present unto his Majesty two humble Petitions nothing concerning this business in hand but in general the one concerning my Reputation and the other my maintenance Lord Conway I shall move his Majesty in the best Fashion I can for your content therein Answer I thank your Lordship and I doubt not of it and the rather because I vow before God I am not guilty of the least Offence against his Majesty and am ready to make it good upon my Life And I make the like Protestation for any unworthiness done against the Duke whose Hand peradventure may be in this Business Lord Conway I am ever ready to do good Offices and if my Lord of Middlesex had been perswaded by me I believe I had saved him I am the Duke's Servant but no Instrument of his to destroy Men. My Lord I being latly demanded by a great Personage if it were true that your Lord was guilty of such unworthy Practices towards the Duke I answer'd plainly I knew of no such things For which my Lord Conway having receiv'd due Thanks from me he repeated my Answers and my Petition to the King in few words that he might not be mistaken At the parting my Lord Conway spake about the time of Resignation I said it was all one to me if it were before Christmas as good soon as late Then I ask'd his Lordship if I was restrained from the Board before the delivering of the Seal His Lordship answer'd He knew of no such Intent 25. October 16. Waiting on his Majesty by my Duty and Place to go to Church my Lord Conway told me He was now for me I thank'd him and past on to the Church heard the Sermon and at the Anthem after Sermon desir'd him to tell me my Answer He said Well do you long for it And so we went on to the upper-end of the Quire and said to this effect This Morning entring into our dispatches with his Majesty I desir'd him to stay a while that I might relate your Answer to him I told his Majesty that you yielded to his Command with all possible Obedience that you said the King remanded but his own which you were very willing and ready to restore That for the Condition of three Years you would not dispute against it being a way that once you had your self recommended to the late King his Father But for the Clause of retiring to your Bishoprick which seemed to be a restraint and no cause of Offence exprest it wounded you much and you sent it back to his Majesty's Consideration Then I acquainted his Majesty with your Lordship's desire to wait upon him and to present his Majesty without touching upon things settled and resolv'd two Petitions the one concerning your Reputation the other concerning your Estate His Majesty said for the first which is your retiring he meant no restraint of Place but for some Questions that might be renewed and for some Considerations known to himself he intended not to use your Service at the Council-Table for a while until his Pleasure should be further known And for your Estate you had no Wife and Children You had a Bishoprick and his Father to help you to bear the Dignity of your Office gave you leave to hold the Deanry His Majesty intended not to debar you of any of these until he should provide you of a better But he was content to admit you to speak with him when you pleas'd so as you endeavour'd not to unsettle the former Resolutions I gave his Lordship hearty thanks for his friendly and faithful
Carriage of my Petitions and speedy return of an Answer and assur'd his Lordship it was as much Favour from him as I could expect or desire Then I took occasion to kneel afterward and thank'd his Majesty for his gracious Message sent by my Lord who presently told my Lord Conway of it and my Lord told me of it again And that the King left it to me when between this and Allhallowtide to deliver the Seal which he desir'd for the manner to be done most to my Content and Reputation and to have some time to send for him that was to succeed I answer'd I was ready whenever his Majesty would send his Warrant Which my Lord desir'd I would draw up and so we parted 26. I sent upon Tuesday the 18th of October to desire leave to speak with the King and Mr. Tho. Cary sent me word his Majesty would speak with me the next Morning But after Sermon the King told my Lord Conway what I had done and was in a long and serious Discourse with him Then my Lord Conway the King being gone to dinner followed me into the Cloyster and told me what the King had told him And that he conceiv'd his Majesty was afraid that I would press him to yield Reasons of those two Acts of his the removing me from the Seal and my abstaining from the Board That his Lordship found the King much troubled thereat and as a Friend nay as a Christian man he advised me by way of Counsel not to do so because it would much perplex the King and do me no good I answer'd That I should falsifie my Word to his Lordship if I should speak unto his Majesty upon any other Points than those of my Reputation and Means And should not come near those forbidden Rocks unless it were in one Point which I did intend to move but with his Lordship's Approbation and that was to preserve as much the Honoar of the King as mine own that for the manner of wishing my forbearance for a time from the Council-Board his Majesty laying nothing to my Charge would not be pleas'd to lay it as a Command by his Secretary but leave it to my Discretion who would be sure to use the matter as to give his Majesty no Offence That the rest of the Points were matters of means which I repeated to my Lord Conway one by one And his Lordship said He thought verily the King would grant them every one And his Lordship telling me again of his fear of the King's Offence if I should endeavour to unsettle his Resolution and that the King might fall sharp upon me I answer'd That his Lordship knew I had neglected the time to wrangle with the King which should have been done upon the first message Against which I had two unanswerable Objections The first that the King that dead is released me of the Restraint to three Years in my Office and continued me in the Place four Years The second that the King my Master delivered me the Seal as absolutely as his Predecessors did to other Keepers and Chancellors without reviving or mentioning any such Condition But that I had waved of all Objections and submitted at the first word to relinquish my Place And for sharpness or the like word which passed from his Lordship on Sunday last or that the King wisht my absence from the Board lest Matters might be further question'd his Lordship said he remembred it not I said Nec timeo nec opto it was a thing I did neither fear like a guilty Man nor rashly desire like a vain-glorious Man But my wishes were to retire to the Country as without a Charge by the King 's own Confession so as near as may be without any punishment which concern'd the King in Honour I thought as much as it did me For God never destroys his Creature but for some Sin And if his Majesty did think the losing of my Place did disquiet me to give him satisfaction I vowed and protested it did not which my lord-Lord-Duke also had under my hand And that with his Majesty's leave and favour and some consideration had of my Fortunes I was willing to leave the Seal Only I expected I should remain a Councellor tho' lest to my discretion when to attend and be respected by the Lords from time time as a Member of the Board My Lord said He conceiv'd it no otherwise and that I might promise my self all respect from that Table and his Majesty in that kind Then said I my Lord There remains no more but that I shew a Letter to your Lordship written to his Majesty if you like it which shall speak all my mind because I will be utterly silent when I come at Evening before his Majesty save in preferring my Petitions in which your Lordship did encourage me Which Letter in the Copy his Lordship read over and carried the Authentick with him And so we parted 27. After Dinner his Majesty took the Letter and read that which followeth Most gracious Sovereign HAving done your blessed Father the best Service I was able while he lived I am sure such as was acceptable to him and some good Service at his Death and being now fitted with a great deal of Industry to do some Service to your Majesty in your great Affairs yet it is your Royal Pleasure to displace me not for any Crime or Unserviceableness but to satisfie the Importunity of a great Lord. But I am ready with all Submission to bow myself to the Pleasure of God and my King It is in your Majesty's Power to say to me your Vassal as a Greek Emperor did to an Arch-bishop Ego te Furne condidi ego te destruam I cast my self down at your Majesty's Feet and do render your Majesty my unexpressible Thanks that it hath pleased your Majesty to discharge me of this great Place without giving me any cause at all to use an Apology Yet being still haunted with the old Aspersions in Court the which were they true in any part would fret and tear my Soul in pieces give me leave dread Sovereign to make this last protestation in the sight of that God who must judge you and my Accusers if any such there be another day that in all my Carriage in the last Parliament I am not guilty in Thought Word or Deed of any one Act Advice Speech or Counsel disserviceable to your Majesty or any way diverting that end which your Majesty proposed unto us concerning that Assembly Upon the same protestation I likewise avow before God and your Majesty that I am not conscious of the least Unfaithfulness against my Lord-Duke by way of insinuating encouraging or abetting any one Clamour or Aspersion against his Grace or by omitting any one friendly Word or Action upon any opportunity I found to do him Service Your Majesty can tell how I put my Life into his Hand and Power above a Year since in the Business of the Spanish Embassadors
of God and because all that he is and hath is God's cannot render what he owes unto God in equality of Justice And all that he speaks of a Father in regard of his Children between whom Justice in one Acception doth not intercede he borrows out of Suarez Suarez out of Cajetan Cajetan out of Aquinas 2 vol. qu. 57. art 4. not art 8. as he misquotes him But he adds The King out of his own Brain who is but a metaphorical Father Benevolentiâ animo pater est naturâ rex pater non est says Saravia lib. 2. c. 12. without the Authority of his Authors nay flatly contrary to Aquinas in that place for he allows that Justice and Law may be stated between Father and Son Says he As the Son is somewhat of the Father and the Servant of the Master Justum non est inter illos per commensurationem ad Alterum sed in quantum uterque est homo aliquo modo est inter eos justitia He goes on That beside Father and Son Master and Servant there are other degrees and diversities of Persons to be sound in an Estate as Priests Citizens Souldiers c. that have an immediate relation to the Common-wealth and Prince thereof and therefore towards these Justum est secundum perfectam rationem justitiae So Suarez lib. 5. de leg c. 18. Some will say that Tribute is not due by way of Justice but by way of Obedience Hoc planè falsum est contra omnes Doctores qui satentur hanc obligationem solvendi tributa ubi intervenit esse justuiám And which is more than the Judgment of meer Man it is St. Paul's Rom. 13.7 For this cause pay your tribute render therefore to every man that which is his due Redditio sui cuique is the very definition of Justice And he makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justice to intercede between Fathers and their Children Ephes 6.1 Children obey your Parents in the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this is just This is the first Observation how he falsifieth his Learning The next is this That his end to bring us to the case of Creatures and Children towards the King is to take away all Propriety as it appears clearly by what he must draw out of his own Authors Suarez ubi supra Man cannot render to God his due by way of Justice Quia quicquid est vel habet totum est Dei Apply it with Dr. Maynwaring to the King Whatsoever the Subject is or hath is all the King 's by way of Property Aquinas in the place before Quod est filii est patris ideo non est propriè justitia patris ad filium Apply it to the King Justice doth not interceed between the King and his People because what is the Peoples is the King 's This is the Venom of this new Doctrine that by making us the King's Creatures and in the state of Minors or Children to take away all our Propriety Which would leave us nothing of our own and lead us but that God hath given us just and gracious Princes into Slavery As when the Jews were under a meer Vassalage their Levites their Churchmen complain to God The Kings of Assyria have dominion over our bodies and over our cattel at their pleasure Nehem. 9.37 Thus far the Bishop making very even parts between all that were concern'd in the Question And because the Chaplain's Doctrine had drawn up a Flood-gate through which a Deluge of Anger and Mischief gush'd out His Majesty left him to the Censure of his Judges No Wonder if one of the best of Kings did that Honour to his Senate which one of the worst of Emperors did to that at Rome Magistratibus liberam jurisdictionem sine interpellatione concessit says Suetonius of Caligula Neither had it been Wisdom to save one Delinquent with the loss of a Parliament Lurentius Medices gave better Counsel than so to his Son Peter Magis universitatis quà m seorsùm cujusque rationem habeto Polit. lib. 4. Ep. p. 162. Yet Dr. Maynwaring lost nothing at this lift his Liberty was presently granted him by the King his Fine remitted the Income of one Benefice sequestred for three years put all into his own Purse and was received in all his ordinary attendance again at Court with the Preferments of the Deanry of Worcester and after of the Bishoprick of St. Davids so willing was the King to forget that Clause in his Sentence past by the Lords which did forbid it 76. No man else suffering for so common a Grievance it made a glad Court at Whitehall The Parliament used their best Counsels and Discretions at the same time to secure their Lives Livelihoods and Liberties from such arbitrary Thraldom thereafter Nunquam fida est potentia ubi nimia est We must live under the Powers which God hath set over us but are loth that any man should have too much Power Sir Ed. Coke made the motion which will keep his noble Memory alive to sue to the King by Petition the most ancient and humble Address of Parliaments that His Majesty would give his People Assurance of their Rights by Assent in Parliament as he useth to pass other Acts viz. That none should be compell'd to any charge of Tax or Benevolence without agreement of Lords and Commons nor any Freeman be imprison'd but by the Law of the Land with some such other-like which are enter'd into many Authors The Duke of Buck. was forward to stop this Petition in the House where he sate for which the Commons having not yet meddled with him resolved to give him an ill Farewel before their parting Neither did he recover his old Lustre nor carry any great sway among the Peers since his dishonourable Expedition to Rhe for evil Successes are not easily forgotten though prosperous ones vanish in the warmth of their Fruition And not only that Duke and the Lord Privy-Seal with other great and able Officers did repulse this motion with all main but the King 's learned Council were admitted to plead their Exceptions against it Six weeks were spent in these Delays and Hope deserred made their hearts sick Prov. 13.12 and their Heads jealous who follow'd the cause that there was no good meaning to relieve their Oppressions At last the difficulty was overcome the Petitioners had one Answer from the King and look'd for a fuller and had it in the end So much sooner had been so much better as our Poet Johnson writes to Sir E. Sackvile of some mens Good-turns They are so long a coming and so hard When any Deed is forc'd the Grace is marr'd The Subjects ask'd for nothing now which was not their own but for Assurance to keep their own which had it been done with a Smile benignly and cheerfully and without any casting about to evade it it had been done Princely It is not impossible to find an honest Rule in Matchiavel for this is his Beneficia
long sought and now the Words which past between the King and him in Conference were the Seed of all his Troubles in the Star-Chamber for the King conjuring him to deliver his Opinion how he might win the Love of the Commons and be popular among them the Bishop answered readily That the Puritans were many and main Sticklers if His Majesty would please to direct his Ministers by his secret Appointment to shew some Connivance and Indulgence to their Party he might possibly mollifie them and bend their Stubbornness though he did not promise that they would be trusty very long to any Government The King said He must needs like the Counsel for he had thought of it before and would use it Two months after the Bishop regulated his own Courts at Leicester with some such Condescentions and told Sir J. Lamb and Dr. Sibthorp the reason that it was not only his own but the Royal Pleasure These two Pick-thanks carried these words to Bishop Laud and he to the King being then at Bisham The Resolution was That upon the Depositions of these two no Saints in my Almanack a Bill should be drawn up in the Star-chamber against the Bishop for revealing the King's Counsels being a sworn Counsellor But that he was sentenc'd because his Tongue betrayed him into Speeches that entrencht upon Loyalty as the Historian H. L. says p. 152. upon whose Trust W. S. writes the same is utterly mistaken upon the word of Holy Faith and let all Ear-witnesses of the Cause and Eye-witnesses of the Records judge between us Nor do I say that the Bill of disclosing the King's Counsels held Water for it was laid aside There the Troubles began and did run through Motions Meanders and Alterations till ending at last in tampering with Witnesses as will be shewn in due place 80. To make this seem a Jubilee to our Bishop wherein all Bonds of Malevolence should be cancell'd he had a very courteous Interview with the L. Duke nothing of Unkindness repeated between them his Grace had the Bishop's Consent with a little asking that he would be his Grace's faithful Servant in the next Session of Parliament and was allow'd to hold up a seeming Enmity and his own Popular Estimation that he might the sooner do the Work Blessed be God that they parted then in perfect Charity for they never met again the horrid Assassine J. Felton frustrated whatever might have followed a mean despicable unsuspected Enemy Sed nihil tam firmum est cui non sit periculum ab invalido says Curtius lib. 7. What Strength is there in a Cedar since every weak Arm can cut it down And though I am perswaded none but the Devil and this melancholy Miscreant were in the Plot yet in foro Dei many were guilty of this Blood that rejoiced it was spilt Tully confest of himself that he was as much a Murderer of Caesar as Brutus and Cassius 2 Philip. Quid interest utrum voluerim fieri an gaudeam factum So did God see that Thousands were guilty of this Sin which made the whole Land Nocent for the violent death of an Innocent for every one is innocent in right of his Life till the Law hath tryed him Felton's Impulsive was impious from the allegation of the late Remonstrance that the Duke was the principal cause of our Evils and Dangers As the Commons had no power to take his life away so they never intended it but to remove him from the King if it were possible I will be bold to censure the Romans that many things were uncivil in their Laws barbarous in their Valour and odious in their Justice Let this be the Instance out of Budaeus lib. 2. Pandec c. 28. Si quis eum qui plebiscito sacer sit occiderit homicida non est As if every man had the power of a Magistrate to cut off him whom the People had devoved A Maxim for the Sons of Cadmus or for the Sons of Romulus not for the Sons of God Be they Jesuites Anabaptists or of whatsoever Race of new Zealots they have not learnt so much good Divinity as is in Aristotle 3 Erh. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No Pretence can justifie Manslaughter no End or Intention can excuse it Was it so lately enacted in Parliament that no Freeman should be imprison'd without due course of Law and did Hell break loose at the other end to make it meritorious or popular to kill without Law For such another Outrage had pass'd but two months before upon the Body of one Lamb in the day-light and in the Skirts of the City beaten cruelly to Death by a scum of Vagabonds being no Conjurer for certain though the Fry fell upon him for that suspicion but a notorious Impostor a Fortune-teller and an employ'd Bawd two Qualities that commonly make up one pair of Scissors to cut Purses as was evident by his Books Papers Schemes Pictures Figures Glasses the Utensils of his Trade found in his Lodgings near the Horse-ferry in Westminster But that he was a Creature of the Duke's and commended to him by Bishop Williams the Historian is strangely out again It is possible an Ear-dropper might hear such things talk'd at Cock-pits and Dancing-schools miserable Intelligence to thrust into an History This Lamb living in the Verge of the Deanry was once admitted to speak with this Bishop and as soon as he began to impeach some of the Bishop's Acquaintance for Falshood he was bidden be gone for a meddling Knave and a Sower of Dissentions and had Warning to come near him no more And for the Duke his domestick Creatures have avowed to me that Lamb was so little their Lord's Creature that they were ready to take an Oath of Credulity that the Duke never saw him I would all the Tales that got his Grace Ill will had been as false as this That which did undo him was chiefly that which made him the immoderate Favour of two Kings and not moderately used as many a Ship is lost that 's overset with too much Sail. After Thirteen years triumphing in Grace and Gallantry one Stab dispatch'd him So Symmachus speaks of the sad Catastrophe of such a mighty man Fortunae diu lenocinantis perfidus finis quem ultimâ sui parte ut scorpius percussit lib. 2. ep 13. Great Felicities not seldom go out suddenly in a Flash like a Silk-worm that dyes in three months after it is quicken'd God would have us look after better things when we behold the sudden and prodigious Eclipses of Human Glory and brought to pass like Buckingham's by vile and wicked Instruments A foreign Writer gives very hard words to our whole Nation upon it that we are savage and frentick in our Fury And will he say as ill of the Kingdom of Israel for Joab's sake that murder'd Abner It might be replied to him That the Loyalty of his Nation is besmeared with the Blood of two Kings of France deadly wounded with a Knife But that we have
worse to answer for I will depart with this mournful matter adding only that the Duke being taken away our Bishop never desisted to do Observance and such Help as he could to his desolate Kindred and Family which the Countess of Denby his Sister would often confess to me and speak of it to his great honour At this time presently upon the dismal Tydings he dispatch'd a most melting Letter to the Countess his Grace's Mother whose Answer to his begins thus My Lord IT is true Nobleness that makes you remember so distressed a Creature as I am and to continue a true Friend in harder Fortunes You give me many Reasons of Comfort for which I kindly thank you for I have need of them all The rest is long and very choicely endited under her own Hand which I pass over more willingly because her Ladiships revolting to the Romish Religion was none of the least causes that brought her Unfortunate Son into the distaste of the People Pace tuâ fari haec liceat Rhamnusia Diva Catullus 81. The Duke being now at rest in his Grave it was conceived this Good at least would come of it that the next Session of Parliament would be very quiet which began on the 20th of January Yet they that thought the Ship was lightned of Jonas saw the Storm encreased Let them that will know the occasion of a wide Breach read it in the Histories and Life of King Charles especially in His Majesty's Declaration to all his loving Subjects printed 1628. wherein the intelligent shall find that the Commons were rather stubborn than stiff rather violent than eager against the King's Affairs and that the King was so provok'd with the heat of one morning that he would not allow a day nor an hour to let them cool again but dismist them with Menaces and thrust them away from him with such displeasure that in twelve years he sent out no Writs to call another Parliament It is too late to wish it had been better then it is not too late to give Warning that it may be better hereafter Who did best or worst many will take the liberty to determine as their addictions carry them to loyal Duty or popular Liberty I judge neither so high above me in their potential Orbs but relate what the Prudent did observe upon their Passages This was the Bishop of Lincoln's Opinion who wept the ruine of the State and was able to see through the present to the future that it was ill in the People to offend so good a King and unhappy for the King to close again no sooner with a bad People The open face of both these shall be seen The Commons were no sooner come together but like Ajax's Rhetorick in the Poet Proh Jupiter inquit they were as hot as an Oven in their exordium and spake loudly That the Petition of Right was not maintain'd because Tonnage and Poundage were taken and Merchants Goods distrein'd for non-payment a Revenue not due to the Crown till pass'd by Bill The King's Council shew'd Presidents that it had been taken in a provisional way before the Parliament had granted it but that His Majesty did desire to receive it by the Grant of his People and pray'd a Bill might confirm it to remove this Block out of the way in which all Controversies would be sopited Hereupon it was promis'd it should be considered and the framing of a Bill be referr'd to a Committee yet they drew back their Hand till they had gather'd a Particular of things distasted in the Ecclesiastical and Civil Government An Affectation which Appius Claudius discover'd in the Tribunes Liv. dec 1. lib. 5. Qui semper aegri aliquid in Rep. esse volunt ut sit ad cujus curationem à vobis adhibeantur Which the King hath put into English Declar. p. 25. Like Empericks that strive to make new Work and to have some Diseases on foot to keep themselves in request Their Inspections about Religion were not only troublesome to make the Bill stick in the Committee the only means to keep all quiet but so inauspicious that I fear God was not near Arminianism was complained of that it was openly maintain'd not suiting with the Articles of the Churches of England and Ireland A strange Spell which raised up the Spirit that it would conjure down As they that mark the encrease of Nile can tell at what day it will begin to overflow so they that watcht the encrease of Arminianism say considently that from this year the Tyde of it began to come in Then they complain'd that the Bishops of London and Winton prevail'd to advance those to great Preferments that spread those Errors while the orthodox part was deprest and under inglorious disdain Never was this verified by a clear and notorious distinction till this Challenge was made That all Preferments were cast on that side Then it began to be palpable that there was no other way to fly over other mens Heads in the Church but with those Wings And here the forlorn part might say to the Parliament as Balak said to Balaam What hast then done unto me I took thee to curse mine Enemies and behold thou hast blest them all together Numb 23.11 Thirdly They did regret at the obtruding of some Ceremonies which waxed in more request and authority upon that opposition as some Flowers open the more when the Wind blows strongest upon them I believe such Remorse as was in Joseph's Brethren would make some of them say We saw the arguish of the King when he besought us and would not hear therefore this Distress is come upon us that all our Counsels are improsperous The prosecution of Civil Grievances miscarried as much and as wise men guess'd because Sir John Ellict stood up to manage them Few lead on to remove the publick Evils of a State without some special feelings and ends of their own Nor was it any better now so far as an action may be known by vulgar passes and every bodies Discourse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Menander High Probability is the second degree of Truth Sir J. Elliot of the West and Sir Tho. Wentworth of the North both in the prime of their Age and Wits both conspicuous for able Speakers clasht so often in the House and cudgel'd one another with such strong Contradictions that it grew from an Emulation between them to an Enmity The L. Treasurer Weston pick'd out the Northern Cock Sir Thomas to make him the King's Creature and set him upon the first step of his rising which was Wormwood in the taste of Elliot who revenged himself upon the King in the Bill of Tonnage and then fell upon the Treasurer and declaimed against him That he was the Author of all the Evils under which the Kingdom was opprest Some body must bear that Burden as the Duke had done yet this Lord was not like to be the man who had been in his great Place but about six months
Am I like to be beholden to them for a setled Tranquility that practise upon the ruine of my Estate and the thrall of my Honour If I forfeit one Preferment for fear will it not encourage them to tear me piecemeal hereafter Memet ipse non deseram was well resolv'd of Philotus in Curtius Nor will I set so great a Mulct upon mine own Head What hurt can my Neighbourhood do to the Court and being so seldom in Town No greatness of Power when it would extreamly abuse it self which is not glad to think of Means how to avoid the note of Injustice In this there is not one syllable to accuse me much less to make me guilty It is not my case alone but every mans even his that is the prompter and puts it into the King's Head to ask it If the Law cannot maintain my Right it can maintain no mans This was his Constancy Nor did he let go his fast-hold in this Deanry till the King received it from him in Oxford anno 1644. As Livy says of Spain Hispania primò tentata est à Romanis sed postremò subacta It was the first Kingdom the Romans invaded and the last they conquered So this was the first of Lincoln's Preferment set upon and the last which he delivered up Since he would not be forced out of it it was carried with a Stratagem to keep him from it for in four years he was not admitted to preach a Sermon in Lent before the King the course for his Place being usually on Good-Friday and three years together when he came to the Chapters or to the Election to see it fairly carried for the choice of the best Scholars he could not rest above a day in the College but Secretary Coke either viva voce or by his Letters which are yet saved commanded him from the King to return to his Bishoprick As terrible a Prophet as Elisha was to the Noble-man of Samaria upon the Plenty of Corn predicted Thou shalt see it with thine eyes but thou shalt not eat of it 2 Kin. 7.2 This might fret the Bishop but not affright him And he ask'd the Secretary so stoutly what Law he brought with him to command him from his Freehold that the good old man was sensible that he had done an Injury In fine the chief Agitant saw that this Tryal upon so firm a Courage was uneffectual and ridiculous Neither was it a little Breath that could shake him from his Stalk like a Douny Blow-ball 88. Yet the more he did thrust off this Importunity the more it did follow him and a finer shift was thought of to esloign him from Westminster Archbishop Abbot had Directions from the King to press him to Residency upon his Bishoprick by the Statute the Archbishop of the Province having the oversight of the said Statute to see it put in execution And some words were dropt in the Archbishop's Letter to signifie that it was presumed that being in the Place of Lord Keeper he had pass'd a Dispensation under the Great Seal for himself to enjoy the Commenda of the Deanry for his better accommodation in that Office His Answer hereunto as followeth is his own in every word Most Reverend c. TO that Apostyle touching my Dispensation to reside upon the Deanry of Westminster the said Deanry being as all Commenda's are in the Eye of the Law united for the time of my Incumbency upon this poor Bishoprick I can say no more than what your Grace knoweth as well as I that I use the said Dispensation very modestly and sparingly and that I am resolved in this and every thing else to give His Majesty all Satisfaction in a due and reasonable order to his Royal Orders which no Bishop doth yield more exactly than myself He breaks no Law who pleads a Privilege nor doth that Subject transgress in Order who produceth a just and lawful Dispensation to exempt him from the same as your Grace by daily experience well knoweth For other matters that proceed from wrong and sinister Informations I do intend to procure one or other of my good Lords of the Council to let His Majesty understand how these things are misconcerved as soon as I can As first to represent unto His Majesty that no L. Keeper can issue forth a Dispensation of this nature nor any other person whosoever but either His Majesty immediately by his Regal Right and Eminency of Power or your Grace by the Act of Parliament So as my being Lord Keeper did contribute no more to this Patent than it did to all others that is to say Wax and Impression Your Grace may call to mind we were four Governours of several Colleges made Bishops at one time and two of these had their Colleges put into their Commenda's as well as myself And in your Graces Memory also in the most exact times of Ecclesiastical Government when those Promotions were manag'd with the Advice of that great and wise Prelate the Lord Bancroft a Bishop of Bristol kept the Deanry of York together and a Bishop of Rochester this of Westminster during his Incumbency with many others the like Neither did the then L. Keeper procure the Faculty to hold this Deanry for the late King my dear Master of Blessed Memory was not about London but at Rutford in Nottingham-shire when he granted me this gracious Favour Nor to deal ingenuously with your Grace was it gained by mine own Power or Interest with His Majesty but by the Mediation of His Majesty now reigning and by the Duke of Buck. together with some inducement of the deceased King not unknown to some yet living and howbeit my Faculty is without distinction of Time yet am I no chaser of mine own Time but do confine my self to those particular seasons which the local Statutes of the Colledge and my express Oath to perform the said Statutes do enjoyn me That is to say the two Chapters and the great Festivals All which space of time doth not being taken in the disjunct spaces make a Bishop a Non-resident by any Law I know of nor consequently infringe his Majesties Instructions though a man had no Dispensation which Instructions require only that Bishops should reside but we presume that it is no part of his Majesties gracious intention that they should be confined or as it were imprisoned in their Bishopricks I hope to procure a fair representation of these particulars to his Majesty and thereby to obtain his gracious approbation of as much residence as I intend to make in the Deanry Where as your Grace knoweth as well as I in regard of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical and Temporal of preventing Ruins and Dilapidations of Hospitality of Suits in Law of the Church the School the Colledge and the like I have no less necessity of abiding sometimes then upon my Bishoprick and somewhat more because of my Oath So most humbly c. This was enough to satisfie both Statute and Reason Unto which it may
to be re-examin'd after Issue joyn'd in case they recover'd A particular Charge being laid before you when the House of Commons is a Party and the Charge of so high a nature as Treason I shall not advise this Honourable House to use any Chiquancery or Pettisoggery with this great Representation of the Kingdom but admit them forthwith to examine their own Members yet with this Caution To hew the Names two days before they be produced to the Sollicitor of the Defendant that he may have notice of the persons But the House press for Secrecy in the Examination Well they are safe enough while they are in the Lord's hands who have Urim and Thummim perfect Knowledge and perfect Integrity and therefore nothing can be suspected Are not they surer than other Officers In ordinary Commissions out of Star-Chamber my Lord Ellsmore would not allow that any Clerks should be used to prevent Futility and Evaporation saying That the best Commissioner in England was not too good to be the King's Clerk Secondly I am as'kt about the Examination of the Peers and the Assistants of this House upon Oath There is no question to be made about the Assistants they are no Peers of this Kingdom but whether Peers may be produced as Witnesses and testifie upon Oath A question not sit to be now handled and impossible to be resolved out of the Rolls of the Parliament because the Peers give their Testimony both in this Court and others either way And I am confident a Peers Averment against his Fellow Peer cannot be refused either way especially in case of Treason For a Peer judgeth his Peer worthy of Death upon his Honour and therefore may witness against him upon his Honour In this Court and almost in this Case in Alze Pierce her Case 1 Rich. 2. Num. 21. Lord Roger Beauchamp swears upon the Holy Evangelists The Lord of Lancaster King of Castile and Leon is examin'd but not sworn Nay both ways have been declar'd in this House to be all one Your Lordships declaring that you did not bound limit or terminate your Assertion with your Honour but mount it and relate it up unto God that gave you your Honour and yielded your selves perjur'd if you falsisied in swearing upon Honour which is just the very same as if you sware upon the Holy Evangelists To swear upon Honour and rest there were Idolatry But to swear upon Honour with a Report and Relation to God who bestowed it upon your Lordships as a special Favour and Grace is as Christian an Oath as any in the World For new Scruples in the manner as to touch the Book to look on the Book to hold up a Finger or Hand to Heaven are Ceremonies which the House of Commons little regards but leaves them to us And the Lord of Strafford is so wise that he will never question the Honour of his Peers And why should we trouble our selves about the circumstance but leave each Lord called to testisie to call God as a Witness to his Assertion in which of these two manners it shall please his Lordship Not the Book not the Honour but the Invocation of God to bear witness to the Assertion makes the Oath 144. I am put to it by your Lordships to speak in the third place about the examination of Privy Councillors Here needs no distinction between Peers and Assistants This is part of a Privy Councillor's Oath That he shall keep secret all matters committed and revealed to him or that shall be treated of in Council 2. If any Treaty touch his fellow-Councillor he shall not reveal it unto him till the King or Council shall require it I collect now that matters of Fact he may reveal without violation of his Oath and that he may be examin'd of matters revealed unto him that were treated of in Council if they were not treated of in Council when he was present That a Privy-Councillor for all his Oath may be examin'd concerning Words Advices or Opinions of another Privy-Councillor otherwise given than in Council That Bed-chamber and Gallery Discourse is nothing to the Council-Table Private Entertainers of the King when the Counsellors attend at the Door are not to pass for Counsellors Ear-wiggs and Whisperers are no Counsellors but detracters from Counsellors If they advise the Destruction of the King the State or the Laws of the Realm there is nothing in the Oath to protect such an Ear-worm but he may be appeached For matters which touch another fellow-Councillor or matters committed otherwise to him or which shall be treated of in Council these are not to be concealed from all forts of men but from private men only not from the King not from the Council both those are in the Oath nor from the Parliament That Privy-Councillots may be examin'd by Command of the Parliament for things treated in Council 2. for things revealed unto them secretly from the King in his Bed-chamber 3. and especially for ear-wigging and treating with the King in private after things already settled in Council The Case of Alze Pierce 1 Rich. II. num 41. clears all these Doubts And it is the Case also of a Deputy of Ireland William of Windsor Lord-Deputy misbehaved himself in Ireland the Council directs Sir Nicholas Dagworth to go thither and to enquire into his Actions Windsor makes means to Alze Pierce to keep off this man under pretence of Enmity betwixt them This Shunamite that lay in David's Bosom prevails with the King to stay Sir N. Dagworth the Council-Order notwithstanding The Lords in Parliament question her for this act as having drawn with it the Ruin of the State in Ireland She pleads not guilty Issue is joyned The Lords produce inter alios John Duke of Lancaster upon his Honor and Roger Beauchamp Lord Chamberlain upon the Evangelists Alze produceth of her part the Steward and Comptroller of the Houshold All these four were Privy-Counsellors they depose all of them nothing else but matters treated of in Council and opposed by Alze Pierce treating with the King out of Council So that if this Record be true this Case is cleared Privy-Councillors may not be forced by ordinary Courts of Justice to reveal things treated of in Council but may be produced upon Oath and Honour to reveal such Secrets by the King the Council or the Parliament especially in detestation of Statewhisperers and Ear-wiggs yea though they had taken no Oath at all Yet God forbid a Privy-Counsellor should witness against his Fellow for publickly venting the freedom of his Judgment at the Board who is bound to advise faithfully not wisely as I do here this day Should any man be accused for an Error of Judgment O God defend peradventure my Error hath set all the rest of the Council straight Errores antiquorum venerari oportet si illi non errassent minùs ipse providissem otherwise you would take away all Freedom of Debates nay almost of very Thoughts If I knew any man
adversum Salust p. 109. Sic est vulgus ex veritate pauca ex opinione multa judicat Cic. pro Dom. And Grotius proves out of the Caesarean Law in Matt. 27.23 That when Pilate enclined to hear the People who would have Christ condemned he acted contrary to Caesar's Law Vanas populi veces non audiendar Imperatores pronunciarunt O those of the right Heroical Race were dead and gone who would not have endured to be directed by the Off-scourings of their greatest Enemies Nec bellua tetrior ulla est Quam vulgi rabies in libera colla frement is Claud. in Eutrop. The other catch of the Pincers was their Lordships Legislative Vote and their odds in number above the Bishops if you counted men by Noses Power should be a divine thing this was only Strength as Aristotle says 2 Rhet. c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Tully hath put in good sence and good words pro Quinc Arbitrantur sine injuriâ potentiam levem atque inopem esse Some think it is not Power unless they make us feel that it can do an Injury Now methinks their Lordships should have mark'd that their House was alter'd in its Visage very much when the Bishops sate no longer with them And Hippocrates says That sick man will not recover whose Face is so much changed that it is drawn into another fashion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And did the Lay-Peers look to last long when the Aspect of their House was so metamorphos'd It is a vulgar Error If you pluck up a Mandrake you will dye at the Groan of it Though it be but a Fable let them remember it that are for Extirpation and ware them whose turn is next Take away one Leg from a Trevit it may make a scurvy Stool to sit on but it is no longer a Trevit And take away the third Estate of Bishops be it nominal or real a Convention it may be but I doubt whether it be a Parliament And as a bungling Painter said of a Beast he had not drawn well It would not make a good Lyon but he could turn it into a good Calf There was a time when the whole Academy of Philosophers was banish'd out of Athens but they were soon miss'd and he was well fined that was their Enemy Sequenti anno revocati multa 5 talentorum Sophocli Archonti indita Moeur fort Att. p. 65. But for them that thrust the Bishops out of their ancient Right the Injury avenged it self upon them for it was not long when the Commons served the Temporal Lords in the same kind Nec longum laetabere te quoque fata prospectant paria AEn lib. 10. They were not only thrust out but an Engagement like a Padlock clapt upon the Door to keep them out for ever and to their great dishonour the other House made to resemble the Peers of the Land Duxit Sacerdotes inglorios Optimates supplantat Mark their Sympathy in the words of the vulgar Latin Job 12.19 Which retribution measure for measure the Bishops did neither wish nor rejoice in but committed their Innocency to be justified by the Holy God Seek no other reason why they had so many Enemies but because Christianity was mightily faln among us both as to the credenda and the agenda A mighty part had a Religion I mean equivocally called so that was a Picture looking equally upon all Sects that pass'd by it and as indifferent as Gusman â—s Father that being taken by the Pirates of Argiers for quietness sake and as one that had not the Spirit of Contradiction renounced Christ and turned Turk But when the Cause of the Bishops for other Immunities and to keep their undoubted Right and Place in the Lords House was in the hottest dispute Sentence ready to be call'd for and like the last bidding for a thing at the Port-sale York at a Committee of the Lords stands up for his Brethren Murique urbis sunt pectore in uno Sil. lib. 7 and delivers him in the long Harangue that follows 159. I shall desire as much Water or Time of your H. Lordships as your Lordships can well afford in a Committee because all I intend to speak in this business must be to your Lordships only as resolved for mine own part to make hereafter no Remonstrance at all to His most excellent Majesty for these several Reasons First That I have had occasion of late to know that our Soveraign whom God bless and preserve is I will not say above other Princes but above all Christian men that ever I knew or heard of a man of a most upright dainty and scrupulous Conscience and afraid to look upon some Actions which other Princes abroad do usually swallow up and devour I know for I have the Monuments in my own custody what Oath or rather Oaths His Majesty hath taken at his Coronation to preserve all the Rights and Liberties of the Church of England and you know very well that Churchmen are never sparing in their Rituals and Ceremonials to amplisie and swell out the Oaths of Princes in that kind Your Lordships then know right well that he is sworn at that time to observe punctually the Laws of King Edward the first Law whereof as you may see in Lambert's Saxon Laws is to preserve entirely the Peace the Possessions and the Rights and Privileges of the Church And truly I shall never put my Master's Conscience that I find resenting and punctilious when it is bound up with Oaths and Protestations to swallow such Gudgeons as to sill it self with these Doubts and Scruples My second Reason is That if His Majesty were free from all these Oaths and Protestations I duâ—t not without some fair Invitation from himself advise His Majesty to run Shocks and Oppositions against the Votes of both these great Houses of Parliament Lastly If I were secretly invited to move His Majesty to advise upon the passing of this Bill yet speaking mine own Heart and Sence and not binding any of my Brethren in this Opinion if I found the major part of this House to pass this Bill without much qualification I should never have the boldness nor desire to sit any more in any judicial place in this most honourable House And therefore my H. Lordships here I have sixt my Areopagus and dernier Resort being not like to make any further Appeal which makes me humbly desire your Patience to speak for some longer time than I have accustomed in a Committee in which length notwithstanding I hope to use a great deal of brevity some length in the whole and much shortness in every particular Head which I mean so to distinguish and beat out that not only your Lordships but the Lords my Brethren may enlarge themselves upon all the particulars which neither my Abilities of Body can perform nor doth my Intention nor Purpose aim at at this time I will therefore cast this whole Bill into six several Heads wherein I
Ruin of a Kingdom as little Children are more afraid of a Vizard than of the Fire therefore they stroke them with fair words when they meet them O Indignity An quae Turpia cerdoni Volesos Brutumque decebunt Juven Sat. 8. That which was base in Coblers was it not worse in Lords and Knights and Squires and such as assumed to be the Princes of the Land No Senators that intended to rule a People did ever endure the like Let M. AEmilius the Consul speak for the State of Rome Livy lib. 39. Majores nostri ne vos quidem nisi cum aut vexillo in arce posito comitiorum causâ exercitus positus esset aut plebi Concilium tribuni edixissent aut aliqui ex magistratibus and concionem vocassent temerè coire voluerint ubi legitimum rectorem multitudini censerent esse debere They that boulster up such Insurrections as these their own Guards upon a new Quarrel may knock them on the Head Cum tot populis stipatus eas in tot populis vix una fides Sen Hercul furens But these Wat Tylers and Round-Robins being driven or persuaded out of White-hall there was a buzz among them to take their way to Westminster-Abby some said Let us pluck down the Organs Some cried Let us deface the Monuments that is prophane the Tombs and Burying-places of Kings and Queens This was carried with all speed to the Archbishop the Dean who made fast the Doors whi◠they found shut against them and when they would have forced them they were beaten off with Stones from the top of the Leads the Archbishop all this while maintaining the Abby in his own person with a few more for fear they should seize upon the Regalia which were in that place under his Custody The Spight of the Mutineers was most against him yet his Followers could not entreat him to go aside as the Disciples restrained Paul from rushing into an Uproar Act. 19.30 but he stood to it as Cesius Quintius in Livy lib. 3. Unus impetus tribunitios popularesque procellas sustinebat After an hours dispute when the Multitude had been well pelted from aloft a few of the Archbishops Train opened a Door and rush'd out with Swords drawn and drove them before them like fearful Hares They were already past their Duty but short of their Malice and every day made Battery on all the Bishops as they came to Parliament forcing their Coaches back tearing their Garments menacing if they came any more What Times could be worse None says Tully upon M. Antony's Violence upon the Senate Phil. Or. 13. Caesare dominante venicbamus in Senatum si non liberè tamen tutò What Aid did the Lords afford to quell these Affronts Why let Softhenes be beaten before the Judgment-seat Gallio cares for none of these things Act. 18.17 The Bishops were God's Ministers and let him defend them as Tyberius to that way in Tacitus Deorum injuriae Diis curae sunt The remissness of our Parliament Lords Optimates non Optimi shewed the same Indifferency O ye religious Kings that would govern with Peace how are ye able These foul and unremediable Uproars tell you that the only Imperatorian Art is to be furnish'd with a good Army and to know how to order it 168. So great a Hurry continuing wherein all things were turned the wrong side upward there was such an apparent Mischief co-incident that whatsoever did pass in the Lords House during their constrained absence was null and invalid for if any one person in either House be repelled by force and be denied Freedom to give his Vote that Nicety is a Bar to the whole Proceeding of the Parliament as some write that comment subtilly upon Parliamentary Privileges Not as if the Speaker did ever sit in his Chair when none were absent or that one Vote is like to sway a Cause yet sometimes it comes to so near a scrutiny but this Judgment is made of it That it may so fall out and doth often that one Member put the case the person forced out may propose such Reasons to the House as that all resolve into his Opinion This great Prejudice concurring by repelling the Bishops tumultuously from taking their Places in the Lords House York called his Brethren together to set their Hands to a Petition and Protestation made to His Majesty and the Lords Temporal and put it into the L. Keeper Littleton's Hand yet not to be read till His Majesty by the Bishop's Invitation should fit with the Peers in the House and then to read it in the King and the Lords audience and not before The L. Keeper unadvisedly I hope it was no worse produceth the Petition c. before the King was made acquainted with it which made a Project well contrived break out into a Thunder-clap of Mischief which rash or bad dealing in the Lord-Keeper York could not suspect And he that drives much business shall be cross'd in some for want of Luck though he be never so prudent Nulli fortuna tam dedita est ut multa tentanti ubique respondeat Sen. lib. 1. de irâ c. 3. That Protestation follows here whose like and almost same York had found in the Records of the Tower which he studied there till his Eye-sight was much the worse for it To the KING 's Most Excellent Majesty and the Lords and Peers now assembled in Parliament The humble Petition and Protestation of all the Bishops and Prelates now called by His Majesty's Writs to attend the Parliament and now present about London and Westminster for that Service THat whereas the Petitioners are called up by several and respective Writs and under great Penalties to attend in Parliament and have a clear and indubitate Right to vote in Bills and other matters whatsoever debateable in Parliament by the ancient Customs Laws and Statutes of this Realm and ought 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 Lords and Peers now assembled in Parliament that as they have an indubitate Right to Sit and Vote in the House of the Lords so are they if they may be protected from Force and Violence most ready and willing to perform their Duties accordingly And that they do abominate all Actions or Opinions tending to Popery and the maintenance thereof as also all Propension and Inclination to any malignant Party or any other Side or Party whatsoever to the which their own Reasons and Consciences shall not move them to adhere But whereas they have been at several times violently menaced affronted and assaulted by multitudes of People in their coming to perform their Services in that Honourable House and lately chased away and put in danger of their Lives and can find no Redress or Protection upon sundry Complaints made to both Houses in these particulars They likewise humbly protest before your Majesty and the noble House of Peers
that saving unto themselves all their Rights and Interests of Sitting and Voting in the House at other times they dare not Sit or Vote in the House of Peers until your Majesty shall further secure them from all Affronts Indignities and Dangers in the Premisses Lastly Whereas their Fears are not built upon Phantasies and Conceipts but upon such Grounds and Objects as may well terrifie men of good Resolutions and much Constancy They do in all duty and humility protest before your Majesty and the Peers of the most Honourable House of Parliament against all Laws Orders Votes Resolutions and Determinations as in themselves null and of none effect which in their absence since the 27th of this Instant-month of Decemb. 1641 have already passed As likewise against all such as shall hereafter pass in that most Honourable House during the time of their forced and violent absence from the said most Honourable House Not denying but if their absenting of themselves were wilful and voluntary that most Honourable House might proceed in all the Premisses their Absence or this Protestation notwithstanding And humbly beseeching your most Excellent Majesty to command the Clerk of that House of Peers to enter this Petition and Protestation amongst his Records They will ever pray to God to bless and preserve c. Subscribed by Joh. Eborac Tho. Dunelm Ro. Cov. and Lich. Jos Norwicen Joh. Asaphensis Gul. Bath Wellen. Geo. Hereford Rob. Oxen. Matth. Elien Godfr Glocestr Job Petroburg Maur. Landoven 169. Hear and admire ye Ages to come what became of this Protestation drawn up by as many Bishops as have often made a whole Provincial Council They were all call'd by the Temporal Lords to the Bar and from the Bar sent away to the Tower Nonne fuit satius tristes formidinis iras Atque superba pati fastidia A rude World when it was safer to do a Wrong than to complain of it The People commit the Trespass and the Sufferers are punish'd for their Fault 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athen. lib. 9. A Proverb agreeing to the drunken Feasts of the Greeks If the Cook dress the Meat ill the Minstrils are beaten That day it broke forth that the largest part of the Lords were fermentated with an Anti-episcopal Sourness If they had loved that Order they would never have doomed them to a Prison and late at night in bitter Frost and Snow upon no other Charge but that they presented their Mind in a most humble Paper to go abroad in safety Ubi amor condimentum inerit quidvis placiturum spero Plaut in Casin Love hath a most gentle hand when it comes to touch where it loves Here was no sign of any silial respect to their Spiritual Fathers Nothing was offer'd to the Peers but the Substance was Reason the Style lowly the Practice ancient yet upon their pleasure without debate of the Cause the Bishops are pack'd away the same night to keep their Christmas in Durance and Sorrow And when this was blown abroad O how the Trunch-men of the Uproar did fleer and make merry with it But the Disciples of the Church of England took it very heavily not for any thing the good Bishops had done but for that they suffer'd for a Prisoner is not a Name of Infamy but Calamity Poena damnati non peccati Cic. pro Dom. Estque pati poenam quà m meruisse minùs Ovid. lib. 1. de Pont. Nothing can be more equal than to lay the Objections the Lords made and York's Answers for the Protestation together as they go from Hand to Hand to this day in Town and City And let the Children judge what their Fathers did if they read this hereafter Obj. 1. That the Petition is false the Lords did not sit in Fear as my Lord of Worcester Winchester London Nor was it the Petition of all the Bishops about London and Westminster not of Winchester London Rochester Worcester 〈◊〉 If this were true yet were it not Treason against any Canon or Statute-Law but the Fact is otherwise First the Fear complained against is not for the time of their Sitting in the House but for the time of their coming unto and going from the said House and it is easie to prove they were then in Fear Secondly They know best whether they were in Fear or no who subscribed or agreed to the Petition And my Lord of Winchester agreed in it as much as the rest and instanced in the cause of his Fear his chasing to Lambeth Thirdly For the other part of the Objection the Bishop of London was then at Fulham Rochester in Kent Worcester at Oxford nor doth the Title of the Petition comprehend them as not being about London and Westminster Winchester did agree thereunto and came thither to subscribe and it was resolved his Name should have been called for ere ever it was to be solemnly preferred to the King which was never intended to be but when the King sate in the Upper House of the Lords which the Bishops intended to pray His Majesty to do And this appears by the Superscription of the Petition Obj. 2. The nulling of all Laws to be made at this time that the Kingdom of Ireland was in jeopardy was a conspiring with the Rebels to destroy that Kingdom and so amounted to Treason or a high Misdemeanour 〈◊〉 1. A Protestation annulleth no Law but so far as the Law shall extend to the Parties protesting Nor so far but in case that the Parties protesting shall afterward judicially prove their right to annull that Law So that it was impossible any Protestation of the Bishops should actually intend to hinder the Relief of Ireland 2 The Relief of Ireland by 10000 Scots and 10000 English was voted and concluded long before this Protestation and all the Particulars of that great business referr'd to a Committee of both Houses and the Bishops unanimously assented thereto So that the Relief of Ireland comes not within the Date and Circumscription of this Protestation And the Bishops call God to witness they never conceived one Thought that way 3. The Bishops protested against no Laws or Orders at all to be annulled absolutely and for all the time of this Session of Parliament simply but for that space of time only wherein they should be forcibly and violently kept from the said Parliament by those rude and unruly People So that as soon as the King and the Lords did quiet their passage unto Parliament which the Lords did do before this Petition was read in Parliament and that any of the Bishops were present there the Protestation was directly null and of none effect so as indeed the Protestation was void and dead in Law before the L. Keeper brought the Petition in question into the House because the Bishop of Winchester and some others had even then quiet access unto that Honourable House And the Bishops conceived the Protestation void in such a case and do most humbly wave and revoke the same and humbly desire both
turn'd to be in five months after Better be alone than ill accompanied And if that World last still they will never wear out the Disgrace by Repealing that infamous Bill I were wicked if I wisht it not otherwise but foolish if I did hope it I bewail not York more than I do the rest Nihil est praecipuè cuiquam dolendum in eo quod accidit universis Cic. lib. 6. Ep. ad Torquatum Now when the worst was done the merciful Judges in Parliament gave the Bishops their Liberty And most of those Grey-heads sled from London or were imprison'd in no long distance of time upon it In May after York went away privily to seek the King and never return'd again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diodor. Sic. lib. 13. Few men ever lived whose lives had more Paradoxes in them But from that day his Afflictions were constant to him and never lent him pause or intermission of Peace Qui per virtutem peritat pol non interit The Gail of Anguish is the Cup of Salvation to him that gives thanks unto the Name of the Lord. 171. London was no place to contain the Lords and Gentry that remembred they were sworn to be faithful to the Crown when it was known that the King had sat down in the City of York Many came seasonably thither many made ready for it and were stopt abundance sent their Purse the Poor and well-meaning sent their hearts who would have failed beyond the Cape of Neutrality and cast Anchor on the King's shore if their Company could have brought profit or service Our Archbishop of that Province came with the first being as restless as Tully was to leave Rome in the stirs of Pompey Hinc ipse evolare cupio ut aliquo perveniam ubi nec Pelopidarum nomen nec facta audiam Lib. ep fam He had been translated from Lincoln to this Dignity seven months before He that gives a Promotion to a worthy man obligeth all men and this was marvellously well taken by all the Clergy of the Diocess Until that day he had not seen the place from which he was entitled which he had proposed to be the Scene wherein he would do the part of an Archbishop in great splendor His Means were sufficient his Inclinations very hospital Provisions abundant in that Country the Gentry addicted to Liberality or rather Profuseness no man was ever so cut out to please them since Alex. Nevil's days for magnificence But God prevented it that he could never settle his Houshold in Yorkshire as he desired He found every thing looking with a face of Confusion the gallantry of the South poured into the North not to begin a War but ready for the defensive part as was expected There are Mischiefs approaching when common bodings misgive them which were not discerned soon enough through fatal Security before they were ripened As Budaeus writes of France upon the first breaking out of Wars at home That France wanted eyes and ears and which is strange they wanted a Nose Qui cladem adventantem odorari ante non potuimus quà m ab eâ oppressi Lib. 4. de Asse fol. 110. The Presbyterians those Scalda-banco's or hot Declamers had wrought a great distast in the Commons at the King and at all that had his ear and favour The Age growing Learned and Knowledge puffing up Scholars grew more impudent and malapert with us and in every state than did become their Function Our much Peace which had lasted almost two Jubilees was seeded with great Vice in our manners Young men lived idly which made them want and therefore were ready for Bustles and Commotions to boot-hale and consume they that proposed to themselves no laborious kind of Life expected Alterations and then to have enough to lavish And not a few of these were of good Houses decayed that as one says Had ancient Coats of all colours but lack't Argent and Ore Tempestuous weather was sit for their Harvest And when Wars broke out they crept out of their Cranies like the Cimici in the Houses of Italy not of rotten Bedsteds But the Parliament our continual Hectick did lend their Arm to all Mischief to usher it in They could not bow the King to all their Votes and abase him to be contented with a shadow of Soveraignty therefore they ranged every thing to a War as palpably as if their Drums and Colours had been in the Fields Bacchae Bacchanti si velis adversarier Insanam insaniorem facies feriet saepiùs Plauti Frag. Their Motions now were not Mutinies à mutiendo but Vociferations as lowd as an Herald could proclaim them But God will never suffer the abuse of fiduciary Power which a good but an improvident King had past away to go unpunisht in themselves or in their Children Perditissimi est hominis fallere eum qui laesus non esset nisi credidisset Cic. Off. l. 2. The King deserv'd the better from them that reposed upon their duty both his own honour and the weal of all his Subjects The more publick the Person is the more he must betake him to trust many Nay none so private no Action that comes abroad so mean but you must believe in the fidelity of some As Russinus very well upon the Creed Nihil est quod in vitâ geri possit si non credulitas ante praecesserit The City of London came in for a great share to encourage the drawing of the Sword provided that the War came not near their Lines of Communication This City the Epitome of England marr'd all England as S. Hierom plays upon the River Pactolus that it hath golden Sands but unwholesom water Ditior caeno quà m fluento that the Mud was the best part of their River Ep. ad Mar. Alex. So muddy Wealth was the best thing that the Chuffs of the City had much else was but Dish-water except some few of the old store Sir H. Garrway Sir Ri. Gurney and their like who were poured into the Kennel for their fidelity But the worst of them all durst never have been so stout if the Parliament had not held up their Spirit in their wickedness And there was a Nation that shall not scape me that whistled to the Jades that plowed up the Furrows of our Land and gave them Provendore I mean the French to whom yet I will ascribe what Magius the Patavine doth Gens bellicosissima honorisque appetontissima It hath a stock of very noble Gentry but sick of two faults they abhor the Spaniards hate the English and wish the Confusion of both which may turn upon themselves They object how we assaulted them at Rhee but forget what we did for them at Amiens and Calis They remember King Charles his Navy at Rochel but take no notice of Queen Elizabeth who advanced Harry the Fourth to the Crown in spite of the Leaguers These kindled the Brands that set their Neighbours House on fire which lyes sleeping under the Ashes of our
Service and Affairs And in that respect as well as your common interest and duty we command your suitable compliance which we assure you shall be looked upon by us as a fresh acceptable Testimony of your Affections to Us and our Cause and preserved in our Royal remembrance with the rest of your Merits against the time when it may please God to enable Us to reflect thereon for your good Thus far his Majesty to make way for the Lord Byron a gallant Person a great Wit a Scholar very Stout full of Honour and Courtesie yet favour'd the English Interest above the Welsh in those Counties which did not take And the Dye of War run so false that he lost the Cast to one who had not the Ames-Ace of Valour in him Neither did the scatter'd Forces of those distressed Parts ever set them another Stake Prince Rupert observing the Royal Directions wrote largely as followeth May 16. 1644. To all Governours and Officers to all Sheriffs Commissioners of the Array or Peace all Vice-Admirals or Captains of Ships in the three Counties WHereas I understand by his Majesty's Letters unto me lately directed that the most Reverend Father in God John Lord Archbishop of York by reason of his great Experience and Imployments in the Affairs of this Kingdom as well under my Grandfather of famous memory as under his Majesty that now is hath been intrusted in the three Counties c. from the first beginning of these Troubles and gives his best Advice in Matters of Importance which have relation to the King's Service and the Peace and safe keeping of those Counties from all Invasions by Sea or Land And that he hath discharged that Trust reposed in him faithfully and successfully during the time of his abode in those parts My will and pleasure is That according to his Majesty's intimation to me you and every one of you in all matters of importance and moment touching or concerning his Majesty's or my Service under his Majesty in those Counties as also in all Matters of Questions Doubts and Variances which may fall out either among your selves or between your selves and the several Counties wherein you govern or command shall from time to come consult and advise with the said most Reverend Father in God and follow such his Advices and Counsels in the Premisses which shall be grounded upon the Laws of the Land or the pressing Necessities of these times and agreeing with our Directions and future Instructions from time to time RUPERT Nothing was wanting of Royal and Princely care to preserve the Archbishop in Conway-Castle yet all would not serve There was none whom Envy did more strive to hold down upon all occasions which his great Deservings brought upon him So true is that of Synesius de provid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue doth not quench Envy but rather kindle it One violent Person unframed all good Order who would submit to no Authority a hot Man for he was ever dry and he did not conceal it for he was always drinking 198. That Affront waited more leisure to break forth and suffered him to take a long and a tedious Journey in Winter to Oxford in obedience to these Lines which he received from his Majesty Decemb. 16. 1644. CHARLES R. WE having had frequent experience of your good Affection and Ability to serve us and having occasion at this time to make use of them here We have thought fit and do by these Presents require you to repair hither to Us to Oxon with all convenient expedition Desiring you to come as throughly informed as you can of the true condition of Our Affairs c. Presently he set forward though the ways were much beset and came in January with the first to the King for he had many things to represent and was not in his Element when he was consined in private Walls He took up his Lodging with the Provost of Queens-Colledge Dr. Christopher Potter a Master in Divinity and a Doctor of Piety He was received in the Court with much Grace where he saw his stay must be short For that City could not long receive so many Nobles and Gentry as came to make a Session of Parliament neither could so many of the King 's principal Friends be spared from their Countries Being then a good Husband of his time and having private Audience with his Majesty he gave him that Counsel to which Wisdom and Allegiance led him as Thraseas Paetus the famous Senator said Suum esse non aliam quà m optimam sententiam dicere One passage is fit to see the light which had much of prudence in it and too much of prophesie He desir'd his Majesty to be informed by him and to keep it among Advices of weight That Cromwel taken into the Rebels Army by his Cousin Hambden was the most dangerous Enemy that his Majesty had For though he were at that time of mean rank and use among them yet he would climb higher I knew him says he at Bugden but never knew his Religion He was a common Spokes-man for Sectaries and maintained their part with stubbornness He never discoursed as if he were pleased with your Majesty and your great Officers indeed he loves none that are more than his Equals Your Majesty did him but Justice in repulsing a Petition put up by him against Sir Thomas Steward of the Isle of Ely but he takes them all for his Enemies that would not let him undo his best Friend and above all that live I think he is Injuriarum persequentissimus as Porcius Latro said of Catiline He talks openly that it is sit some should act more vigorously against your Forces and bring your Person into the power of the Parliament He cannot give a good word of his General the Earl of Essex because he says the Earl is but half an Enemy to your Majesty and hath done you more favour than harm His Fortunes are broken that it is impossible for him to subsist much less to be what be aspires to but by your Majesty's Bounty or by the Ruin of us all and a common Confusion as one said Lentulus salvâ Repub. salvus esse non potuit Paterc In short every Beast hath some evil properties but Cromwel hath the properties of all evil Beasts My humble motion is that either you would win him to you by the Promises of fair Treatment or catch him by some stratagem and cut him short Now if it shall be objected Who reports this saving the Archbishop himself to magnifie his own parts that he was so excellent in fore-sight and as Ajax slighted his Rival Sua narret Ulysses Quae sine teste gerit I satisfie it thus His Servants and they that daily listned to his Discourses have heard it come from him long before the accident of saddest experience how some of them would live to see when Cromwel would bear down all other Powers before him and set up himself The King received it with a