Common-wealth from ruin in so great a time of danger And thus they address themselves to their great Pilot. Most dread and gracious Soveraign WE your most humble and loyal Subjects the Knights Citizens and Burgesses assembled in the Commons House of Parliament full of grief and unspeakable sorrow through the true sence of your Majesties displeasure expressed by your Letter lately sent to Our Speaker and by him related and read unto Us Yet comforted again with the assurance of your Grace and Goodness and of the sincerity of our own intentions and proceedings whereon with confidence we can rely in all humbleness beseech your most excellent Majesty that the Loyalty and Dutifulness of as faithful and loving Subjects as ever served or lived under a gracious Soveraign may not undeservedly suffer by the mis-information of partial and uncertain Reports which are ever unfaithful Intelligencers but that your Majesty would in the clearness of your own Judgment first vouchsase to understand from Our selves and not from others what our humble Declaration and Petition resolved upon by the Universal Voice of the House and proposed with your Gracious favour to be presented unto your Sacred Majesty doth contain Upon what Occasion we entred into Consideration of those things which are therein contained with what dutiful respect to your Majesty and your Service we did consider thereof and what was our true intention thereby And that when your Majesty shall thereby truly discern our dutiful Affections you will in your Royal judgment free us from those heavy Charges wherewith some of our Members are burthened and wherein the whole House is involved And we humbly beseech your Majesty that you will not hereafter give Credit to private Reports against all or any of the Members of our House whom the whole have not censured until your Majesty have been truly informed thereof from our selves and that in the mean time and ever we may stand upright in your Majesties Grace and good Opinion than which no worldly consideration is or can be dearer unto us When your Majesty had reassembled us in Parliament by your Royal Commandment sooner than we expected and did vouchsafe by the mouths of three honourable Lords to impart unto us the weighty occasions moving your Majesty thereunto And from them we did understand these particulars That notwithstanding your Princely and Pious indeavours to procure Peace the time is now come that Janus Temple must be opened That the Voice of Bellona must be heard and not the Voice of the Turtle That there was no hope of Peace nor any Truce to be obtained no not for a few days That your Majesty must either abandon your own Children or ingage your self in a war wherein Consideration is to be had what foot what horse what money would be sufficient That the Lower Palatinate was seized upon by the Army of the King of Spain as Executor of the Ban there in quality of Duke of Burgundy as the Upper Palatinate was by the Duke of Bavaria That the King of Spain at his own Charge had now at least five several Armies on foot That the Princes of the Union were disbanded but the Catholick league remained firm whereby those Princes so dissevered were in danger one by one to be ruined That the Estate of those of the Religion in Foreign parts was miserable And That out of these Considerations we were called to a war and forthwith to advise for a Supply for keeping the forces in the Palatinate from disbanding and to fore-see the means for raising and maintaining the body of an Army for the war against the Spring We therefore out of our Zeal to your Majesty and your Posterity with more alacrity and colerity than ever was precedented in Parliament did address our selves to the Service commended unto Us. And although we cannot conceive that the honor and safety of your Majesty and your posterity the patrimony of your Children invaded and possessed by their Enemies the welfare of Religion and State of your Kingdom are matters at any time unfit for our deepest consideration in time of Parliament And though before this time we were in some of these points silent yet being now invited thereunto and led on by so just an occasion we thought it Our Duties to provide for the present supply thereof and not only to turn our eyes on a war abroad but to take care for the securing of our peace at home which the dangerous increase and insolency of Popish Recusants apparently visibly and sensibly did lead us unto The consideration whereof did necessarily draw us truly to represent unto your Majesty what we conceive to be the Causes what we feared would be the effects and what we hoped might be the remedies of these growing Evils Among which as incident and unavoidable we fell upon some things which seem to touch upon the King of Spain as they have relation to Popish Recusants at home to the Wars by him maintained in the Palatinate against your Majestie 's Children and to his several Armies now on foot yet as we conceived without touch of dishonour to that King or any other Prince your Majestie 's Consederate In the discourse whereof we did not assume to our selves any power to determin of any part thereof nor intend to incroach or intrude upon the Sacred bounds of your Royal Authority to whom and to whom only we acknowledg it doth belong to resolve of Peace and War and of the Marriage of the most noble Prince your Son But as your most Loyal and humble Subjects and Servants representing the whole Commons of your Kingdom who have a large interest in the happy and prosperous estate of your Majesty and your Royal Posterity and of the flourishing Estate of our Church and Common-wealth did resolve out of our Cares and Fears truly and plainly to demonstrate these things to your Majesty which we were not assured could otherwise come so fully and clearly to your knowledg and that being done to lay the same down at your Majesties feet without expectation of any other answer of your Majesty touching these higher points than what at your good pleasure and in your own time should be held fit This being the effect of that we had formerly resolved upon and these the occasions and reasons inducing the same our humble suit to your Majesty and confidence is that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to receive at the hands of these our Messengers our former humble Declaration and Petition and to vouchsafe to read and favourably to interpret the same And that to so much thereof as containeth our humble Petition concerning Jesuits Priests and Popish Recusants the passage of Bills and granting your Royal Pardon you will vouchsafe an answer unto us And whereas your Majesty by the general words of your Letter seemeth to restrain us from intermedling with matters of Government or particulars which have their motion in the Courts of Justice the generality of which words
good Gardiners you pluck up the weeds that will choak your labours and the greatest weeds among you are jealousies root them out for my Actions I dare avow them before God but jealousies are of a strange depth I am the husband and you the wife and it is subject to the wife to be jealous of her husband Let this be far from you It hath been talked of my remisness in maintainance of Religion and suspicion of a toleration but as God shall judge me I never thought nor meant or ever in word expressed any thing that savored of it It is true that at times best known to my self I did not so fully put those lawes in execution but did wink and Connive at some things which might have hindred more weighty Affaires But I never in all my Treaties agreed to any thing to the overthrow or disagreeing of those Lawes But in all I had a chief regard to the preservation of that Truth which I have ever professed And in that respect as I have a Charitable conceit of you I would have you have the like of me also in which I did not transgress For it is a good Horseman's part not alwayes to use the Spur nor keep streight the Reign but sometimes to use the Spur and sometimes to suffer the Reign more remiss So it is the part of a Wise King and my Age and experience have informed me sometimes to quicken the Laws with strict Execution and at other times upon just Occasion to be more remiss And I would also remove from your thoughts all jealousies that I might or ever did question or infringe any of your lawful liberties or privileges But I protest before God I ever intended you should injoy the fulness of all those that from antient times give good Warrant and Testimony of which if need be I will inlarge and amplifie Therefore I would have you as I have in this place heretofore told you as Saint Paul did Timothy avoid Genealogies and curious questions and quirks and jerks of Law and idle innovations and if you minister me no just Occasion I never yet was nor ever will be curious or captious to quarrel with you But I desire you to avoid all doubts and hindrances and to compose your selves speedily and quietly to this weighty affair Carry your selves modestly and my Prayers shall be to God for you and my love shall be alwayes with you that a happy Conclusion may attend this Parliament God is my Judge I speak it as a Christian King never any way faring Man in the burning drie and sandy Desarts more thirsted for water to quench his thirst than I thirst and long for the happy success of this Parliament that the good issue of this may expiate and aâ—quit the fruitless issue of the former And I pray God your Counsels may advance Religion the publick weal and the good of me and my Children When the King had thus ended the Lord Keeper Williams Bishop of Lincoln and Speaker to the House of Peers who uses always to make the King's mind further known if there because told the Parliament That after the Eloquent speech of his Majesty he would not say anything for as one of the Spartan Kings being asked whether he would not willingly hear a man that counterfeited the voice of the Nightingale to the life made answer He had heard the Nightingale So for him to repeat or rehearse what the King had said was according to the Latine Proverb to enamel a Golden Ring with studs of iron He doubted not but that the King's Speech had like Aeschines Orations left in their minds a sting And as an Historian said of Nerva that having adopted Trajan he was immediately taken away Nepost divinum et immortale factum aliquid mortale faceret So he would not dare after his Majesties Divinum et immortale dictum mortale aliquid addere HONORATISS et REUERENDISS Dê° IOHANES WILIAMES EPISC. LINC et MAG SIGILL ANG 〈◊〉 The right Honourable and right-reverend father in god Iohn Lorde Bishop of Lincolne Lord keeper of the greate Seale of England and one of his Ma.ties most hon ble princes Counsell But the Parliament though they knew there was an intention of a Toleration of Popery upon the close of the Spanish match sealed up as it were their lips and would not see the light that discovered it self through this cloud that the King cast before it though some of the Commons had much ado to hold which he takes notice of at the next Interview and thanks them for but they went on directly to his Business making it their own forgetting all former miscarriages And upon the 24. of this moneth the Duke of Buckingham accompanied with the Prince as his Remembrancer made a long Relation of all the transactions in Spain to both Houses with all the advantage he could to make good his own Actions some of the Particulars whereof are already related And he took the first Discovery of the intention of the King of Spain not to deal fairly with Our King touching the Restitution of the Palatinate from the Arch-dutchess jugling in the Treaty at Bruxels which was managed by Sir Richard Weston our King's Ambassadour there who urged for a Cessation of Armes in the Palatinate the Arch-Dutchess pretending Power to draw off the Spanish Forces if Our King would first draw off his it came to an Agreement but in the close after some Delayes she confessed she had no Power to admit of a Cessation till she had more particular warrant for it out of Spain That these shufflings made Our King send Porter into Spain for a more resolute answer in relation to the Match and the Palatinate and assigned him but ten dayes to stay there In which time Bristol fed him with Hopes which he found very Empty ones whereupon Porter went boldly to Olivares who in an open-hearted way told him plainly that Spain meant neither the Match nor Restitution of the Palatinate Bristol seeing Porter would return with this answer persuaded him to speak with Olivares again who coming to Olivares found him much incensed for relating the private intimation he gave him to Bristol the Publick minister and denyed to speak with Porter anymore Bristol still puffs up Our King with an assurance both of the Match and restitution of the Palatinate but they proceeding slowly the Prince desired that he might go himself into Spain which Buckingham first broke to the King who with Reasons laid down for it was drawn to it When the Prince came there the Match at first was absolutely denied unless he would be converted which Bristol perswaded the Prince unto at least in shew to expedite his Business Then the Spanish Ministers urged for a Toleration of Religion in England which they hoped as some of them expressed would cause a Rebellion and they offered the Prince an Army to Assist him for the Suppression of the same But the Prince finding the Spanish did
for at my hands Thus the Beams of Majesty had an influence upon every branch and leaf of the Kingdom by reflecting upon the Root their Representative Body every particular expecting what fruit this Sun-shine would produce striving as much to insinuate into him as he did into the general so that there was a Reciprocal Harmony between the King and the People because they courted one another But when the Kings Bounty contracted it self into private Favourites as it did afterwards bestowing the affection he promised the whole people upon one man when the golden showers they gaped for dropt into some few chanels their passions flew higher than their hopes The Kings aims were to unite the two Kingdoms so that the one might corroborate the other to make good that part of his Speech by this intermixtion wherein he divides England and Scotland into halves But the English stumbled at that partition thinking it an unequal division and fearing that the Scots creeping into English Lordships and English Ladies Beds in both which already they began to be active might quickly make their least half the predominant part But he was Proclaimed King of Great Britain England must be no more a Name the Scotish Coyns are made currant and our Ships must have Saint Georges and Saint Andrews Crosses quartered together in their Flags all outward Ensigns of Amity But those English that had suckt in none of the sweets of this pleasant Stream of Bounty repined to see the Scots advanced from blew Bonnets to costly Beavers wearing instead of Wadmeal Velvet and Satin as divers Pasquils written in that Age Satyrically taunted at Which is not set down here to vilifie the Scots being most of them Gentlemen that had deserved well of their Master but to shew how cross to the publick Appetite the Hony-comb is that another man eats But the King like a wise Pilot guided the Helm with so even an hand that these small gusts were not felt It behoved him to play his Master-prize in the Beginning which he did to the life for he had divers opinions humours and affections to grapple with as well as Nations and 't is a very calm Sea when no billow rises The Romanists bogled that he said in his Speech They were unsufferable in the Kingdom as long as they maintained the Pope to be their Spiritual Head and He to have power to dethrone Princes The Separatists as the King called them were offended at that Expression wherein he professed willingly if the Papists would lay down King-killing and some other gross errors he would be content to meet them half way So that every one grounded his hopes or his fears upon the shallows of his own fancy not knowng yet what course the King would steer But these sores being tenderly dealt with did not suddenly fester but were skinned over The King desirous of the Title Pacificus did not only close with his own Subjects but healed up also that old wound that had bled long in the sides of England and Spain both being weary of the pain both willing to be cured The King of Spain sent the Constable of Castile with a mighty Train of smooth-handed Spaniards to close up the wound on this side where the old Enmity being well mortified they were received with singular Respect and Civility The King of England sent his High Admiral the Earl of Notingham with as splendid a Retinue of English to close it on that Who being Personages of Quality accoutred with all Ornaments suitable were the more admired by the Spaniards for beauty and excellency by how much the Iesuits had made impressions in the vulgar opinion That since the English left the Roman Religion they were transformed into strange horrid shapes with Heads and Tails like Beasts and Monsters So easie it is for those Iuglers when they have once bound up the Conscience to tye up the Vnderstanding also EARL OF NOTTINGHAM GEORGE CAREW EARL OF TOTNES And to satisfie the Kings desires about an Vnion betwixt England and Scotland the Parliament made an Act to authorise certain Commissioners viz. Thomas Lord Ellesmere Lord Chancellor of England Thomas Earl of Dorset Lord Treasurer of England Charles Earl of Notingham Lord High Admiral of England Henry Earl of Southampton William Earl of Pembroke Henry Earl of Northampton Richard Bishop of London Tobie Bishop of Duresme Anthony Bishop of Saint Davids Robert Lord Cecil Principal Secretary Edward Lord Zouch Lord President of Wales William Lord Mounteagle Ralph Lord Eure Edmund Lord Sheffeild Lord President of the Council in the North Lords of the Higher House of Parliament And Thomas Lord Clinton Robert Lord Buckhurst Sir Francis Hastings Knight Sir Iohn Stanhope Knight Vice-Chamberlain to his Majesty Sir Iohn Herbert Knight second Secretary to his Majesty Sir George Carew Knight Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen Sir Thomas Strickland Knight Sir Edward Stafford Knight Sir Henry Nevill of Berk-shire Knight Sir Richard Bukley Knight Sir Henry Billingsley Knight Sir Daniel Dun Knight Dean of the Arches Sir Edward Hobby Knight Sir Iohn Savile Knight Sir Robert Wroth Knight Sir Thomas Chaloner Knight Sir Robert Maunsel Knight Sir Thomas Ridgeway Knight Sir Thomas Holcroft Knight Sir Thomas Hesketh Knight Atturney of the Court of Wards Sir Francis Bacon Knight Sir Lawrence Tanfield Knight Serjeant at Law Sir Henry Hubberd Knight Serjeant at Law Sir Iohn Bennet Doctor of the Laws Sir Henry Withrington Sir Ralph Grey and Sir Thomas Lake Knights Robert Askwith Thomas Iames and Henry Chapman Merchants Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons or any eight of the said Lords and twenty of the said Commons Which Commissioners shall have power to assemble meet treat and consult with certain select Commissioners to be nominated and authorised by Authority of the Parliament of Scotland concerning such Matters Causes and things as they in their Wisdoms shall think and deem convenient and necessary for the honour of the King and common good of both Kingdoms Yet the good intentions of this Vnion took no effect as will follow in the sequel of this History But there were a great many good Laws made which are too voluminous for this place having a proper Sphere of their own to move in Thus the King sate triumphing as it were upon a Throne of his Peoples Affections and his beginnings had some settlement for being loth to be troubled he sought Peace every-where But our inbred distempers lay upon the Lee intermixt with other gross dregs that the Princes lenity and the Peoples luxury produced For the King minding his sports many riotous demeanours crept into the Kingdom the Sun-shine of Peace being apt for such a production upon the slime of the late War The Sword and Buckler trade being now out of date one corruption producing another the City of London being always a fit Receptacle for such whose prodigalities and wastes made them Instruments of Debaucheries divers Sects of vitious Persons going under the
pounds subsidies due to the late Queen besides what the Parliament had given him And fearing that Proclamations who were indeed very active Ministers would now become Laws ushering in the Kings will with large strides upon the peoples Liberties who lay down while they stept over them The ingenious sort sensible of this incroaching Monarchy brake out into private murmur which by degrees being of a light nature carried a Cloud with it by which the wise Pilots of the State foreseeing a Storm gathering strive to dissipate it the next Session of Parliament which was held the nineteenth of February in the seventh year of our Kings Reign Thomas Sackville Earl of Dorset Not long after this the Earl of Dorset Lord High Treasurer died suddenly as he sate at the Council Table which gave occasion to some persons disaffected to him as what eminent Officer that hath the managing of Moneys can please all to speak many things to his Dishonour But they considered not that besides the Black worm and the White day and night as the Riddle is that are gnawing constantly at the root of this tree of Life there are many insensible Diseases as Apoplexies whose Vapors suddenly extinguish the Animal Spirits and Apostems both in the upper and middle Region of Man that often drown and suffocate both Animal and Vital who are like imbodyed Twins the one cannot live without the other if the Animal Spirits fail the Vital cannot subsist if the Vitals perish the Animal give over their operations And He that judges ill of such an Act of Providence may have the same hand at the same time writing within the Palace walls of his own Body the same Period to his Lives earthly Empire The Earl of Salisbury succeeded him a man nourished with the milk of Policy under his father the Lord Burley famous for Wisdom in his Generation a Courtier from his infancy Batteld by Art and Industry under the late Queen mother of her Country Though Nature was not propitious to his Outside being Crooked backt She supplied that want with admirable indowments within This man the King found Secretary and Master of the Wards and to these he added the Treasurers staff knowing him to be the staff of his Treasury For he had knowledg enough to pry into other Mens Offices aswell as his own and knew the ways of disbursing the Kings moneys The Earl of Northhampton he made Lord Privy Seal and these were the two prime wheels of his triumphant Chariot The Earl of Suffolk was made Lord Chamberlain before but he came far behind in the management of the Kings affairs being a Spirit of a more Grosser Temper fitter to part a fray and Compose the differences of a disordered Court than a Kingdom Upon the Shoulders of the two first the King laid the Burthen of his business For though he had many Lords his Creatures some by Creation and some by insinuation for Kings will never want supple-hand Courtiers and the Bishops being his Dependents the most of them tending by direct Lines towards him as the Center of their advancement so that He like the Supreme Power moved this upper Region for the most part and that had an influence upon the lower in inferior Orbs yet these two noble Men were the two great Lights that were to discover the Kings mind to the Parliament and by whose Heat and Vigor the blessed fruits of Peace and Plenty should be produced The Lord Treasurer by a Command from the King instructs both Houses in their business and what they shall do well to insist upon this Session First To supply his Majesties wants Secondly To ease the people of their Grievances They go commonly yoakt together for the peoples Grievances are the Kings Wants and the Kings Wants are the peoples Grievances How can they be separated If the King will always want the people will always suffer For Kings when they do want lay commonly lawless impositions on the people which they must take off again with a sum of money and then they want again to a continued vicissitude These two Propositions are sweetned by him with a third Which is to make the Parliament witnesses of those great favours and honours that his Majesty intended his Royal Son Prince Henry in creating him Prince of Wales Which though the King might do without a Parliament and that divers Kings his Predecessors had done so as by many precedents was manifested yet being desirous to have a happy Vnion betwixt him and his People he would have nothing resound ill in their ears from so eminent an instrument to the Kingdoms good as his Son Then they excuse the Kings necessities proceeding from his great disbursements For the three hundred and fifty thousand pounds Subsidies due in the late Queens time he received with one hand and paid her Debts with another redeeming the Crown Lands which she had morgaged to the City He kept an Army of nineteen thousand men in Ireland for some time a foot wherein a great many of the Nobility were Commanders and other deserving Soldiers that would have been exposed to want and penury if not supplied And it was not safe for the King to trust the inveterate malice of a new reconciled Enemy without the Sword in his hand The late Queens Funeral Charges were reckon'd up which they hoped the Parliament would not repine at Nor was it fit the King should come in as a private Person bringing in one Crown on his head and finding another here or his Royal Consort with our future Hopes like so many precious Ienels exposed to Robbers without a Guard and Retinue How fit was the Magnificence at the King of Denmarks being here And how just that Ambassadors from Foreign Princes more than ever this Crown received should find those Entertainments and Gratuities the want whereof would put a dim lustre abroad upon the most sparkling Jewels of the Crown Besides the necessary Charge of sending Ambassadors to others being concurrent and mutual Civilities among Princes That these are the causes of the Kings wants and not his irregular Bounty though a magnificent mind is inseparable from the Majesty of a King If he did not give his subjects and servants would live in a miserable Climate And for his Bounty to those that were not born among us it must be remembred he was born among them and not to have them taste of the blessing he hath attained were to have him change his Vertue with his Fortune Therefore they desire the Kings wants may be supplied a thing easie to be granted and not to be valued by Wise-men nor spoken of without contempt Philosophy saith that all Riches are but food and rayment the rest is nugatorium quiddam And that it is but purior pars terrae and therefore but crassior pars aquae a thing unworthy the denial to such a King who is not only the wisest of Kings but the very Image of an Angel that hath brought good
Peer that was nobly descended he could not be justified but was enjoyned by the House to give the Lord Spencer such satisfaction as they prescribed which his Greatness refusing to obey he was by the Lords sent Prisoner to the Tower and Spencer re-admitted into the House again When Arundle was well cooled in the Tower and found that no Power would give him Liberty but that which had restrained him rather blaming his rashness than excusing his stubborness his great Heart humbled it self to the Lords betwixt a Letter and a Petition in these words To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Higher House of Parliament assembled May it please your Lordships WHere as I stand committed here by your Lordships Order for having stood upon performing some part of that which was injoined me by your Lordships which I did rather in respect the time was short for advice than out of any intent to disobey the House for which I have suffered in this place till now I do therefore humbly beseech your Lordships to construe of what is past according to this my profession and for the time to come to believe that I both understand so well your Lordships power to command and your nobleness and tenderness to consider what is fit as I do and will wholly put myself upon your Honors and perform what is or shall be injoyned me So beseeching your Lordships to construe these lines as proceeding from a heart ready to obey you in what you command I rest Your Lordships most humble Servant Thomas Arundle Tower 2 June 1621. Upon this submission the Lords commanded him to be sent for and presenting himself at the Bar of the House with the accustomed Humility that Offenders do he thus expressed himself Because I have committed a fault against this House in not obeying all the Order that your Lordships commanded me I do here acknowledg this my fault and ask your Lordships pardon for the same and am ready to obey all your Lordships commands Thus this great Lord though he fluttered in the Air of the Court and mounted by that means upon the Wings of Passion was glad to stoop when consideration lured him to it lest by the heat that he himself made melting the Waxen Plumes that he thought would have supported him his suffering might have been a greater mischief to him than his submission so sour and severe a School-master is Passion to be both Author and Punisher of our Errors yea making the best Natures often correct themselves most The fourth of Iune this year the Parliament had a Recess the King being to go his Progress wherein some Lords and others of the Parliament were to attend him For it seems his business was not yet ripe for the Parliament and he was loth they should have too much leisure therefore they were not to meet again till the eighth of February following which being a long time of Vacancy the House of Commons before they parted took the Miseries of the Palatinate into serious debate and though they felt the King's pulse and knew the beat of his thought when he spake of providing an Army this Summer for the recovery of it and would engage his Crown Blood and Soul for it finding him apt to say what he had no will to do yet they were so wise as not to slacken or draw back in so good a work that if there were a failing it should not be on their side knowing how much Religion was concerned in it for to the appearance of Reason the triumphing Emperor and Universal King would quickly tread all under foot therefore with one voice none daring to oppose they made this Declaration THe Commons assembled in Parliament taking into most serious consideration the present state of the King's Children abroad and generally afflicted estate of the true Professors of the same Christian Religion professed by the Church of England in Forreign Parts and being touched with a true sence and fellow-feeling of their distresses as Members of the same Body do with unanimous consent in the name of themselves and the whole Body of the Kingdom whom they represent declare unto his most excellent Majesty and to the whole World their hearty grief and sorrow for the same and do not only joyn with them in their humble and Devout Prayers unto Almighty God to protect his true Church and to avert the Dangers now threatned but also with one heart and voice do solemnly protest That if his Majestie s pious endeavours by Treaty to procure their Peace and Safety shall not take that good effect which is desired in Treaty wherefore they humbly beseech his Majesty not to suffer any longer delay that then upon signification of his Majestie s pleasure in Parliament they shall be ready to the utmost of their Powers both with their lives and fortunes to assist him so as that by the Divine Help of Almighty God which is never wanting unto those who in his fear shall undertake the defence of his own Cauâ—e he may be able to do that with his Sword which by a peaceable Course shall not be effected The King took this Declaration of the Commons in very good Part and meant when occasion served to make good use of it For as he found them forward enough to begin a War so he knew his own constitution backward enough the Sword being in his Hand and did fore-see an advantage arising from a Medium betwixt the Parliament and him if he could bring his Ends about which he after put in practice but it broke all to pieces and now away he goes on his Progress Towards Winter the Lord Digby returns from his soliciting journey in Germany His first addresses he made to the Emperour his second to the Duke of Bavaria and his last to the Infanta at Bruxels and all to as little purpose as if he had stayed at home that three-fold Cord twisted by the power of Spain was not easily to be broken Some little twilight and scintil of Hope was given him by the Emperour for restitution of the Palatinate yet not so much as would discover the error of our easie belief But the Bavarian had already swallowed the Electurate and his Voraginous appetite gaped after the possession of the Countrey though the English there were bones in his way Digby being arrived at Court and bringing him with doubtful answers from the Emperour and sullen ones from the Duke of Bavaria the King thought it good Policy to shorten the long Recess till February and to re-assemble the Parliament the 20 th of November that meeting before their Time it might more amaze them and intimate some extraordinary Cause which happily might produce some extraordinary effect if well mannag'd And as incident thereunto he gave order to Digby as soon as the Parliament assembled to make relation to the Houses of his proceedings there which he did in these words IT pleased his Majesty to
put by her Government to say nothing of Prince Henry but the violence of it did not work because the Operation was somewhat mitigated by the Duke's Protestation of his Innocency For the King at the next Interview saying to him Ah Stenny Stenny which was the Familiar name he alwayes used to him Wilt thou kill me The Duke struck into an Astonishment with the Expression after some little Pause collected himself and with many asseverations strove to justify his Integrity which the good King was willing enough to Believe and Buckingham finding by some discourse that Padre Macestria the Spanish Iesuit had been with the King he had then a large Theme for his Vindication turning all upon the Spanish Iesuitical Malice which proceeded from the ruins of their quashed Hopes And the King knowing Inoiosa and all that Party very bitter against Buckingham and though he did not directly accuse the Prince to be in the Conspiracy with Buckingham yet he reflected upon him for such an attempt could never have been effected without his Privity therefore out of the Bowels of good Nature he did unbelieve it and after Examinations of some Persons the Duke's Intimates and their constant denyal upon oath which they had no good Cause to confess the King was content being loth to think such an Enterprize could be fostred so neer his own Bosom to have the Brat strangled in the Womb. And he presently sent into Spain to desire Iustice of that King against the Ambassadours false Accusation which he said wounded his Son's Honour through Buckingham's side which Sir Walter Aston represented to the King of Spain for Bristol was coming over to justifie his Actions to the Parliament But the Duke of Buckinghams reputation there procured no other Satisfaction than some little check of formality for when Inoiosa was recalled home he was not lessen'd in esteem Thus was this Information waved though there might be some cause to suspect that the great intimacy and Dearness betwixt the Prince and Duke like the conjunction of two dreadful planets could not but portend the production of some very dangerous effect to the old King But the Duke's Reputation though it failed in Spain held firm footing in England for Bristol no sooner appeared but he is clapt up in the Tower Their jugling practices whereof they were Both guilty enough must not yet come to light to disturb the Proceedings in Parliament Bristol had too much of the King's Commission for what he did though he might overshoot himself in what he said which was not now to be discovered Yet the Rigor of that imprisonment would have sounded too loud if he had not had a suddain Release who finding the Duke high mounted yet in power and himself in no Degree to grapple with him was content with Submission to gain his liberty and retire himself to a Country privacy The Lords being now at leisure began to consider of that stinging petition as the King called it against Papists how necessary it was to joyn with the Commons to supplicate the King to take down the pride of their high-flying Hopes that had been long upon the Wing watching for their prey and now they are made to stoop without it And after some Conferences betwixt both Houses about it the Petition was reduced to these two Propositions and presented to the King as two Petitions We your Majestie 's most humble and loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament do in all humbleness offer unto your Sacred Majesty these two Petitions following 1. That for the more safety of your Realms and better keeping your Subjects in Obedience and other important Reasons of State your Majesty would be pleased by some such course as you shall think fit to give present Order that all the Laws be put in due execution which have been made and do stand in force against Jesuits Seminary Priests and others having taken Orders by authority derived from the See of Rome and generally against all Popish Recusants And as for disarming that it may be according to the Laws and according to former Acts and Directions of State in that Case And yet that it may appear to all the World the Favour and Clemency your Majesty useth towards all your Subjects of what Condition soever And to the intent the Jesuits and Priests now in the Realm may not pretend to be surprized that a speedy and certain may be prefixed by your Majesties Proclamation before which day they shall depart out of this Kingdom and all other your Highness Dominions and neither they nor any other to return or come hither again upon peril of the severest Penalties of the Laws now in force against them And that all your Majesties Subjects may thereby also be admonished not to receive entertain or conceal any of them upon the Penalties and Forfeitures which by the Laws may be imposed on them 2. Seeing We are thus happily delivered from that danger which those Treaties now dissolved and that use which your ill-affected Subjects made thereof would certainly have drawn upon us and yet cannot but foresee and fear lest the like may hereafter happen which would inevitably bring much peril upon your Majesties Kingdoms We are most humble Suters unto your Gracious Majesty to secure the Hearts of your good Subjects by the ingagement of your Royal Word unto them that upon no occasion of Marriage or Treaty or other request in that behalf from any forein Prince or State whatsoever you will take away or slacken the Execution of your Laws against Jesuits Priests and Popish Recusants To which Our humble Petitions proceeding from Our most Loyal and Dutiful affections towards your Majesty Our Care of Our Countries good and our own confident persuasion that these will much advance the Glory of Almighty God the everlasting Honour of your Majesty the Safety of your Kingdoms and the incouragement of all your good Subjects We do most humbly beseech your Majesty to vouchsafe a gracious Answer The King was prepared for the Petition having given his own Resolution the Check at present that whatsoever he might do hereafter yet now he would comply and therefore he sends for both Houses to Whitehall to sweeten them with a gentle answer to this Petition that might take off those sour aspersions that this miscarriage in Government might happily cast upon him And we will not say but his intentions might rove towards the End though he gave too much liberty through a Natural easiness in himself to those that He trusted with Management of the great affairs by evil means to pervert that end which made him guilty of their Actions For where true Piety is not the Director Carelesness as often as Wilfulness carries men out of the way But he had this Principle and made often use of it like ill Tenants when they let things run to ruin to daub all up again when forced to it and find no other Remedy This was the effect of
easily committed and concealed It is an offence that is Tanquam sagitta nocte volans it is the Arrow that flies by night it discerns not whom it hits for many times the poyson is laid for one and another takes it As in Sanders case where the poysoned Apple was laid for the Mother and the Child eat it And so in that notorious Case whereupon the Statute of 22 Hen. 8. cap. 9. was made where the intent being but to poyson one or two poyson was put in a little Vessel of Barm that stood in the Kitchen at the Bishop of Rochesters house of which Barm Pottage or Grewel was made wherewith seventeen of the Bishops Family were poysoned nay divers of the poor that came to the Bishops-gate and had the Pottage in Alms were likewise poysoned Here is great talk of Impoysonment I hope I am safe I have no enemies nor any thing men can long for that is all one for he may sit at the Table by one for whom poyson is prepared and have a drench of his Cup or of his Pottage and so as the Poet saith Concidit infelix alieno vulnere he may die another mans death and therefore it was most gravely judiciously and properly provided by that Statute that Impoysonment should be High-Treason because whatsoever offence tendeth to the utter subversion and dissolution of Human Society is in the nature of High-Treason But it is an offence that I may truly say of it Non est nostri generis nec sanguinis It is thanks be to God rare in the Isle of Britain It is neither of our Country nor of our Church You may find it in Rome and Italy there is a Religion for it if it should come among us it were better living in a Wilderness than in a Court. For the particular fact upon Overbury I knew the Gentleman it is true his mind was great but it moved not in any great good order yet certainly it did commonly fly at good things and the greatest fault that ever I heard by him was That he made his Friend his Idol But take him as he was the Kings Prisoner in the Tower and then see how the Case stands In that place the State is as it were a Respondent to make good the Body of the Prisoner and if any thing happen to him there it may though not in this Case yet in some others make an aspersion and reflexion upon the State it self For the person is utterly void of his own defence his own care and providence can serve him to nothing He is in the custody and preservation of Law and we have a Maxim in our Law that when a State is in preservation of Law nothing can destroy it or hurt it and God forbid but the like should be in Persons and therefore this was a circumstance of great aggravation Lastly To have a man chased to death in a manner as it appears now by matter of Record for other privacy of Cause I know not by poyson after poyson First Rosaker then Arsnick then Mercury sublimate then sublimate again it is a thing would astonish mans nature to hear it The Poets feign that the Furies had Whips and that they were corded with poysoned Snakes and a man would think that this subject were the very Case To have a man tied to a post and to scourge him to death with Serpents for so truly may diversity of poysons be termed It pleased my Lord Chief Justice to let me know that which I heard with great comfort which was the charge that his Majesty gave to himself and the rest of the Commissioners in this Case worthy to be written in Letters of Gold That the business should be carried without touch to any that was innocent not only without impeachment but without aspersion which was a most Noble and Princely caution for mens Reputations are tender things and ought to be like Christs Coat without seam And it was more to be respected in this Case because it met with two great Persons A Nobleman that his Majesty had favoured and advanced and his Lady being of a great and Honourable House though I think it be true that the Writers say that there is no Pomegranate so fair or so sound but may have a perished Kernel Nay I see plainly in those excellent Papers of his Majesties own hand-writing as so many beams of Iustice issuing from that Vertue which so much doth shine in him the business so evenly carried without prejudice whether it were a true Accusation on the one part or a practice or false Accusation on the other as shewed plainly that his Majesties judgment was Tanquam tabula rasa as a clean pair of Tables and his ears Tanquam janua aperta as a gate not side open but wide open to the Truth as it should be discovered And I may truly affirm that there was never in this Kingdom nor in any other the blood of a private Gentleman vindicated Cum tanto motu Regni or to say better Cum tanto plausu Regni If it had concerned the King or Prince there could not have been greater or better Commissioners The term hath been almost turned into a Iustium or Vacancy the people being more willing to be lookers on in this business than proceeders in their own There hath been no care of discovery omitted no moment of time lost and therefore I will conclude with the saying of Solomon this part of my Speech Gloria Deicelare rem and gloria Regis scrutari rem It is the glory of God to conceal a thing and it is the glory of the King to find it out And his Majesties honor is the greater for that he shewed to the World this business as it hath relation to my Lord of Somerset whose Case in no sort I do fore-judg being ignorant of the secrets of the cause but take him as the Law takes him hitherto for a suspect I say the King hath to his great honor shewed That were any man in such a case of blood as the Signet of his right-hand as the Scripture saith he would put him off Now will I come to the particular Charge of these Gentlemen And first I will by way of Narrative relate the Fact with the occasion of it This wretched man Weston who was the Actor or Mechanical party in this Impoysonment the first day being indicted by a very substantial Iury of selected Citizens to the number of nineteen who found Billa vera yet nevertheless at the first stood mute But after some days intermission it pleased God to cast out the Dumb Devil and he put himself upon his Trial and was by a Iury of great value upon his own Confessions and other testimonies found guilty So as thirty and one sufficient Iurors have past upon him and he had also his Judgment and Execution awarded After this being in preparation for another World he sent for Sir Overbury's Father and falling down upon his knees with great remorse
The strange Confederacy of the Princes of the Popish Religion aiming mainly at the advancement of theirs and subverting Ours and taking the advantages conducing to that End upon all Occasions 6. The great and many Armies raised and maintained at the charge of the King of Spain the chief of that League 7. The expectation of the Popish Recusants of the Match with Spain and feeding themselves with great hopes of the consequences thereof 8. The interposing of Foreign Princes and their Agents in the behalf of Popish Recusants for connivence and favour unto them 9. Their open and usual Resort to the Houses and which is worse to the Chappels of Foreign Ambassadors 10. Their more than usual concourse to the City and their frequent Conventicles and Conferences there 11. The education of their Children in many several Seminaries and Houses of their Religion in Foreign parts appropriated only to the English Fugitives 12. The Grants of their just forfeitures intended by your Majesty as a reward of service to the Grantees but beyond your Majesties intention transferred or compounded for at such mean rates as will amount to little less than a Toleration 13. The licentious printing and dispersing of Popish and seditious Books even in the time of Parliament 14. The Swarms of Priests and Jesuits the common Incendiaries of all Christendom dispersed in all parts of your Kingdom And from these Causes as bitter Roots we humbly offer to your Majesty that we foresee and fear there will necessarily follow very dangerous effects both to Church and State For 1. The Popish Religion is incompatible with Ours in respect of their Positions 2. It draweth with it an unavoidable Dependency on foreign Princes 3. It openeth too wide a Gap for Popularity to any who shall draw too great a Party 4. It hath a restless Spirit and will strive by these Gradations if it once get but a Connivence it will press for a Toleration if that should be obtained they must have an equality from thence they will aspire to Superiority And will never rest till they get a Subversion of the true Religion The Remedies against these growing Evils which in all humbleness we offer to your most excellent Majesty are these 1. That seeing this inevitable Necessity is faln upon your Majesty which no wisdom or providence of a peaceable and pious King can avoid your Majesty would not omit this just occasion speedily and effectually to take your Sword into your hand 2. That once undertaken upon so Honourable and just grounds your Majesty would resolve to persue and more publickly avow the aiding of those of our Religion in foreign parts which doubtless would reunite the Princes and States of the Union by these disasters disheartned and disbanded 3. That your Majesty would propose to your self to manage this War with the best advantage by a Diversion or otherwise as in your deep judgment shall be found fittest and not to rest upon a War in these parts only which will consume your Treasure and discourage your people 4. That the bent of this War and point of your Sword may be against that Prince whatsoever Opinion of Potency he hath whose Armies and Treasures have first diverted and since maintained the War in the Palatinate 5. That for securing of our peace at home your Majesty will be pleased to review the parts of our Petition formerly delivered unto your Majesty and hereunto annexed and to put it in execution by the care of choice Commissioners to be there unto especially appointed the Laws already and hereafter to be made for preventing of Dangers by Popish Recusants and their wonted evasions 6. That to frustrate their hopes for a future Age our most Noble Prince may be timely and happily married to one of our own Religion 7. That the Children of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom and of others ill affected and suspected in their Religion now beyond the Seas may be forthwith called home by your means and at the charge of their Parents or Governours 8. That the Children of Popish Recusants or such whose wives are Popish Recusants be brought up during their minority with Protestant Schoolmasters and Teachers who may sow in their tender years the seeds of true Religion 9. That your Majesty will be pleased speedily to revoke all former Licences for such Children and youth to travel beyond the Seas and not grant any such licence hereafter 10. That your Majesties learned Councel may receive commandment from your Highness carefully to look into former Grants of Recusants lands and to avoid them if by Law they can and that your Majesty will stay your hand from passing any such Grants hereafter This is the sum and effect of our Humble Declaration which we no ways intending to press upon your Majesties undoubted and Regal Prerogative do with the fulness of our Duty and Obedience humbly submit to your most Princely consideration the Glory of God whose Cause it is the Zeal of our true Religion in which we have been born and wherein by God's grace we are resolved to die the safety of your Majesties person who is the very life of your people the happiness of your Children and Posterity the Honour and good of the Church and State dearer unto us then our own lives having kindled these Affections truly devoted to your Majesty And seeing out of our Duty to your Majesty we have already resolved to give at the end of this Session one entire Subsidy for the present relief of the Palatinate only to be paid in the end of February next which cannot well be effected but by passing a Bill in a Parliamentary course before Christmas We most humbly beseech your Majesty as our assured hope is that you will then also vouchsafe to give life by your Royal assent to such Bills as before that time shall be prepared for your Majesties Honour and the general good of your People And that such Bills may be also accompanied as hath been accustomed with your Majestie 's gracious Pardon which proceeding from your own meer Grace may by your Highness direction be drawn to that latitude and extent as may best sort with your Majesties Bounty and Goodness And that not only Fellons and criminal offenders may take benefit thereof but that your good Subjects may receive ease thereby And if it shall so stand with your good pleasure that it may extend to the relief of the old Debts and Duties to the Crown before the first year of your Majesties raign to the discharge of Alienations without licence and misusing of Liveries and Oustre le main before the first summons of this Parliament and of concealed Wardships and not suing of Liveries and Oustre le mains before the twelfth year of your Majesties Reign Which gracious favour would much comfort your good Subjects and ease them from Vexation with little loss or prejudice to your own profit And we by our daily and devout prayers to the Almighty the great King of
in the largeness of the extent thereof as we hope beyond your Majesties intention might involve those things which are the proper Subjects of Parliamentary occasions and discourse And where as your Majesty doth seem to abridge us of the ancient liberty of Parliament for freedom of Speech Jurisdiction and just Censure of the House and other proceedings there wherein we trust in God we shall never transgress the bounds of loyal and dutiful Subjects a liberty which we assure our selves so wise and so just a King will not infringe the same being our ancient and undoubted right and an inheritance received from our Ancestors without which we cannot freely debate nor clearly discern of things in Question before us nor truly inform your Majesty in which we have been confirmed by your Majesties most gracious former Speeches and Messages We are therefore now again inforced in all humbleness to pray your Majesty to allow the same and thereby to take away the doubts and scruples your Majesties late Letter to your Speaker hath brought upon us So shall we your Loyal and loving Subjects ever acknowledge your Majesties justice grace and goodness and be ready to perform that service to your Majesty which in the true affection of our hearts we prosess and powre out our dayly and devout prayers to the Almighty for your Majesties long life happy and religious Reign and prosperous Estate and for your Royal posterity after you for ever The Parliament thought it strange that the King in a Recess should call them together before the appointed time of meeting pretending Emergent occasions and by his Ministers of State persuade and incite to a War and when in obedience to this command they shall proceed in their advice only to prevent the dangers abroad and establish security at home they shall be accounted presumptuous and insolent But by this they discover and which the King plainly expresses in his Answer that he required none of their advice he wanted only their money if they had furnished him with that instead of Counsel it would have been a golden Remonstrance They are to be his Bank his Merchants he needs no other directions let them find money he knows how to dispose of it This was the great fault which this Petition strives to mitigate accompanied with the Remonstrance it self and the Petition against Recusancy for both which it was an intercessor but it could not with all its Humility procure acceptance for its Companions though sent by twelve select Members of the House and the leading man Sir Richard Weston who was really the King's chosen by the Commons to make their Petitions the more acceptable And the House finding it a great discouragement to them to proceed in any business when there was so great a distance betwixt the King and them the King thinking their actions an intrenchment upon his Prerogative and they thinking the King's expressions an infringement of their Liberties they resolved to give over all business till they had an Answer of their Petitions for they thought they had as good do nothing as have that they do undone again Which the King hearing of was vexed at the heart and entertained their Messengers very roughly and some say he called for twelve Chaire's for them saying Here are twelve Kings come to me But after he had considered their desires in their last Petition rejecting the others he returns them this answer to all WE must here begin in the same fashion that we would have done if your first Petition had come to our Hands before we had made a stay thereof which is to repeat the first words of the late Queen of famous memory used by her in answer to an insolent Proposition made by a Polonian Embassadonâ— unto her that is Legatum expectabamus Heraldum accipimus For we had great reason to expect that the first Message from your House should have been a Message of thanksgiving for Our continued gratious behaviour towards our People since your last Recess Not only by our Proclamation of Grace wherein were contained six or seven and thirty Articles all of several points of Grace to the people but also by the labour we took for the satisfaction of both Houses in those three Articles recommended unto Us in both their names by the right Reverend Father in God the Archbishop of Canterbury and likewise for the good Government of Ireland we are now in hand with at your request But not only have We heard no news of all this but contrary great complains of the Danger of Religion within this Kingdom tacitly implying Our ill Government in this point And we leave you to judge whether it be your Duties that are the Representative Body of Our People so to distate them with Our Government whereas by the contrary it is your Duty with all your indeavours to kindle more and more a dutiful and thankful Love in the peoples hearts towards us for our just and gracious Government Now whereas in the very beginning of this your Apology you tax Us in fair terms of trusting uncertain Reports and partial informations concerning your Proceedings We wish you to remember that we are an old and experienced King needing no such lessons being in our conscience freest of any King alive from hearing or trusting idle Reports which so many of your House as are nearest Us can bear witness unto you if you would give as good ear to them as you do to some Tribunitial Orators among you And for proof in this particular We have made your own Messengers confer your other Petitions sent by you with the Copy thereof which was sent Us before between which there is no difference at all but that since our receiving the first Copy you added a Conclusion unto it which could not come to our hands till it was done by you and your Messengers sent which was all at one time And if we had had no Copy of it before hand we must have received your first Petition to our great dishonour before we had known what it contained which would have inforced us to have returned you a far worse answer than now we do For then your Messengers had returned with nothing but that We have judged your Petition unlawful and unworthy of an answer For as to your Conclusion thereof it is nothing but Protestatio contraria facto for in the body of your Petition you usurp upon Our Prerogative Royal and meddle with things far above your reach and then in the Conclusion you protest the contrary as if a Robber would take a mans purse and then protest he meant not to rob him For first you presume to give Us your advice concerning the Match of Our dearest Son with some Protestant we cannot say Princess for we know none of these fit for him and dissuade us from his Match with Spain urging us to a present War with that King and yet in the conclusion forsooth ye protest ye intend not to
the delights she suckt in there made his condition again known to her Father The old man being troubled with his Daughters disobedience imbitter'd her being near him with wearisome and continual chidings to wean her from the sweets she doted on and with much ado forced her into the Country But how harsh was the parting being rent away from the place where she grew and flourished Yet she left all her Engines and Imps behind her the old Doctor and his Confederate Mrs. Turner must be her two supporters She blazons all her miseries to them at her depart and moystens the way with her tears Chartley was an hundred miles from her happiness and a little time thus lost is her eternity When she came thither though in the pleasantest time of Summer she shut herself up in her Chamber not suffering a beam of light to peep upon her dark thoughts If she stirred out of her Chamber it was in the dead of Night when sleep had taken possession of all others but those about her In this implacable sad discontented humour she continued some moneths always murmuring against but never giving the least civil respect to her Husband which the good man suffered patiently being loth to be the divulger of his own misery yet having a manly courage he would sometimes break into a little passion to see himself sleighted and neglected by himself but having never found better from her it was the easier to bear with her Robert Earle of Essex his Excellence Generall of the Army etc For coming to London next Winter with this full sail loaden with lust she found the Viscount much prepared for her who being at first fastned on the Object absence and all those little Artifices that mischievous Women and cunning Impostures could devise had advanced him as much in his desires as they had hindred the other We could dispute the Nature of these Operations how far they are Contingent and how the fancy works with them though ignorant of them making their impulsions more active being the sparks that kindle this combustible matter for we will never allow there was any other Diabolical means used Nature being strong enough for such a production but being not pertinent to the Story will leave it and follow them that found the effects of it and had affections suitable to it which they made use of with an unbridled appetite yet meeting closely in corners Sin being at first shamefaced but afterwards they grew more bold and every hour that the Viscount could steal from his Royal Master he dedicated it to his Disloyal Mistris being caught in this Net of Adulation he becomes a willing Prisoner Lust only getting liberty to all looseness and licentiousness Places of frequent Meetings are daily renewed Persons fitted for such practices are employed and when Nature was exhausted Art her subtil Imitator brought in her store to contribute new Spirits purchased at any rate All outward Adornment to present Beauty in her full Glory were not wanting on both sides being Lusts fuel which tended to the Consumption of all Reason And among the rest yellow starch the invention and foyl of Iaundice Complexions with great Cut-work Bands and Piccadillies a thing that hath since lost the name crouded in and flourished among us Mrs. Turner being nominoted to be the first Contriver happily in England but the Original came out of France which fashion and colour did set off their lean sallow countenances Thus did the Viscount get the Conquest of two the King and this Lady but could not subdue his own lustful Appetite The Wheel of Fortune running towards the Scots turned by the Viscount Rochester was unhappily diverted upon the Lord Sanquir a Baron of that Nation and married to a good Family in England who some years before meeting with a sturdy Fencer one Iohn Turner who was a Master of the Weapon-Trade in his own School the young Lord strove to put some affront upon him making it no little Conquest to disgrace a Master in the Art as they termed it and the man apprehensive of the Attempt with a bold rudeness prest so hard upon him that he thrust out one of the Barons eyes This business was much regretted by Turner and the Baron being conscious to himself that he meant his Adversary some ill took the Accident with as much patience as men that lose one eye by their own default use to do for the preservation of the other Some time after being in the Court of the late great Henry of France and the King courteous to Strangers entertaining discourse with him askt him how he lost his eye he cloathing his answer in a better shrowd than a plain Fencers told him it was done with a Sword The King replies Doth the man live And that question gave an end to the Discourse but was the beginner of a strange Confusion in his working Fancy which neither Time nor Distance could compose carrying it in his breast some years after till he came into England where he hired two of his Country-men Gray and Carlile men of low and mercenary spirits to murther him which they did with a Case of Pistols in his own House in White-Fryars many years after the loss of his bodily eye thus the Baron lost the eye of his Reason This bold nefarious Act was very deeply resented at Court and the Kings Commands were so active for apprehension of the murderers that they were all three taken one upon the Borders of Scotland so far had his fears carried him another in a Ship bound for Hamburgh who scaping in a Storm the Seas delivered up and the Lord himself being obscured in this Tempest of his Soul hearing a thousand pound was offered to bring his Head so liberal was the King for Iustice threw himself into the Arms of his Mercy by the mediation of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to whom he presented himself an Object of pity but no intercession could prevail their lives satisfied the Law the Baron not having the honour of a Noble death Edward Earle of Dorset Lord Chamberlaine to the Queene etc. The Kings affections were not so monopolized but that his crafty Servant the Earl of Salisbury had a good hole as well in his Councils as Treasure And being not well pleased to see himself bearded by a Youth new started into the affairs of the World and mounted by the wing of love not of merit he cast out many mists before him to hinder and damp his passage so that the Viscount could not rise to that pitch during his life that he afterwards arrived at And one thing among the rest he obstructed was five thousand pounds the King had given him to maintain his Riot Which sum the Treasurer thought too great a bulk to be carried lightly away and therefore he desired the King might see what he did And having layd the money in Silver upon Tables in his Gallery at salisbury-Salisbury-house he invited the King to dinner making
this the passage to his entertainment The King strucken suddenly with such heaps asked the Treasurer what this money was for who told him he had received his Majesties Commands to give so much to the Viscount Rochester The King that either carelesly thought five thousand pound to be no more than the noise so much makes in Scotland which doth not amount to above five hundred pounds or cunningly if he knew the value knew also the Treasurers meaning said it was too much for one man and made him be contented with less than the half And now the King casts his thoughts towards Peterborough where his Mother lay whom he caused to be translated to a Magnificent Tomb at Westminster And somewhat suitable to her mind when she was living she had a translucent passage in the night through the City of London by multitudes of Torches The Tapers placed by the Tomb and the Altar in the Cathedral smoaking with them like an Offertory with all the Ceremonies and Voices their Quires and Copes could express attended by many Prelates and Nobles who payd this last Tribute to her memory This was accounted a Piaculous action of the Kings by many though some have not stuck to say That as Queen Elizabeth was willing to be rid of the Queen of Scots yet would not have it her action and being it could not be done without her command when it was done she renounced her own act So though the King was angry when he heard his Mother was taken away by a violent death recalling his Ambassador threatning War and making a great noise which was after calmed and closed up with a large Pension from the Queen yet he might well enough be pleased that such a spirit was layd as might have conjured up three Kingdoms against him For Patrick Grey that the King sent to disswade Queen Elizabeth from taking away his Mothers life was the greatest Instrument to perswade her to it Distilling always into her this Sentence Mortua non mordet When she is dead she cannot bite But the Love that tends to self-preservation is an adjunct of Nature more powerful than Filial duty and therefore there will be no great strife where there are not adequate operations This time was also presented unto us in a various dress and the event shewed though some years after there was more cause of Mourning than Rejoycing though the latter got the predominance For the Prince Elector Palatine came over into England to Marry the Kings only Daughter and Death deprived us of the Kings eldest Son A Prince as eminent in Nobleness as in Blood and having a spirit too full of life and splendour to be long shrouded in a cloud of flesh If that which gave life to his life had been less he might happily have lived longer Not that there was too much Oyl or that concurrent Natural Balsamum in this fair and well-composed Lamp to extinguish it self but the light that came from it might cast so radiant a lustre as by darkning others it came to lose the benefit of its own glory Iealousie is like fire that burns all before it and that fire is hot enough to dissolve all Bonds that tends to the diminution of a Crown The Prince of Spain his contemporary Son to Philip the second not long before this like a young Phaeton wished himself but one day in his Fathers Throne and he fell not long after into the hard hand of an immature fate before he could step into the Chariot So dangerous are the paths of Greatness that the tongue many times rouling aside makes men tread awry Strange Rumors are raised upon this sudden expiration of our Prince the disease being so violent that the combate with Nature in the strength of youth being almost nineteen years of age lasted not above five days Some say he was poysoned with a bunch of Grapes others attribute it to the venemous scent of a pair of Gloves presented to him the distemper lying for the most part in the head They that knew neither of these are strucken with fear and amazement as if they had tasted or felt the effects of those violences Private whisperings and suspicions of some new designs a foot broaching Prophetical terrors That a black CARLO D'AVSTRIA PRINCIPE DI SPAGNA Christmas would produce a bloody Lent For the Spaniard who opposed the marriage of the Prince Palatine and saw their ruin growing up in Prince Henries towardly Spirit were reputed vulgarly the Mint-masters of some horrid practices and that a Ship of Pocket Pistols was come out of Spain fit Instruments for a Massacre And these Trepidations were not only in the lower Region but wrought upwards so high that Proclamations were sent abroad to forbid the making or carrying of Pistols under a foot long in the Barrel And all Papists are not only dis-armed being ever esteemed Vassals to the Catholick King but their Actions with caution pried into In such dark clouds as these the whole Kingdom was at a loss all ordinary Transitions of Nature are imputed to prodigious Omens the greater the fears are the more blazing is the Meteor that arises from them Some that knew the bickerings betwixt the Prince and the Viscount muttered out dark Sentences that durst not look into the light especially Sir Iames Elphington who observing the Prince one day to be discontented with the Viscount offered to kill him but the Prince reproved him with a gallant Spirit saying If there were Cause he would do it himself Now whether these rumors begot a further scrutiny or whether it be the Court-trick to daub and slubber over things that may be perspicuous I know not But the Physicians about the Prince gave it under their hands which was spread abroad in several copies that he died of a strong malignant Feaver so are all violent dissolutions where Nature hath power of resistance that his Liver was pale and livid lead-like the Gall had no Gall but was full of wind the Spleen was unnaturally black and the Lungs in many places spotted with much corruption the Midriff or Diaphragma blackish and the Head in some places full of blood and in some places full of clear water Thus was he Anatomized to amuze the World and clear the suspicion of poyson as if no venoms could produce these effects He died the sixth of November and was carried on a Hearse Triumphing even in Death to Westminster the seventh of December following the pomp of the Funeral being fully compleated with the People tears and Lamentations But the King though he could not but be troubled to lose so near a part of himself looked over all these Mists and like the Sun dispelled all these Clouds and Vapours commanding no man should appear in the Court in mourning he would have nothing in his Eye to bring so sad a Message to his Heart The jollity feasting and magnificence of Christmas must not be laid down There were Princes and Nobles