the Parliament I presume you will acknowledg it for a manifast truth that none of his progenitors were or could have been greater it honour power wealth and in reputation at home and abroad but the truth was so powerfull a domination his inclinations had over any other reason than his owne that the wayes of the Parliament though never so relative to his owne honour justice profit and welfare of the Kingdom were so averse and contrary to his genius then rather to be controuled or suffer any reformation to have been accomplished by them either in the Church or State and his disordered government to be regulgted by their advice he would and did run the hazard of his owne ruine his Posterity and people And as allready I have shewed you t is a manifest truth that he tacitely had designed many years before this Parliament sate downe not only to quit himselfe of this Parliament but of all others and as power should enable him to invade the freedoms and liberties of the English Nation howsoever in these particulars amongst many other of his faults it is far otherwise attested in divers of his expresses as also protested in his late book be it his own or not the evidence of his own private letters and the observations on them will clear that doubt Where then I beseech you tell me should the subject have had any propriety which by time and degrees would not have been swallowed up in that vast gulf of a prerogative royall where into not one year before the Parliament sate down all that the subject had was in a faire way of ingulfing neither wonder at this for it is an infallible truth that most Kings affect their own ends and injustice oppression and commonly tyranny are faculties inherent to most of them very seldome to look back to the proper ends for which they are ordained of God to advance the good and welfare of their subjects but generally you shall find them only to seek the improvement of their own powers soveraignties yea often times without any sensibility that their people are composed of the same flesh and blood as themselves to make havoke of their lives and fortunes sometimes to maintaine their power pride prodigallity and luxury and that which is worse if worse may be to fullfill their perverse wills and lustfull pleasures in the beggering and slaughtering of millions of their subjects for proof whereof we need not go farre for examples the indeavours of our own Kings to inslave their subjects yeelds us plenty of presidents and the French to this day feel the yoke of slavery impos'd on them by Lews th' eleventh in taking away their Conventio de le Estates and reducing that Government to be at his own disposement neither was Ferdinando of Spaine quiet in minde untill he had quit himself of the Justice of Arragon a Court not unlike the Ephori amonst the Lacedemonians or our Parliaments in England and Scotland which limited their Kings and kept them within the bounds of moderation the Hollanders also have had lamentable experience of the Ambition of Philip the second who on the massacre of 100000 of the Natives endeavoured to take away their ancient Immunities and to invassalate the whole 17 Provinces under his absolute power a strange passion in princes when no power will content them but that of absolutenesse to be masters over their Subjects lives and Fortunes surely if there be any anallogy between Shepherds and Kings as no doubt there is our blessed Saviour tells us that bonus pastor ponit vitam pro ovibus the good Shepherd or King layes down his life for his people and not to expose theirs to fullfill his own lustfull pleasure a sad and lamentable president whereof we have all felt in our late King Charls But to proceed I would fain know what your aims are that moves you with such impetuonsnesse to revile the present Government since I cannot imagine what other cause you have but in your endeavour to bring in the new Crown'd King of Scots on the old score thereby to re-make your selves in the unmaking and invassalating the rest of the English Nation which duely considered as the posture of affairs with us now are is so senselesse in reference to the bettring of the peoples conditions as that it exceedeth all the Chimaera's of the old Romances and which you cannot expect may possibly be accomplished without the effusion of an infinity of more bloud and by the swords of the Scots and barbarous Irish excellent cohabitants for the English if you think on 't when as you know they are generally hated by both those Nations though probable it is that your imaginations prompt you to beleeve that all of your party shall assuredly rise with them though in the undoubted fall of the rest of the Nation and not unlikely you flatter your selves out of the old remote potential hope with the plunder of London as the onely magazine of wealth that will make you all abundantly rich though in this too you may misse of your aims unlesse at an instant you can change your native dialect and speak Scoth Presbytery and Irish Tanestry in a trice neither ought you to beleeve that the Citizens will stand still whilst you cut their throates But what a strange peece of poverty possesses your intellectualls to beleeve that in such a change and turne of Fortune as all of you so much desire an English man howsoever principled shall long enjoy either life liberty or estate otherwise than at the discretion of the Conquerour and when the King either or both those Nations and other forrainers shall come in upon us and Lord it over us in a far higher strain of Tyranny than ever the Danes exercised in that short time they were here masters over our Ancestors If you foresee not this misery and the fatall consequence which necessarily must follow such a turn of Fortune I must leave you to your own will and expectancy yet must I not forbear upon these considerations to commend unto your more serious thoughts what kind and race of Princes which with such zeale you endeavour to bring in to govern over the English Nation where I shall present you with a very formidable observation as you may find it in the History of the Scotish Kings and it is this that seven if not eight of the last Scotish Princes of the name and family of the Stuarts one onely excepted came all to their ends by violent deaths a fearfull fate if you please to observe it and some of them to make away one another as for instance Iames the first who for his Tyrannny was cut off by the Nobility the second was slain at Roxborough the third at Bonoxborn the fourth at Plowden field the last three in as needlesse quarrells as our late King Charts engaged first against his native Subjects the Scots and on the heels of that War against the English and their Representative onely
Iames the fifth had the fortune to dye of a naturall death but as to his onely Daughter Queen Mary and mother 〈◊〉 King Iames the sixt it is manifestly knowne that she caused Henry Lord Darnley her second Husband to be cruelly murthered and only to make way to her third Marriage with Earl Bothwell her Paramour whom the States banished and shortly after call'd her to accompt for her Husbands murther and for that fact and other conspiracies against the State by the Votes of the major part of the Peeres and Commons in Parliament she was adjudged to die whereupon she fled into England where contriving sundry plots with the Papists and the Duke of Norfolke against Queen Elizabeth and restlesse in her ambitious contrivements to dispossesse the Queen Regnant of the Crowne you know to what end she came at Fodringay where we may safely believe that Gods just judgments overtook her when she little dream't to have dyed at the block what since became of her only Sonne King Iames and his two sonnes Prince Henry and our last King Charls though the manner of the two first deathes are still held in dispute yet we all know to what a fatall end the last came even at his own Gates and in the same place where the first blood was spilt by his own servants the Cavaleers pardon me then If I present you with an opinion of my own which I am confident is an infallible verity that allmighty God in his justice suffers not any man to come to a prodigious end but for such sinnes by him committed as are equivalent to that sin for which he suffered it is Gods own Oracle an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and he that kils by the Sword by the same weapon or the like he shal surely dye for a conclusion take this as a knowne truth to all the Nation that both the late Kings as they were naturall Scots very rarely loved an English man sure we are not the Nation in generall and that very seldome either of them admitted any of the English into their Bed-chambers for generally they were all Scots neither took they any of the English Buckingham excepted into their secrets and as their privadoes untill Strafford was taken into our last Kings favour but no otherwise than as a meer States-man and a bold instrument to act any thing conducible his Masters designs and such projects which were suitable to his endeavours and inclinations otherwise I never knew any that were fit servants for him and it is most certaine that both the Father and the Sonne laid more subtill and cunning snares to insnare the English Nation than all of the Norman race before them the Father to have laid the foundation and the Sonne to build up the whole fabrick of absolute Soveraignty as insensibly at first and from the beginning of their reigns as possibly their designs could permit but King Charls towards his last and long before the Warres began openly and shortly thereupon in hostility and with morter tempered with more English blood than ever hath been so wilfully and profusely spilt by any one Tyrant in the World and for what cause and on what grounds I beseech you tell me more than for the Nug◠and idle fictions of a divine prerogative and to rule alone without other Law than his owne Will and without accompt to any but to God alone they are both the Fathers and the Sonnes owne Maxims just Tyrant-like quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem and yet which is the mystery and the wonder of the times is this wilfull King cryed up by his many partizans for the onely paragon of Princes and that which is of more admiration his Protestations in the common belief preferred and credited before his visible actions and Cabinet Letters which if men were not besotted I am sure best of all other evidences layes open the most hidden secrets of the heart But it is most certaine that before and a long space after the battle at Edgehill he refused all overtures of Peace though t is confest he made many motions for Peace to the Parliament but ever no other than on such disadvantagious terms as were utterly unfit for the Parliaments embrasure and the Kingdomrs security for we find them evermore accompanied with such restrictions reservations and ambignous conditions howsoever gilded over with plausible pretences that the Parliament at length durst not either trust him or any of his specious Declarations as in the observations on the Reliquiae Carolinae are manifested for it is most true that as soon as he had attracted a very considerable Army to his assistance by his artifices and the severall visits and the orations he made to the respective Sheriffes and Gentry before and after the setting up of his Standerd of the Counties of Yorke Lincolne Nottingham Leicester Chester Stafford Denby Flint Salop Oxford and Berks wherein he neither spared any pains or travel or lost a minute of time both to deceive and win the people to his cause and 't is evident that he had not onely written his particular Letters to most of the prime Gentlemen of the Kingdome to side with him but had sent his peremptory commands to most of the Colonells of the Parliaments Army sent into Ireland for the assistance of the distressed Protestants to repair to his ayde against the Parliament a treachery and a testimony beyond all others of the falsenesse of his heart considered as hereafter it shall be made more apparent unto you with the seeming zeal and care he pretended to bear to those poor Irish Protestants It is worth your further observation that this most unfortunate Prince having so often accustomed himselfe to fraud and dissimulation that it came at last to this sad issue that all his after Messages and Overtures made to the Parliament in the declination of his power and after he was a Prisoner though happily more really intended than formerly and atested with exceeding specious plausible Protestations some of them confirmed with his wonted Imprecations were not beleeved but suspected for fallacious so long had this most unhappy King like the Flie that playes with the flame which comes in the end to burn himself out of his own fury such power had his will and naturall inclinations over his reason where you may take an instance or two in the way for a proofe thereof When he first raised his Army at York for which he endeavours to flam off the Parliament that those forces were onely raised as a guard for the security of his Person and to confirme this he caused divers of the Fugitive Lords then attending him shamefully to attest that he had no intent thereby to levy War against the Parliament when immediately thereupon he began to march and to run from place to place as before is noted to raise more force and that which is most perfidious after he had erected his Standard at Nottingham he continued
THE LIFE AND REIGNE OF King CHARLS Or the Pseudo-Martyr discovered With a late Reply to an Invective Remonstrance against the Parliament and present Government Together with some Animadversions on the strange contrariety between the late Kings publick Declarations Protestations Imprecations and his Pourtracture compared with his private Letters and other of his Expresses not hitherto taken into common Observation Istud est sapere non solùm ea quae ante Pedes videre sed futura prospicere Seneca London Printed for W. Reybold at the signe of the Unicorn in Pauls Church-yard 1651. The Preface TO write the Lives of Princes in another world and fallen through their owne frailties or by the influence of others counsells from the high pitch of Soveraignty for regality is a slippery precipice in charity may be allowed a faire and favourable memoriall but for a King falling by the high hand of Justice not for common faults and frailties incident to humane nature but presumptuous sins sins of lood perfidie cruelty rapine wilfully perpetrated in the face of God and man and without any remorse to pursue the destruction not of one but three flourishing Kingdoms such desperate and violent Princes deserve no other favour than to be set out to the life of their Tyrannous actions though in pitty to him who hath already paid his debt to Nature and his offences much of his exorbitant government and irregular motions might and doubtlesse would have been concealed more tenderly intreated and himselfe sufferered to rest where he is in the silent grave had not that madnesse of his defeated surviving party by their indefatigable instigations given frequent occasion of taking over the ashes of him who living without injury to truth and his memory it may be said that rather than to have failed in the accomplishing of his designs had it layn in in his power he would have set the World on fire It was an unhappy and no iningenious expression of him who hath written it That there were a sort of men borne to the world not so suffer it to be at rest a sentence not more true than made good in this most unhappy King had this been put in addition neither himselfe to take his owne rest and sleep as he could not quietly and peaceably like other men I am not ignorant what senslesse maxims and ridiculous principles have gotten credit in the World as undoubted Oracles indisputably to be obeyed as that de mortuis nil nisi bona but by no means to tread on the sacred Urne of Princes though living never so vicious and exorbitant as if death had bequeathed unto them a supersedeas for the covering over their faults and licencious reignes and to close them up in the Coffin of Oblivion with a ne plus ultra not to admit of the least mention that they had done amisse when many thousands of oppressed and desolated families must stand mute whilest the malicious partizans of an irregular King take a liberty to themselves to vindicate his indefensible actions and not so content but asperse and scandalise those that opposed him in his cruelties and likewise would perswade others to adore him for a Saint and an innocent martyr whose Fathers Brothers and Friends have been most barbarously slain to fulfill the lust and pleasure of one wilfull man if to speake truth in due season or to be the faithfull witnesse to convey the verity of things past to the present and after times be a crime unpardonable or an injustice done to the memory of the dead the Malignant generation of this age may on the same reason charge it as a fault on those holy and inspired pen-men of the sacred Scriptures which have recorded and left to after ages the wicked reignes of Kings leaving an everlasting staine and taint on their memories how prophane would it be to tax that holy man the meekest of men Moses for leaving to posterity the fratricide of Cayne the mockery of that wicked Cam what madnesse to accuse Samuel and the Authors of the Chronicles of the Kings of Iuda and Israel in leaving to after ages the Tyranny of Saul in murthering at once eighty of Gods priests that presumptuous sin and perfidious fact of David in plotting the death of Vriah that he might enjoy his Wife which lay in his bosome Rehoboams Tyrannies the Cruelties and Idolatries of Ieroboam who stands branded as the Sonne of Nebat which made Israel to sin with what face can it be imputed as an incharity to Tacitus Livy Florus and others of the Roman Historians for inserting in their histories the rape of Lucretia by that Tyrant Tarquin the Tyrannies of Tiberius and his privado Scianus those of Nero that Monster of Princes and the condemnation of him by the Senate To omit Forraign examples what offence in reason can be charged on Matthew Paris Hoâ—eden Sir Th. Moor Daniell and infinite others of our owne Historians for describing the vices and tyrannies of our owne Kings both ancient and moderne What injury have they committed in their Registers in setting downe that William the first of our Norman Kings was a known Bastard of Robert Duke of Normandy an usurper and from which spurious root all our Kings since his usurpation derive their deified titles and that most of his descendants ruled tyrannically and that amongst them all King Iohn was one of the most subtill persideous and bloody Princes that history hath afforded That Henry the third his sonne admitted by the indulgence of the Barons and People in hopes of his better Government proved as oppressive and bloody to the Nation as any of the rest That Richard the third in murthering his Brothers sonnes and usurping the Crowne was more wicked than the worst That Henry the seventh was the descendant of a Bastard sonne of Iohn of Gaunt begotten on Catherine Swinford another mans Wife though legitimated by act of Parliament yet had no other title to the Crowne but that of his Sword That six of his descendants and of our last Princes claym their rights to the Crowne from his spurious stock as if it had been in the fate of the English Nation to be perpetually chaind up to the irregular domination of a race of Kings transmitted from one bastardized roote to another That Henry the eighth was a most imperious and bloody prince the pattern and Idea of all Tyranny and one that neither spared any man in his wrath or woman in his lust That his daughter Queen Mary was the spurious issue begotten on Catherine of Austria his elder brother Arthurs Wife that Alecto superstitious and bloody Princesse That King Iames and our late King Charls were discendants from the same Stock of Henry of Richmond the one who most of all our Kings secretly cunningly and underhand indeavoured and laid the plot to undermine the freedoms of the english nation and King Charls to have followed the design with more plots wiles and stratagems than any of our former
with what expence of blood and treasure did this King labor to inslave the English Nation and to reduce the poor people as naturalized vassalls under the bondage of his lawlesse will and lust Can we make any other Comment on this subject but that which wise men have long since observed that these two Princes never loved the English Nation but in an odium altissimum had aforehand designed to oppresse them and utte rly to extinguish the memory of their ancient Freedoms and can we imagine they intended otherwise by the whole course of their Government When it appears what favours what large concessions and with what complyance and commiseration the late King took care of the Irish Rebells without the least retrospect how much English bloud had been most barbarously spilt by them if he were not conscious that no man was more guilty thereof than himself surely it may well amuse the world why he should be so pitifull and solicitous to have them spared and to brand the Parliament with cruelty for pursuing so just a revenge If we look Northward and examine what Favours Privileges and Countyes were without asking offered to be conferr'd on the Scots 1641. as he went unto them on the onely conditions that they would engage with him against the English Parliament On these considerations can it sink into any rationall mans conception but that he was an inexorable enemy to the Nation kinde to his own if they would have served his turn and an indeered Friend to those bloudy Irish and that on all opportunities his intent was to ruine and invassalate the English Nation though he and his perished as they did in the attempt But to return to our relation The King was now in the 15 yeare of his Reign and notwithstanding the many wayes by which he had raised no small treasure yet was he still indigent and bare in money the Court and the French spent it before it came in and as to any supply by Parliament it suited neither to the Kings good liking or his grand designe the discontinuance of Parliaments conduced more to the advance of what he intended to raise by power than he could expect by the ayde of Parliament since he had but even then closed up all ruptures with France and Spuin and no War in being or in expectation and consequently no ground left him that might presse or induce a Court of Parliament to be over-liberall with the purses of their Electors yet in this exigent and streight he suddenly resolves to call a Parliament where amongst many passages and debates Finch the Speaker of the lower house plaid his first prise in his assiduall disclosing to the King what soever past in the House insomuch as being discovered and on his usuall moving out of his Chair and the House he was at length withstood at the door by divers bold Gentlemen and Members of the Parliament and inforced to keep his seat this miscarriage was instantly made known to the King who took it as an affront done to his own person and presently hereupon he not only dissolves the Parliament but commits to the Tower Hammond and Hubbard Knights Long Curreton and some others of the Members Neither could he be a long time pacified by the Lords of his Councell on the first hearing of this broil but needs he would with his guard have then fallen upon them in the house as a presage of that violence which he offered after to this Assembly in his owne person upon the instant of this dissolution of the Parliament he publisheth a Proclamation prohibiting the people not so much as to talk of more Parliaments and injoyn'd the Lords of his Councell on any conditions not to mention the word Parliament unto him a lesson which they all for ten years together at least punctually observed insomuch as all wise men then conjectured that the Liberties of the Kingdom were then buried together in the interment of all Parliaments Ten if not more years past between this Parliament and the dissolution of that quinto Maij 1639. during this intervall the King begins roundly with all sorts of proâ—ects and to raise mony both without the leaves of the Subjects and against the known Lawes of the Kingdome privy Seals and Loans were the first which he put in execution as a Tax if we may so call them that concerned not so much the Subject in generall as private reputed moneyed men other levies had likewise their course in their torns and in policy not to rush in and too hastily on the subjects propriety he falls on the sale of the Crown lands in Peâ—farm with the old rents or those doubled reserved to the Exchequer neither could all these projects though amounting to a very vast sum serve to defray the wastefullnesse of the Court which indeed as to his own side was in some proportion of moderation yet on the Queens side it was so excessively profuse that I aver it on knowledge besides her Joynture then newly consigned one hundred thousand pound Per Annum sufficed not for to defray her own expences and confident I am what by sales procured by her solicitations as much more was yearly drayned out of the Kings purse to satisfie that nasty trayn of her French followers Madam Nurse as to her own particular besides an expencefull way of living here at the Kings charge was well known to have transported at several times into France 100000 pound in good gold and certaine it is that that Pigmy Mountebanck Mountague the Queens dancing Master not worth one groat at his coming over inricht himself to the least value of 40000 pound it would be wearisome to recount what summes her Priests and Jesuits Musitians Fidlers and others of her retinue got and amassed by her onely sute to the King who then denyed her nothing that she desired for it is most true that before she attained the age of twenty years she began of a Pupill to be the Kings Regent and the after-story will assure it she became a fatall participant with him in most of his Counsells and his directrix in the Government but after her Mothers arivall both of them to have gained an interest in his inmost secrets and principall transactions of State an evident truth and more than stood with the Kings honour much less than suited with the welfare of the Nation These prodigall expences at Court could not choose but impoverish the Kings exchequer whether very little of the Royall Revenue arrived as commonly prevented aforehand by assignations to one or other of the Courtiers hence followed the multiplicity of Monopolies the ingrossing of all the Pouder into the Kings store and that to be no otherwise vendible but at double rates to the former and usuall prises In order to these followed the preemption of all Tobacoes to the extreme beggering of the adventurers and planters in the West-Indian Islands Coat and Conduct money had likewise it's turne and by degrees the Kings
man as instantly you may see fearfully protested at the receiving the Sacrament at Christ-Church in Oxford 1643. at the hands of the Bishop of Armagh where immediately before his communicating he beckoning to the Bishop for a short forbearance used these following expressions viz. My Lord I espie here many resolved Protestants who may declare to the world the resolution I do now make I have to the uttermost of my power prepared my Soule to become a worthy receiver and may I so receive comfort by the blessed Sacrament as I do intend the establishment of the true reformed Religion as it stood in its beauty in the happy dayes of Queen Elizabeth without any connivance at Popery I blesse God that in the midst of these publique distractions I have still liberty to communicate and may this Sacrament be my damnation if my heart joyne not with my lips in this Protestation Observation Having seriously considered this strange Protestation of the Kings on the taking of the Sacrament with the imprecation of his damnation if his heart joyned not with his lips as I compared it with his letter after to Ormond together with his many other Protestations I professe in the faith of a Christian I stood amazed what to think of him and his Religion considered againe as it was taken before a publick audience and yet the very next yeare after he makes no scruple or conscience to promise to Ormond the repeal of all laws against Irish Papists and likewise in his Letter to the Queen of the 9th of March 1645. he gives way to her to promise in his name the taking away of all penall Laws against the English Papists so that they shall inable him to doe it where it seemes he makes no manner of account of a Parliament without which as already is said never any King of England either made or repealed any one Law surely t is heer very plaine that he understood not the extent of his own power neither the nature of the English Soveraignty or that he was disposed not to know it but to rule without Parliaments provided that by the assistance of Papists he might be impowred to do it and then that his will should be a Law to the people just Tyrant like stat pro ratione voluntas but take the rest of his Letter to Ormond into your more mature consideration and then happily it will astonish you where he hastens him to clap up the Peace with the Rebels which so soon as it shall be accomplished he vowes haec verba in his Letter to him Number 23 January 7. 1644. All the earth shall not make me breake it but not doubting of a peace I must againe remember you to presse the Irish for their speedy assistance to me here and their friends in Scotland my intention being to draw from thence into Wales the peace once concluded as many as I can of my armed Protestant subjects and I desire the Irish would send as great a body as they can to land about CVMBERLAND Observation Here againe we have a sufficient proof of this most unfortunate Princes inflexibility his resolutions once fixt there were no hopes of their alteration they are his owne words all the earth shal not make me break it though such resolutions breake him in pieces and sure we are many thousands of his poor innocent Subjects through this only fault of his obstinacy T is an infallible truth that the wilfull man never wants woe but when one mans perverse will shall be the cause of the destruction of multitudes that 's a fearfull judgement and a remedilesse calamity We have allso in this Letter an evident testimony what an inveterat hatred he bare towards the English Nation and those Scots which took their parts which he hated beyond belief and all others which never so little fell a thwart his inclinations where I shall crave your favour to tell all of you that sided with him haply more for your own ends than out of conscience for it is most certaine that he made no other accompt of you but to satisfie his own lust in your destruction whatsoever he pretended and to prove this I will tell you a true story and it is this On the death of the late Earle of Northampton whose Commands in one of his Forrests he presently gave away of which Endimion Porter understanding prest him that the young Earle his sonne whose father was then newly slaine in his service was fit to have that conferred on him than on any other on which check of Porters he replyed and hath the Earle done more than became him to dye for his King This is no fable but a knowne truth whereby you may guesse how he esteemed of you all as if his Subjects were a sort of Sheep ordained to the slaughter for the obtaining of his lustful pleasure and not him as the Shephard ordained to preserve them as that flock committed to his care and charge from God himselfe you may instantly find this very story verified and set out unto the life in his former Letter in which with what earnestnesse he presses ORMOND to hasten over the Irish to his assistance yea to bring over as many of his armed Protestants to land in Wales as might inable him to over-power both nations to his absolute domination and revenge A most brutish resolution and of purpose to reset all his Kingdoms on a light fier in setting of Protestants against Protestants and Papists against both you may further observe how his displeasure grew to be so implacable against the Scots his native Subjects and to lay his designe to destroy them together with his English Subjects and the reason of this you may perfectly see in his Letter to Ormond Number 25. Feb. 25. 1647. viz. I do therefore command you to conclude a Peace with the Irish whatsoever it cost so that my Protestant Subjects there may be secured and my regall Authority preserved but for all this you are to make the best bargaine you can and not discover your enlargement of power till you needs must and although I leave the Managing of this great and necessary work intirely to you yet I cannot but tell you that if the suspension of Poynings act for such bils as shal be agreed upon there and the present taking away of the penall Lawes against Papists by a Law will do it I shall not think it a hard bargaine so that freely and vigorously they ingage themselves in my assistance against my Rebells of England and Scotland for which no condition can be to hard not being against Conscience and Honour Observation You may first observe in this Letter the large extent of the Kings Conscience and Honour in the next place his seeming care for the preservation of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland with a purpose rather to make use of them against their Brethren of England than to leave them in Ireland for their own defence where their service was much
more necessary than to be imployed in the slaughtering of the English with the hazard of their own lives and for no other end but to advance their own prodigious and bloody designs for observe it in the former Letter he manifestly declares his resolution to call them over to his assistance and heere he tells it that as to the Irish if the taking away of Poynings act and the penall Statutes against Papists by a Law will do it he shall not thinke it a hard bargaine provided they freely and vigorously engage against his English and Scotish Rebels for which no conditions can be too hard not being against Conscience and Honour here you may safely aver is one of the strangest Consciences and an Honour so illimitable as that I am confident the subtillest Logitian in his Oxford Garrison would be driven to his ne plus ultra to give either of them a right definition that close of not being against Conscience or Honour considered with his former commands to Ormond without doubt is one of the finest peeces of Non-sense that ever I have seen and surely had I been in the Marquesses place that very restriction in the close would have made me to forbear the putting in execution of any of his commands for there was not a syllable of them all but in due construction was or ought to have been against his Conscience and Honour sure it was point blank opposite to his many Protestations and that fearfull imprecation of his Damnation on his receiving the Sacrament at Christ-Church and doubtlesse in my understanding all parts of this Letter considered the very last clause of not being against Conscience or Honour would have been sufficient warrant for me to have sate still and done nothing towards the concluding of so Irreligious and dishonourable a Peace But I beseech you look upon the Kings ends and you shall find them to be no other than in a brutish manner to set all his Subjects together by the ears to kill and make havock of one anothea English against English Scots againt Scots and Irish against both so that he might thereby accomplish his own pernitious designes And in the mean time to make no manner of scruple or Conscience of spilling of Innocent bloud without the least remorse of that horrible Massacree of 200000 of the English Nation butchered by those barbarous Villains for whom he was so solicitous to defend them and to procure a happy peace for them whatsoever it cost and with so many wiles and fetches he had so often endeavoured to engage them to joyne with Ormond against Inchiquine and the Scots as that you may evidently see in the Postscript of his Letters to him number 24. 1644. from Oxford as also in his Commissions to Montrosse first to ruine the Scots and after to come for his assistance into England Now that you may further understand what Conscience he made of bloodshed and what care he had to preserve his Subjects in Peace and Prosperity I shall tell you another story from the mouth of one of his principall Commanders Gerrard by name who upon the rendition of his Oxford Garrison came to London and made his addresses to Sir John Merricke at Essex house desiring him that he might have the Honour to kisse my Lord of Essex his hands Sir John told him That he had not behaved himself worthy of the name and honour of a Soldier to be admitted to such a favour having barbarously burnt his Lordships house at Lamphey together with most of the Gentlemens houses of the County of Pembroke and destroyed the whole Country even to desolation Gerrard replies in his usuall Oath God damme me Uncle if I did more than the King from Cardiffe by two severall Letters strictly commanded me to doe and then to march to him with all my Army for which I have his Majesties owne Letters for my Warrant Here is an excellent Conscience and care in a King bound by his Oath to preserve his Subjects from violence and yet commanding to destroy them with fire and rapine Sir in a few words more would you be pleased on an exact perusall of all this most unhappy Kings Declarations and transactions considered as you shall alwayes finde them sweetned and gilded over with the plausible pretences and specious professions of his love and care towards all his Subjects when he meant nothing lesse and many of them confirmed with Imprecations I say compare them diligently with his actions and the Letters of his own hand writing which of other evidences are the best keyes to unlock the secrets of mans heart not leaving out that Posthumus Imposture of his Pourtraicture and I am confident that the contrariety dissimulation hypocrisie and juglings you shall every where finde in them interwoven with a Pharisaicall justifying of himself and defending all his actions will astonish you as they have done me For in all the late horrid War and bloudshed throughout the three Kingdomes you shall find it for an infallible truth that he who spake and insisted so much on his Honour and Coscience for many years together never made any Conscience or was truely sensible of all the blood spilt either in his own behalf or against him more than of one wicked Mans though condemned by Law and the just judgement of a Court of Parliament and this man also acknowledged by himself to be uttterly unworthy to bear any publick office in the Common-wealth and untill God in his Iustice turnd the power of his Sword to nothing then indeed and as I may judge really he ever now and anon deplores the sad condition of his Kingdomes but never sincerely as I am bound to beleeve till he had don his worst and all that possibly he could invent to ruine the Parliament and to destroy all those that stood up in their defence And towards his last his principall labour tended to little more than in pittying of himselfe and complaining of the hard measure offered him during his restraint that he was not admitted to a Personall Treaty with the Parliament for the procuring as he would have it beleeved of a happy peace when in all his Treatyes and specious overtures from the first to the last his hand was well known to be in one plot or other how to get himselfe out of that toyle and Labyrinth wherein he had wilfully intangled himselfe and the Kingdomes being still one and the self same man justifying himself and standing on his own innocency with the Pharisee but little of the Publican God be mercifull to me a sinner still in his wonted inflexibility to the last utterly refusing to signe onely Four Bils for the publick security continuing his usuall pretences that they were against his Conscience and Honour When as all the Kingdome long since knew him to be preingaged to the Queen and that by one word of her mouth both his Honour and Conscience would easily have been dispenc'd withall This I may truly
woods and Crowne Lands and to pick quarrels with his Parliaments and to entaile them to his heirs Generall his successor proving no ill scholler in putting in practice his Fathers precepts and for the better invading of the libertyes of the Subjects to suppresse Parliaments which never offended him but in refusing to supply his prodigalities when himselfe had wasted treble the treasure in an idle Peace than his predecessor the Queen spent in a continued and furious War with the greatest Prince of Christendome and yet to leave him the richest King of the Westerne World which if the plain truth of the affairs of those times may without offence be made manifest were the only frutes of his so much magnified and peaceable raigne for I may in sincerity say it over and over againe and no other than a knowne truth that the not drawing of his Sword in the Count Palatines quarrell to which he was so often importuned by most of the Germaine Princes invited yea prest by his own Councell of State yet would he not but hindered in what possibly he could those that would and did to their utter undoing by his many expencefull and fruitlesse Embasseys and to the greatning of the Austrian Familie which had long befoold and baffled him even to the derision and scorne of all the Princes of Europe as to his Justice of which the Court Cook tattels the whole Kingdom can witnesse how he measured it out by suffering the rigor and uttermost penalty of the Law to fall on the accessaries in Sir Tho. Overbuties case and to take the Principalls into his mercy t is true not Somerset into his former favour yet sure we are to stop his mouth from telling of tales he gave him at once in pure gift so much of the Crowne Lands as were well worth to be sold 100000 pounds though it melted away like wax in the Sun and himselfe to dye a stark begger and in infamy and as to that his most excellent chast Lady and Virgin Bride let the ghosts of Sir Iames Stuart Sir George Wharton and Prince Henry speak and not him this is most manifest that by divine justice she was knowne to dye living and of so loathsome a disease that her own Gentlewomen have often protested it before many credible witnesses they could not indure the Chamber where she lay neither scarce the next adjacent for the horrible stinke that a long time before she expired issued from her carcase and polluted the ayre I could speak much more of the cariage of that foule businesse and of others not pertinent to this place and so can many more persons of honour yet alive which will tell the tatler to his face that which he hath either with impudence or out of ignorance published are both false and abominable adulatious both in reference to the old King Somerset and his Lady and others of that tribe Sir Walter Rawly the Archbishop Abbot and that of the records on which he would build the fabrick of his untruths were known forgeryes of their owne making and as to the Archbishops particular he comes not near the truth that honest man alone as it is well knowne withstood the King alone and the other Bishops in their base complyance in that nullity insomuch that the King took upon him to convince thê said Archbishop in a treatise dedicated to the unbelieving Thomas yet to be seene passages which as it seems the talking tatler knew not neither little of truth which he assumes to relate and howsoever he hath farc't up a Pamphlet as to the matter happily his own or not yet in good manners he might have forborne to make use of another mans phrase which in divers places of his relation it appears he hath stolen out of the Fragmenta Regalia though varied to the worse by him as much vitiated as by the printer But I now both leave him and his theaft untill I may have the happiness to hear further from him then doubtlesse I shall not faile to give him a fuller answer in the mean time I shall advise him to remember that he which justifieth the wicked and condemneth the just even they both are an abomination to the Lord a text that will become both of us to take into our serious consideration and as I have good reason to believe best of the two befits himselfe to look to who takes upon him with such palpable flattery to present King Iames for such a Saint-like Prince when as had he either knowne a peece of his life and conversation or the least of his secrets and Counsels as of those I well know him not to be guilty surely he would have been ashamed so to have written of a King who left behind so little evidence of piety true Religion temperance and care of the Subjects welfare and so much of the structure of absolute Monarchy to his successor a study to which he had wholy devoted himselfe and left it to his Sonne as an infelicious legacy and three Kingdoms destruction which were without all question the fruits and effects of his pe ceable reigne But briefly now to his only Sonne and the heire of his fathers unhappy peace and the prosecutor of his owne his posterities and the Kingdomes ruine THE REIGNE OF KING CHARLS Or the pseudo-Martyr discovered c. KING CHARLS then Prince of Wales began his unfortunate Reigne on the expiration of his Father King Iames at Theobalds the 27 of March 1627. At his very first entry to the Crowne and after the consummation of the ceremonies of his Inauguration and the reception of the Queen from France he was as his Father before him at hi accession driven away from the Metropolis of the Kingdom London by the increase and rage of the Pestilence as an ill omen both to the Father and the Sonne but of a more ominous portent to the three Kingdoms A Parliament at that time was summoned and sitting at Westminster but hastily adjourned to Oxford on the former reason of the increase of the Sicknesse and a War likewise was then in preparation and in design for Spayn as an ill presage of the after improsperity in all others which this unfortunate Prince undertook for what in this kinde was ever enterprised by him was both inauspicious and fatall losse of Honour to himselfe reputation and destruction to the English Nation During the Parliament at Oxford the King by his Speaker the Lord Keeper Williams moved the Assembly for a present supply of moneys in relation to the intended War the Parliament in reply to the Kings desires as they were to be Contributors to the War so they humbly moved to be made partakers of the design this so reasonable a motion was very ill taken yea scorned by the King for it even then evidently appeared that he meant to rule alone and at will and pleasure Hence we may observe the first distaste or rather indeed a pickt quarrel against his first Parliament which
the West marches to assist the Irish Army landing at Milford as need should require and the President my Lord of Bridgewater commanded to wave that place for his Majesties speciall service a person as it seems that was too honest to be wrought upon At the same time his Lordship Cottington was likewise made Lord Warden of the Tower with authority to take in Souldiers and to fortifie that piece which accordingly was put in execution and the White-Tower planted with many great Ordnance with their mouths forced against the City to the great amazement of the Citizens and the whole Kingdom What the King meant or intended by these irregular and prodigious acts of his let the most willfull Malignant make his own judgement when as the whole Kingdom was never in a greater calme of peace loyalty and quietnesse or in any appearance of insurrection The Excise at that instant was likewise in agitation and the very same house wherein now that office is erected in Broadstreet taken by Cottington to the same purpose and Strafford much a-about that time dispatcht into Ireland there to call a Parliament for assistance in relation to the intended Scotch War where he musters a new the Irish army gets four Subsidies presently returns for Engl. where a Parl. for the same end was likewise summoned not any thing now stood as Remora in the way of the Kings great designe but those refractory Scots this was the block that in the first place must be removed to begin this work of darknesse first fomented by the Bishops especially Canterbury here and that pragmattick Prelat of Scotland Maxwell with Hamilton and Traquair on the by These two assisted by Strafford had the whole managery of that affair We must not too much insist on every particular this Scotch work alone requiring a volume to derive it from its first fountain and originall as a project of the old Kings to introduce the Episcopal power and Church Government there conformable to that of England and to suppresse or master that of the Kirk Presbyterian power as the only obstruction to absolute Soveraignty Gods providence and his wayes are insearchable and the carriage of this work of darknesse is very remarkeable it hath left the world in a maze how the Kings designs by this Scotch enterprize should turne and overthrow the whole frame and fabrick of all his former projections and of so faire a fore-game so to bring it about as on the very nick of the accomplishment to lose both it his reputation and life and at a time when all wise men had given the freedoms of the English nation utterly lost and meerly by the wilfulnesse of his own irregular motions more beloved reverenced and obeyed than any of his Predecessors The state of the three Kingdomes as abovesaid but a little before this Scotch enterprise as to a any Warre from abroad mutinies and insurrections at home was well known to be in as great a calme of Peace and quietnesse as in any reign since the Conquest the subject passive loyall and obedient to the Kings will and pleasure himfelf at peace and amity with all his Allyes Confederates and Neighbour-Princes nothing could be Imagined to have troubled him but his own ambition and those restlesse appetites of his which would not suffer him to enjoy content in the mid'st of prosperity and to rest satisfied in the fruition of more abundance than ever any King of England attain'd unto In this requiem could he have seen it was his soule restlesse and as we may of truth say by no instigation more troubled than by hers which had the honour of his Bed an unhappy unquietnesse which his principall privadoes rather added fewell to the fire thereof than water to quench it they had studied his inclination which was the rule they walkt by not how to apply wholsome medicines to cure the raging malady of his ambition which by none was more cherish'd than by the Bishops and his formal clergy in the way wherein his will and lust had predominance over his reason such as had not only taken the same fiery infection but as much laboured therein as himself whose sunction and office if grace had guided them it properly was rather to have applyed antidotes than venome to their Masters disease and to have told him plainly where the fault lay But to returne to the relation of this Scotch enterprise the King as before is intimated through meer necessity was induced to call a Parliament not to reforme abuses crept into the Common-wealth better it may be said violently introduced through his ill Government and discontinuance of Parliaments the ancient remedies of publick grievances but to supply his own wants in reference to the war intended the Kings wants being more pressing than ever the servants of his own side in Court a good space before debard of their Wages purposely to scrape up moneys towards this needlesse Warre the Queens Servants on the other side were notwithstanding exactly paid It would be superfluous and impertinent to describe the whole story of this designe so obvious and generally knowne to all the Kingdom how first this affair was carryed on by sending a new Litturgy to EDINBVRGH as an experiment how the Scots would swallow the first bayt to their inthraldome how there the Litturgy was resented and with what after disgusts it was not only refused but detested How that Traquire and Hamilton one after the other were Commissioned with power instructions to inforce their conformity what Flames Invectives and Comments flew here abroad of the Bishops penning of their Rebellion how againe the Scots stood upon their punctillioes in defence of themselves and their Covenant against this innovation how many Petitions and Messages past between them and the King how at last on dispute between their Commissioners and his Majesties at their first Treaty in the North and the aversnesse of the Kings souldiers to imbrace the quarrel the King granted them his royall Pascification and sent them home well satisfied how againe on his Majesties returne his act of Pascification was here in Court resented by the Queen and the Bishops and with what Language the King was affronted to have brought home a dishonourable Peace and obstructive to his own designes how then this needlesse and willfull quarrell was revived and the Kings Pacification vilified and burnt by the hands of the common Hangman and the King easily brought on anew to muster a second Army to subdue those stubborn and rebellious Scots as generally then especially by the Bishops they were stiled when as by the Free-quarter of his first Army most parts of the County of York were beggered and the Soldiery unpaid how the Parliament and generally the people abhor'd this war and refused to contribute towards it how thereupon quinto Maij 1649. it was suddenly dissolved how on the very same day the Cabinet Councell sate in close consultation at White-Hall how to raise moneys to defray
of his Progenitors as it is well known to many of his own party who were of that Committee touching the improving of an annuall revenue to be setled upon him by act of Parliament out of one particular the Customes amounting to 400000 li. per annum proposed by old Mr. Turner the Farmer of the Allom works and the same so much forwarded that it was committed by Votes of the Parliament to a select number of Members to be considered and shortly after was stated to a proportion of 200000 l. more per annum than ever he received out of the great and petty farms but that the world may know the wilfulnesse of this King after that he was gon from the Parliament and had erected his Standard at Nottingham he sent word by Master Levison by name and one of his Bedchamber to Turner That if ever he medled with the Parliament about that businesse thenceforth not to look him in the face whence it evidently appears that he meant not to take any thing of the Parliament by way of gift having it in design to take what he pleased as power should inable him God knowes I send you no Fables but shall willingly be accomptable of any thing which you shall find herein inserted if it suit not with the naked truth and sincerity of him who would not that your self and so many of the English Nation should be any longer deluded and flamm'd with untruthes and nurst up in a belief of want of the Parliaments good and loyall intentions towards him untill he had wilfully and desperately made himself uncapable of the love and loyalty of his people and such was the ingratitude of this unhappy King for proofe whereof amongst many instances that I could present and of his carelesse paying where he borrowed and ruining of many of his servants let this one suffice of Mr. Turner tow hom he owed no small sums promised much and often as he did to many others but performed nothing when it was the least thought of his heart the after-story as a known truth will both shew forth his ingratitude and the extremity of his want with those sordid shifts he was put unto both at the sitting down of this Parliament and long before when the poor old man petitioned him for the nomination of a Baron which is most true that the King granted him without scrupie provided he named a Gent. of worth in short it was my Lord Capel and he was to give him in ready money 10000 l. but the King sending for the old man told him of his want and that he would gratifie him otherwise with double that sum so the King as it is well known flattered the good old man out of his money which was presently given to the Queen Mother for her Transportation hence into Germany and the old Gentleman left to seek his bread and to die a very poor man many instances of this kinde I could relate but to returne to our relation the Parliament then moved the City for the loan of so much present money as might serve to discharge the arrears due to both Armies which the Citizens denyed unless an act might passe for the Parliaments sitting during pleasure the Citizens well remembring the Kings wonted and sudden dissolving of all the Parliaments of his Reigne The King then finding where the Remora lay readily past that bill in relation to his own debt which hath been since both by himselfe and his party so much magnified for an Act of Grace surpassing all of his Progenitors and shortly thereupon takes his journey towards Scotland which considering his own hidden designes was chosen in so fit a conjuncture of time as that he overtooke the Scotch Army in their march before they past the borders where what overtures he made to the Commanders to joyn with him against the Parliament best appears by the notice thereof given and sent by them to the Parliament and their own Commissioners here then residing The King then finding that neither the English or Scotch Armies would be wrought upon answerable to his designes posts to Edinburgh where he very well understood that to keep the Scots quiet necessarily he should be compell'd to give that Parliament all the content they desired as t is maifestly known he did in all things they demanded and in many Acts of Grace which to the English Parliament he utterly denyed and stood upon even to the last as the Militia the choice of their Admirall Chancellour Judges c. During the Kings abode in Scotland which was near upon foure moneths it is well known the Irish Rebellion brake forth in October 1641. and that rising authorised under the great Seale of Scotland as both the Rebels themselves aver'd and that attested by divers witnesses of credit which had seene it under Seal the Parliament here at that time had a recesse only so many of the Members as might keep up the reputation of a Parliament resided at Westminster the rest were retired unto their habitations untill November following when by order of the Houses they were all to re-assemble in the mean time whilest most of the Lords and Commons were in the Country hapned that Rebellion the Parliament by this time and at their coming together had to their old a new worke cut out to their hands what the King could not accomplish either in England or Scotland by the way of insurrections and disturbances in both those Kingdomes he had fore-laid the way to do it in Ireland howsoever grosly palliated and denyed in his Pourtracture yet so suspicious of fowle play as that on a right understanding of the mannagery of the peace and the slye carrying on of the whole businesse between himselfe and the Marquesse of Ormond to be seen in his own Letters makes it plain that he had a perfidious hand therein Now as to his preparations from France and Holland wherewith to Invade the Parliament its manifest he had then in readinesse a very considerable proportion of all sorts of ammunition and many men at least in expectation to be sent him at a call About the beginning of December following the King having as he conceived made sure worke with the Scots comes to London where at his first comming to the House he makes open profession what content he had given to his Scotch Parliament even to a kind of ostentation and as to this Parliament some dislikes he was pleased to take against them for that in his absence they had no better forwarded their worke and as to his reception in the City it was magnificent and as it seemed very well pleasing to himselfe sure it was to the people and all the spectators which suspected nothing of his ill meaning towards the Parliament The King by this time having been at home much about 20 dayes had a new and another kind of game to play than that of meriment he found that the Parliament was then much distracted as good reason they
which God had set over them and in his providence and love towards them knew to be fittest for them they obstinately rejected the gentle government of Samuel and weary of their own happinesse surfeiting as they did in the Wildernesse on that delicious food of Quails and Manna and wishing for the flesh-pots of Egypt in imitation of the Heathen they thirsted after a King and not unlike to Esops Frogs they prest Samuel to change their quiet and peaceable Block into a furious and devouring Stork their freedom into slavery as first with these Arguments That thy sonnes walke not in thy wayes but have turn'd aside after lucre took bribes and perverted judgement foul faults indeed and happily too true for wheresoever power without grace is invested faults there will be and many times foul ones too But this was not all that they resented it was their ambition and desire of novelty in a vain-glorious affectation that swayed with them to be like their Neighbour Nations and to have an illustrious and pompous domination over them but how this pleased God that Chapter with others shews us in a very sad dialect for God in his wrath gave them a King according to their desires yet he commands Samuel to shew them what would be the manner of a King and what Tyrannies he would exercise over them howsoever their hearts being set on a Kingly Goverment a glorious thing indeed in the outward shew and splendor thereof have a King they would without more dispute alleging other Arguments to Samuel viz. That he may judge over us go out before us and fight our battels But how most of their Kings executed judgement and what needlesse battles they fought for them and how much bloud of theirs was in many of their Kings reignes willfully and profusely spilt by most of the Kings of Judah and Israel as also what taxes and tributes were unnecessarily imposed on them their own Chronicles will best inform you and all this Kingly work what doth it amount unto more than to fullfill the will and pleasure and to maintain the pompe and splendor of one man and his whole family in the open and privileged oppression of a whole Nation Now if the History of the Kings of Iudah and Israel be not sufficient to inform your judgement of the oppressions and Tyrannies exercised by most of their Kings as a just judgement of God on the whole Nation for I may of truth aver that they were a stubborn generation and God answerable to their own hearts desires gave them their belly full of Kings when it was too late for their repentance then you may pick and chuse amongst all the Kings of the World and you shall find the best of them little better than Tyrants yea David himself a a man of blood and most perfideous in the case of honest Vriah and as the greater Fish in the Sea which eats up the lesser so Kings on the Land are commonly no more than Canniballs man-eaters and as a good Author describes them to be ex genere bestiarum rapacium a sort of ravenous beasts an undenyable truth especially where absolute Soveraignty is usurped by any one man and that derived in a succession which is the evill of all evils and the very same which your malignant party so vehemently drives at to introduce on the English Nation and to inslave a free borne people when your self being a rationall man very well knows that no man ab origine was born a slave but either by his own consent or by the ambition and pleasure of Tyrants was made so for who koows not that all men are of the self-same mold as Kings neither were Kings ever ordaind of God to govern their people otherwise than for their good never to be opprest and trampled on at theit own wills and lustfull pleasures But happily you may here charge me to intrench and presse with the most on the Honour and Power of Kings I answer I honour them as Gods own Ordinance amongst other Powers and am commanded by the Apostle to make prayers and supplications for them all especially for Kings and great reason we all have so to do lest they devoure us alive but if they presume to break over those limits and boundaries which Almighty God hath set unto them as of those and what they are you may best instruct your felfe out of Deutronomy and Ezekiel where you shall finde the King to be tyed up to strict rules as to read the law and to observe it all the dayes of his life that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and as the Prophet tels them take away your exactions from my people remove violence and spoyl and execute judgement and justice c. Vpon these considerations I hope you will not blame me though I have not made one amongst so many which have sided with our late King in raising of war against his people and their Representative neither in plundring and desolating the Kingdom which howsoever those exorbitances amongst other of his faults have been palliated with as much finenesse of wit as the art of man could possibly devise yet I beseech you let truth appear which with a little of your patience you may more fully understand and then happily you will adjudge him guilty of much more than hath beene yet vulgarly charged on his accompt in the mean time remember our blessed Saviours oracle That it is fit offences should be but woe to those which occasion them Excuse me then though I tell you that I know none more guilty of the occasion of all our barbarous and brutish wars bloodshed rapine and of the imminent danger and utter desolation which at present threatens and hangs over three late flourishing Kingdoms than he who ended his vexatious dayes at his own gates and she which had the Honour of his bed together with her which was the mother and of all the mischiefs which befell all the places wheresoever she made her abode But happily you may again reply that I speak as a loser and true and so may you and one hundred thousand more of poore innocent sufferers speake in the same sad dialect as having felt the fearfull effects of the perversity of one mans will who in the power of a moderate SOVERAIGNTY and the love of his people by whom and by this very Parliament so hatefull unto him never any King of England was more honoured beloved obeyed and more courted and when time was might have been what a just Prince would have desited and should I aske you what might he not have been had he either at first and long after this Parliament late downe yea and long after the Warre began complyed with them as great reason there was he should have done and not to have protected Delinquents neither to have sided with such as most treacherously deserted their trust but to have relyed as at first he promised on his faithfull Councell
byassed as it became a Christian King But that you may further understand why the King so peremptorily stood to the upholding of Bishops and to keep the Militia in his own sole power for that 's the meaning of his not quitting the Sword which all the world knows to be no otherwise by the intent of the Lawes of the Land Reason and the Law of Nature an inseparable flower of the Crown than Fiduciary alwaies in reference to a trust given our Kings by Parliament out of confidence that it shall be used to no other intent or end than the defence of the Kingdom and not to be perverted against it as all the ancient and modern Statutes import both in their preambles and texts Cast your eyes on his own Directions to the Vxbridge Commissioners number 21. where you may evidently see that it was not so much the scruple of his Conscience and Coronation Oath as in relation to his own particular designes and interests viz. That as it is the Kings duty to protect the Church so it is the Churches to assist the King in the maintenance of his Authority wherefore my Predecessors have been alwaies carefull and especially since the Reformation to keep the dependency of the Clergy intirely on the Crown without which it will scarsely fit fast on his bead therefore you must do nothing to change this necessary dependance Observation Here you have the true reason wherfore the King so much insisted on the keeping up of Episcopacy and how likewise the cunning Gypsies the Bishops had instill'd it into his apprehension what sure cards they were to keep the Crown fast on his head as if the Crown and Myter had been such inseparables as that the one could not subsist without the other observe withall what a queint Aphorism they first coynd and broched it to King Iames viz. no Bishop no King and judge you whether no Porter no King had not been the better maxime when as it is perspicuous that most of our ancient Kings had no such Enemies as the Bishops witnesse Tho. Becket to Henry the second Lanfranke to Henry the first Roger of Salisbury to King Stephen Orleton to Edward the second with divers others which almost in every Reign opposed their Kings and addrest themselves to the Pope for their Palls and Investitures indeavouring in what possibly they could to free themselves from any dependancy on the Crown untill Henry the eighths time who first of all our Kings freed himself of that servitude which had beene so fatall to most of his Predecessors But look a little further and you shall finde in the Kings 19th Letter to the Queen on the same subject Febr. 25. 1645. from Oxford viz. Thou needs not doubt of the issue of this Treaty for my Commissioners are so well chosen though I say it that they will neither be thretned nor disputed from the grounds I have given them which upon my word is according to the little Note thou so well remembers and to this not only their obedience but judgements concur againe in the same Letter and be confident that in making peace I shall ever shew my constancy in adhering to Bishops and all our friends and shall not forget to put a short period to this perpetuall Parliament but as thou lovest me let none perswade thee to slacken thine assistance for him who is eternally thine Observation Here we have a true Character of this unfortunate Kings naturall obduracy and the aversenesse of his Genius to alter any of his resolutions which once fixt he would effect on any hazzard whatsoever the Earle of Strafferd who best of all others of his arbitrary Ministers had most studied his inclinations needed not to have cherished this humour of the Kings when as in the prosecution of the wars against the Scots 1639. he counsels the King in haec verba Lose all I had or carry all again you may here see how he had aforehand bound up his Commissioners with such instructions from whence they were not to stir or yeeld in a jot as likewise how mindfull he was of the little Note and punctually to observe it a very fine note of remembrances I beleeve had we the honour to have seen it and were we not all of us of the English Nation a happy people to see our King governed by the directions and documents of a woman a strong Papist and of the house of Medicis by the Mother a most Emperious and dangerous generation of women and fatal to all places wheresoever they came a wife its true she was but such a one as ruled and over-ruled that stiffenesse of his constellation and effected more with him than either himself could doe or the most inward of his Councell of State durst attempt and on one caveat of hers would rather adventure the loss of his Crown than not to shew his constancy in the upolding of a Myter you may remember how much pains he was at with the Divines at Newcastle and the Isle of Wight and what tenents he held in his dispute with them concerning Episcopacy and that Bishops were of a Divine and Apostolik Institution which is true in some sense as those were which were instituted by the Apostles but that our late Bishops as they stood here from before and after King Edwards Reformation that they should be taken in with those of St. Pauls making in the generall notion or latitude of Bishops without any distinction as if those Bishops of the Papisticall Church were of the selfe-same nature and of like ordination as those of the Primitive times seemes to me a paradox 'T is true that at the time of the Reformation the dispute grew high at the black-Fryers amongst the Commissioners themselves whether Episcopacy should remain as it then stood or to reduce it to the originall patterne of the primitive Church as Bishop Latimer Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr would have had it but Bishop Ridly and the rest of the Commissioners most of them Bishops as Sir Iohn Heywood in his first Copy of his History of Edward the sixt layes it down would by no means assent unto it the other three maintaining that Bishops as then they stood were no other than chips of the papisticall block and of no affinity with St. Pauls Titmothy's or Titus Bishops neither could they be of any conformity with the ancient and primitive institution but the meer excrescencies sprouting out of the exuberancy of the Papacy long after the defection and adulteration of the primitive Church which defection from the ancient purity began immediately after Gregory the Great and I am very confident that there are none of our late Bishops so impudent as to maintaine that either the Britain or Saxon Kings whatsoever is fabled of King Lucius ever erected any Episcopall Sees or admitted of any Bishops that came hither before Austin the Monk and such others after him as were merely spriggs of the papacy and that long after the adulteration
of the Roman Church a truth so perspicuous as that I have wondred on the reading of the discourse between his Majesty and those learned Divines why it was not prest by them that Episcopacy quatenus as it stood here since and before the Reformation was spurious papall and of no affinity with the Apostlick or primitive institution especially the wonder is so much the more that the King for the upholding of 26 square caps should with such obstinancy which he would have to be esteemed constancy oppose a Court of Parliament composed of 500 Lords and Gentlemen and pretend so much to honour and conscience when as about the same time and as I remember before that the dispute was here in the House for the expulsion of the Bishops the King had granted the same boon to the Scots But I beseech you take notice how mindfull the King was to remember his friends and what were they think you more than Delinquents Soldiers of Fortune and the loosest vermin that the Kingdom could afford him together with the Papists many Country Gentlmen and the Fugitive Members of both Houses which he had corrupted and drawn from their trust with double ends of his own not onely to make up his mungrell Parliament at Oxford but to lame or destroy the legall Parliament at Westminster whose privileges with so many protestations he had so often aver'd to maintain In the next place please you to observe how memorative the King was to put a short period to this perpetuall Parliament for this expression manifestly shewes how he intended to deal with all others a Parliament as himself had made it indissolvable by any other way than that of the Sword which by no meanes he meant to depart withall until needs he must and the act assented and granted by himself on reasons merely relative to the payment of his owne debts contracted by his unnecessary raising of War against his Native Subjects the Scots and for the more speedy discharge of the arrears due to both armies which the Parliament was then most willing to defray without the least scruple or upbraiding him with the cause of contracting so vast a sum and all to gain at any rate his love and favour where I must tell you that you would have thought it somewhat harsh should they have told him as it was answered in full Parliament to Hen the third that they would not pay his debts neither give him a groat postquam coepit esse dilapidator regni so long as he continued to destroy the Kingdom but you cannot deny how ready they were to expedite the payments by taking it up of the City on the publick faith which the Citizens on remembrance of the Kings wonted manner of dissolving of all the Parliaments of his Reign without their due effects utterly refused unlesse an Act were past for the continuation of the Parliaments sitting upon which grounds the King granted that act which so nearly concerned his own particular and the sending home of the Scots whose company was then loathsome unto him How then it comes to passe that your selfe and so many of your party should think this such an act of Grace seems to me a wonder when he had so often protested not onely to maintain the Privileges of Parliament but whatsoever acts he had formerly assented unto but you see here his own expression That he would not forget to put a short period to this perpetuall Parliament what then I beseech you do you conceive would have been the issues otherwise than to recall all those his so much magnified acts of grace as Edward the third yeelded him a president and at last by the power of the Sword which he sayes God had put into his hands to have invaded the Lawes and universall freedomes of the Nation as his very next Letter to the Queen manifestly imports March 9. 1645. from Oxford number the 20th viz. I have thought of one means more to furnish thee withall for my assistance than hitherto thou hast had it it this that I give thee power to promise in my name to whom thou thinkest most fit that I will take away all penall Laws against the Roman Catholicks in England as soon as God shall inable me to doe it so as by their means or in their favours I may have so powerfull assistance as may deserve so great a favour and inable me to do it but if thou aske what I call that assistance I answer that when thou knowest what may be done for it it will be easily seen if it deserve to be so esteemed I need not tell thee what secrecy this businesse requires yet this I will say that this is the greatest point of confidence I can expresse to thee for it is no thanks to me to trust thee in any thing else but in this which is the onely thing in difference of opinion betwixt us and yet I know thou wilt make as good a bargaine in this I trusting thee though it concerns Religion as if thou wert a Protestant the visible good of my affairs so much depending thereon Observation The Comment on this his Majesties 20th Letter principally relates to these two most important considerations first the invading of the Laws secondly to the affront of the Parliament and the Protestant Religion when he should be impowred by the assistance of the Papists and a third necessarily ariseth on the neck of the other two viz. by giving power to the Queene a profest Papist and an enemy to the English Nation to manage the businesse and to make the best bargain for him as she should thinke most fit under the seale of secrecy as being himself ashamed to be seen in the businesse as God knowes good reason he had But in the mean time speak your Conscience where was then the Kings Conscience and his honour and what became of his former protestations wherein he so often avows the maintenance of the Protestant Religion without mixtures and what was his own Religion more than formall or like a nose of wax convertible onely as it should conduce to the visible good of his affaires they are his owne words and what those affaires were more than his will and pleasure in his uttermost endeavour to continue to imbrue the Kingdomes with more blood and rapine by the swords and assistance of Papists cannot well be imagined these and a world of his other expressions compared together with his own Letters and his Pourtraicture I must tel you plainly have very much troubled my spirits that he should so much and so often pretend to Religion Conscience and Honour in yeelding up of Episcopacy when he made no scruple of Conscience to grant to the Scots the abolishing of their Episcopacy which in the Chapter of Church-Government in his Pourtraicture he strives to salve with an ill savoring playster but for the retention of it in England he pleads and stands stiffly on his Coronation Oath with the swallowing up
subtill and winding spirit proud as one raised out of the dust haughty and imperious in his place and as fit an instrument for the Kings turne as possibly he could chose out of the 26. Prelates There was also about this time as before is intimated taken into the Kings favour or rather brought in by the alurement of preferment Sir Thomas Wentworth whom the King immediately created a Baron and on the decease of Weston the Treasurer Earl of Strafford a Gentleman of great parts and patrimony a Common-wealths-man he had been and one that formerly in all Parliaments as much thwarted and withstood the arbitrary power of both Kings as any one whatsoever the King having won this Gentleman to be his owne bethought himselfe that these two with some others of the same stamp would be sufficient to whom to impart his grand designs the one for Church affairs the other for the State but both suitable to the ends he had in hand the last being of as high bould and haughty a spirit as he could possibly have pickt out of all the nobility Time will shew us and our own lamentable experience may better demonstrate how the one in Church affairs the other in civill administrations behaved themselves to the after prejudice and destruction of the three Kingdoms But as we have already said in the end to their own ruine and their Masters To leave this digression we have left the King and Queen at the Court let us returne where we left them in their different devotions the truth was how little care soever there was then taken either by the King or his time-serving Prelates of Gods service and true worship otherwise than in a formality or shew of Godlinesse either in the Court or throughout the Kingdom sure we are that the Queenes superstitious worship was specially provided for and a sort of Locusts there were in addition to her own Chaplins admitted the Kingdome styled by the name of Capuchins but cunning knaves and for these a new Chappell was erected with an habitation and large maintenance allowed them even in the face of the Court and eye of the Kingdom and to please the Queen Masses and Masse Priests were frequently permitted throughout the Land not only in a tacite connivence but in an open way of tolleration and in contempt of Gods true worship We may well admit that the wayes which the King then took could not be welpleasing to him which was never yet pleased with an Idolatrous mixt and halfe-fac'd worship or that the gayety and wantonnesse of a promiscuous Court could be maintained without an excessive charge neither that a perfidious shew and offer of a warre with France in the defence of the French Protestants would in the conclusion be well thought of either from abroad or at home when the King during the treaty of the marriage with the Queen on the earnest request of the princes of the Religion had engaged himself to protect them and to raise the siedge then before the Town of Râ—chell neither that feigned preparation which the King made by sea in their assistance will in time come to light when evident it was afterwards to all the World that in stead of defending them they were not onely slaughtered at Sea by the Kings shipping but by plain Treachery both their Cause undone and their forces defeated by Land a sinne which God in his justice could not passe over unpunished yet carryed on in such a mysticall way in that attempt on the Isle of Rea to the losse of honour and blood of some of the bravest men of the Nation insomuch that the World to this very day hath been held in suspence to what Religion the King himself stood most inclyned or whether the Father or the Son which with such ardency sought the Alliance of Spaine and France or else no where Families if not incestous yet of Idolatrous and Supersticious Religions which hath left the world in another amaze and in a puzzle to find out others inclination or whether to any Religion devoted if it be rightly considered as either Prince made and continued their secret addresses to the Apostolick see and that his Holinesse in both reigns had his Agents and Nuntioes here resident reciprocally and in interchange of the Kings Agents at Rome many clandestine conferences both with the King and Queene and the state of the Protestant Religion here howsoever openly profest by both Kings reduced to the next step of conformity with Rome when as that sordid and base complyance of the Bishops and Court-Clergy which if grace more than hopes of preferment had prevailed with them might have been a Remora or stay to either King and to have told them plainly how dangerous it was to their well-being if they attempted to make Religion the stalking-horse to their irregular designs and to bethink themselves that God was not to be deluded and how unsafe it would be for them Ludere cum sanctis But these were the men who even from the beginning of both reigns had only studied the inclinations of these Princes and rather took upon them to comply and incourage them than to have withstood either of them in the least of their many irregularities loosness in Religion such was the basenesse of these fawning Sycophants that the common theams of the Court Pulpits throughout both reigns were purposely pickt out where on to draw conclusions and doctrines of arbitrary power which was the usuall ladder most of them clim'd to preferment whence also we may observe Gods judgments both to have been shortly after powred out on the persons themselves and their functions in their extirpation and totall irradication of them without hopes of their restauration Hitherto we have deduced the History of this unfortunate Prince to the 3d. year of his Reign we shall now runne over the rest with as much brevity as the nature of the subject will permit The King at this time was in his wonted condition of want as his Father before him ever was so would he be in the same predicament Two millions of annuall Treasure or very neer could not serve their turns neither would it content them though in Scotl. 50000 l. per annum was more than ever King James could possibly raise without the assistance of the Estates assembled We may see the difference and what oprations change of Clymates can worke upon the nature of Princes comming out of poor Kingdomes into richer and with what Conscience they could dispence the care of their own souls to become as spunges to suck up the fruits of the poor passive people of England gained out of the labour of their hands and sweat of their browes when they had enough and more than ever any of the Kings of England did raise and in retribution of their love and loyalty towards them as by divers manifestations may be made appeare with how many slights and wyles with how much care trouble and vexation of spirit