for the curbing of disobedient and stubborn People Our Will therefore is and we charge you c. C. R. And by another Paper His Majesty left it to the Marquis his choice whether of the two he should make use of as he found it might tend to His Service but withall if he made use of the second and it gave no satisfaction so that within 6 Weeks most of the Bonds were not delivered up upon his desiring them to doe so then he should publish another Proclamation Declaring the Covenanters Traitors if within 5 days they came not to accept of Mercy and deliver up the Bonds if they were in their power And so a third Declaration penned by the Chancellour was laid aside onely it is extant marked by the Kings Hand on the back and therefore shall be set down here WHereas we were in hope by Our late Proclamations to have given satisfaction to Our People and to have removed their Mistakings of the Book of Common-prayer which We caused to be published having thereby declared that it never entred into Our thoughts to make any Innovation in Religion and Form of Gods Worship nay not to press the said Books upon any of Our Subjects till by a fair way they were induced to approve the same yet having understood that to the contrary by what means We know not occasions have been taken to confirm them in their former Mistakings and to bind them by the Oaths and Subscriptions against the Laws established by Our dear Father of blessed memory and ratified by Our Selves since Our coming to the Crown howsoever there is in that more than just cause offered to take punishment of such an open Contempt and Rebellion yet considering that this is not the fault of the simple sort and multitude of People who have been seduced through specious pretexts as if nothing were contained in the said Bond or Covenant as they call it but the promoting of Gods Glory the maintaining of Our Honour and Liberty of the Country with the preserving of Vnity among themselves We no way willing to use Our People with rigour or to enquire severely into their errors of that kind have thought meet to renew Our former Declaration by assuring them and every one of them that Our constant Resolution is and hath been to maintain the true Religion professed and established by the Laws of that Our Kingdom without any Change or Innovation at the hazard of Our Life and Crown and that We will not force on Our Subjects either the said Book of Common-prayer or Book of Canons till the same be duly examined and they in their Iudgments satisfied with the legality thereof nor will We permit the exercise of any Commission upon them for whatsoever cause which may give unto them any just cause of Grief and Complaint Willing therefore and requiring all Our People and Subjects to acquiesce to this Our Declaration and not suffer themselves to be misled by the private or publick Informations of turbulent spirits as if We did intend any thing contrary to this Our Profession having always esteemed it a special point of Royal Dignity to profess what We intend to doe and to perform what We do promise certifying all Our good Subjects who shall hereupon rest quiet in the obedience of God and Vs that We will faithfully perform whatsoever We have declared whether in this or in Our former Proclamations made to that purpose and be unto them a good and merciful King as on the other side if any shall hereafter make business and disturb the Peace of that Church and Kingdom by following their private Covenants and refusing to be ruled by the Laws established that We will use the Force and Power which God hath put into Our hands for compescing and subduing such mutinous and disobedient Rebels Given at Our Palace of This is marked by the Kings Hand Declaration made by the Chancellour Thus that wise Prelat foresaw well how it would be easier to effectuate all that had been designed than to get that alone of disclaiming the Covenant brought about and therefore left that out in his draught of the Declaration But the King was peremptory saying That as long as that Covenant was not passed from He had no more Power than the Duke of Venice For the Commissioners Instructions the Chancellour gave his Advice in writing which was very closely followed After that many particular Questions were given in by the Marquis in writing for Orders how to carry himself whatever might meet him in his Negotiation to which he got positive Answers in writing from the King which are extant and though the Material points in that Paper be to be found in the Instructions yet this seems too considerable to be suppressed and therefore it is set down in the very Form wherein it is in the Original the Queries being written by the Marquis and the Answers over against them by the King QUERIES whereunto Your MAJESTIES Direction and Resolution is humbly prayed that accordingly I may govern my self and be warranted for my Proceedings 1. IF before the publishing of the Declaration some of the chiefest of the Petitioners may not be prepared and laboured to conceive aright of the same and in general acquainted with Your Majesties gracious Intentions They may 2. Where the first meeting of the Council shall be Where you shall find most convenient the City of Edinburgh only excepted 3. If Your Majesty will not permit the Council to sit where and in such places as is conceived may tend most for the advancement of Your Service Yes 4. If the Declaration shall not be read to the Council and they required to sign the same By all means 5. If we shall not all swear to give our best assistance for the putting the same in due execution Yes 6. If any Councellour refuse to doe it what course shall be taken with him Dismiss him the Council 7. If Acts of Council are not to be made finding that this Declaration ought to free us of the fears of Innovations either of Religion or Laws Yes 8. If all Councellours are not to be warned to give their attendance till the business be settled Yes 9. If upon the publication of this Declaration there be Protestations made what course shall be taken The Protesters must be proclaimed Rebels 10. If no Protestations but Petitions of new be presented either demanding further satisfaction or adhering to their former what Answer shall be made or what course taken Vt supra 11. If they remain still in a Body at Edinburgh or elsewhere after the Declaration what course shall be taken You must raise what Force you may to treat them as Rebels 12. If they should petition against the High Commission itself as not to be introduced without an Act of Parliament what Answer shall be given That they muâ—t be content with My Declaration in that point 13. If against the matter contained therein it is then desired that those particulars may
as also that many of the Covenanters were broken in their Estates so that if Justice were patent some of the most troublesom of them might be driven away but chiefly the settling them again in Edinburgh looked like a resolution of going on with a Treaty of which it was fit they should be persuaded till the King were in a good posture for reducing them He tried what assurance he might have of the Lords of the Session being fixed to their Duty Divers of them who were no ill-wishers to the Kings Authority yet durst not own it being threatned by the Covenanters of some he had all reason to hope well yet the greater part of that Court what through fear what through inclination was so biassed that he saw little hope of prevailing with the Colledge of Justice whether Judges or Lawyers to declare the Covenant seditious or treasonable and he was secure of none who sate on the Bench save Sir Robert Spottiswood President Sir Iohn Hay Clerk-Register and Sir Andrew Fletcher of Innerpeffer Halyburton of Fotherance and one or two more the first of these was among the most accomplished of his Nation equally singular for his Ability and Integrity but he was the Archbishop of S. Andrews his Son and so his Decision in that would have been of the less weight On the 16th of Iune the Covenanters came and presented their Petitions to the Marquis craving a present redress of their Grievances The Covenanters press speedy satisfaction otherwise they said they would be put off no longer by delays and they desired he would propose the matter to the Council and give them a speedy Answer He told them that His Majesty did resolve to call both an Assembly and Parliament for the redress of all Grievances but if this was not yet done they had nothing but the Disorders of the Country to blame for it which should be no sooner composed but all their Desires should be fully examined They went away no way satisfied with this Answer but the Marquis found all the Lords of Council inclined to the granting of what they demanded so that he durst call no Council about it lest they should have avowedly sided with the Covenanters of which he advertised His Majesty shewing him that persons of all ranks pressed him to represent to him that the Covenant was not illegal and that if His Majesty would allow of the Explication of the Bond of mutual Defence Many move that an Explanation of the Covenant might be received which they offered that they meant not thereby to derogate any thing from the Kings Authority for whom they were ready to hazard their Lives all might be settled without more trouble either to the King or Country and that otherwise it must needs end in Blood He desired His Majesty would consider well in what forwardness his Preparations were before he hazarded on a Rupture lest if they had the start of him all his faithful Servants in Scotland should be ruined ere he could come to their rescue England wanted not its own Discontents and they in Scotland seemed confident that they had many good Friends there France had not forgot the Isle of Rhea and had certainly a hand in cherishing those Broils in Scotland He also added the Covenanters resolution was upon the first Rupture to march into England and make that the seat of the War Upon all this he craved His Majesties Pleasure which he would punctually obey and ended begging pardon for the fair hopes he had given him in his last protesting that his desire of seeing Royal Authority again settled without a bloody Decision for which he was gladly willing to sacrifice his Life made him too easie sometimes to believe what he so earnestly desired Thus I give the most material Heads of the Marquis his Dispatches to His Majesty for though the Originals of them be in my hands yet they are not inserted both because of their being too long and too particular for publick view as also that the substance of them may be seen in the Kings Answers which for many reasons are set down at their full length But to this I shall adde a surprising thing that I find the Archbishop of S. Andrews was for accepting an Explanation of the Covenant for a draught of it yet remains under his Pen which follows The Archbishop of S. Andrews his draught of an Explanation WE the Noblemen Barons Burgesses Ministers and others that have joyned in a late Bond or Covenant for the maintaining of true Religion and purity of Gods Worship in this Kingdom having understood that Our Sovereign Lord the Kings Majesty is with this our doing highly offended as if we thereby had usurped His Majesties Authority and shaken off all Obedience to His Majesty and to His Laws for clearing our selves of that Imputation do hereby declare and in the presence of God Almighty solemnly protest that it did never so much as enter into our thoughts to derogate any thing from His Majesties Power and Authority Royal or to disobey and rebell against His Majesties Laws and that all our Proceedings hitherto by Petitioning Protesting Covenanting and whatsoever other way was and is onely for the maintaining of true Religion by us professed and with express reservation of our Obedience to His most Sacred Majesty most humbly beseeching His Majesty so to esteem and accept of us that he will be graciously pleased to call a National Assembly and Parliament for removing the Fears we have not without cause as we think conceived of introducing in this Church another form of Worship than what we have been accustomed with as likewise for satisfying our just Grievances and the settling of a constant and solid Order to be kept in all time coming as well in the Civil and Ecclesiastical Government which if we shall by the intercession of Your Grace obtain we faithfully promise according to our bounden duties to continue in His Majesties Obedience and at our utmost powers to procure the same during our Lives and for the same to rest and remain Your Graces obliged Servants c. His Majesties Answer follows Hamilton I Do not wonder though I am very sorry for your last Dispatch to which I shall answer nothing concerning what you have done or mean to doe because I have approved all and still desire you to believe I do so untill I shall contradict it with my own Hand What now I write is first to shew you in what Estate I am and then to have your Advice in some things My Train of Artillery consisting of 40 Peece of Ordnance with the appurtenances all Drakes half and more â—f which are to be drawn with one or two Horses apiece is in good forwardness and I hope will be ready within six weeks for I am sure there wants neither Money nor Materials to doe it with I have taken as good order as I can for the present for securing of Carlisle and Berwick but of this you
safety of Religion Kirk and Commonwealth depends much upon the comfortable assistance which all of them daily receive from Royal Iustice and Authority we protest and promise with our Hearts under the Obligation of the same Oath to defend not only this our Religion but the Kings Majesties Sacred Person and Authority as also the Laws and Liberties of this our Country under His Majesties Soveraign Power with our best Counsels Bodies Goods and whole Estates according to the Laws and against all sorts of persons and in all things whatsoever and likewise mutually to defend our selves and one another in this abovementioned Cause under the same obligation But while the Marquis was busie at Court procuring this Gracious Answer to their Demands and while His Majesty was condescending to such extraordinary Favours to them the Covenanters in Scotland were going on The Covenanters are very busie in Scotland posting up and down the Country for more Subscriptions to the Covenant and because the North continued firm to their Duty some Noblemen and Ministers went thither to draw them to their Party and on the 23d of Iuly they came to Aberdeen where there was a company of worthy and learned Doctors and Professors But the Covenanters welcome there was so cold all the Subscriptions they got being but 19 or 20 and they were not admitted to preach in the publick Churches which made them preach in the Court of the Earl Marshal's Lodgings that they went away full of fury and threats against that Place and this gave the rise to that Debate which followed betwixt the Doctors of Aberdeen and those Ministers Debates betwixt the Doctors in Aberdeen and them which the Learned Doctors managed with so great advantage as did not a little confound the whole Party and the Ministers being pinched by them about the lawfulness of combining without warrant of Authority alledged that my Lord Commissioner was satisfied with the Covenant upon the offer of that Explication was mentioned formerly But the falshood of this Calumny was cast back on them with shame by him at his return for as he had never expressed any satisfaction with their Covenant so all the ground they had for that was because according to the Kings Order he had treated about that Explication to gain time He brought along with him to Scotland Dean Balcanqual Doctor Balcanqual comes to Scotland a man of great parts of subtil wit and so eloquent a Preacher that he seldom preached in Scotland without drawing Tears from the Auditors Him the Marquis intended to make use of as his Council in Church-affairs which Trust he discharged faithfully and diligently and received those Informations which were made publick in the large Declaration penned by him The Marquis came to Holyroodhouse on the tenth of August and found things in a much worse posture than he had left them and that the Flames were growing almost past quenching for at a Convention of Burroughs a few days before they had enacted The Covenanters high resolutions That none might be Magistrates or bear Office in any Burrough except he had first taken the Covenant and the Covenanters were resolved that Bishops should have no Vote in the Assembly unless they were chosen by a Presbytery and they were sure that should not be They were resolved to abolish Episcopacy and to declare it unlawful and excommunicate if not all yet most of the Bishops they were resolved to condemn the Articles of Perth and discharge Bishops to Vote in Parliament they were also resolved to ordain all under pain of Excommunication to sign the Covenant and to shew they meant to break out into Hostility they were beginning to levy men in several places But to make sure work of the Assembly they fell on a new device of Lay-elders to be chosen Commissioners who should be men of the greatest power and interest whereby they doubted not to carry all things and because in a Meeting at Edinburgh of Ministers being 120 in number about four parts of five were only for limiting of Episcopacy it was resolved by the Iunto that none of these should be Commissioners The Marquis being surprized with so great a change of the State of Affairs gave account of all these inconveniences to His Majesty and resolved not to proceed to call a General Assembly since he saw what effects it was like to produce till he first went and acquainted His Majesty with these hazards On the 13th of August the Covenanters came to demand his Answer The Marquis makes known His Majesties intentions he told them he had a clear and full Answer to give them but desired to be excused till he first communicated it to the Council which was to sit next day So they were satisfied for that time and on the fourteenth he held a Council where he delivered His Majesties Answer in these Terms My Lords I Thought it fit to acquaint your Lordships before I returned His Majesties Answer to the Noblemen and others petitioning for the same which is so full of Grace and Goodness that we have all cause to bless God and thank His Majesty for it such is his tender care of this poor distracted Kingdom that he will leave nothing undone that can be expected from a Iust Prince to save us from Ruine and since he finds such Distraction in the Church and State that they cannot be well settled without a Parliament and Assembly the state of the Country and business being prepared for it he hath given me Warrant for calling of both that they may be orderly held as formerly they have been according to the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom And further I am to declare to your Lordships that this we are to attribute only to His Goodness for we cannot but acknowledge that our carriage hath been such as justly we might have expected that he would have taken another course with us which he was Royally and really prepared for had not His Mercy prevailed above His just Indignation and by a powerful and forcible way have taught us Obedience which he hath forborn to make use of meerly out of His Grace and Goodness It is our duty to let His Subjects know how great our obligation is to Him which every one of us in particular and all of us in general should strive to make every one sensible of and labour so far as lieth in our power to procure satisfaction to His Majesty and quiet to this distracted Church and State The day following he gave the Covenanters the same Answer with which they were no way satisfied But the Covenanters were not satisfied They asked what he meant by preparing of business he said it was to establish Order and Government again in the Country as it was before those Combustions and upon this he gave them a Note of those particulars His Majesty ordered to be settled and assured them immediately upon their Obedience he should indict an Assembly and Parliament as he was
Breach might follow betwixt him and his Native Kingdom but on the other hand he could not permit them to go both because of the Reasons he had alledged and the Fears he had of their engaging with the Parliament and chiefly that all his Councellours and Officers at Oxford were so far against it that he heard it was whispered amongst them that they would all forsake him if he gave them leave since they held themselves assured that the Design of their going was to bring an Army from Scotland wherefore he intreated Lindsay would serve him in that Particular which he undertook frankly though he added he had small hopes since he had already attempted as much as he could with no Success But as he left His Majesty he made a Visit in his way to his Lodgings where he met the Earl of Crawford who told him plainly That though the King should consent to their going to London thither should they never get for a great many were resolved to lie in their way and cut them all to pieces ere they were many miles from Oxford This he confirmed to him with many Oaths adding that as the King knew nothing of it so it would not be in his power to hinder it and out of kindness to my Lord Lindsay he advised him not to go though the Chancellour went With this Lindsay came to his Lodgings and shewed the Lord Chancellour the hazard not only their Lives would be in but of the irreparable Breach would follow upon it which being considered by them it was resolved they should pass from their Desires and crave the Kings Commands for Scotland since they would not offend him by the importunity of an unacceptable Mediation which they accordingly did to His Majesties great satisfaction And so they took leave the Chancellour with the other Commissioners going for Scotland only Lindsay returned to London Upon this His Majesty sent all the Scotish Lords then at Court to Scotland to serve him there who were the Earls of Morton Roxburgh Kinnoul Annandale Lanerick and Carnwath but before they could be dispatched he sent Mr. Murray to Scotland with an account of his opinion about the Services his Friends might do him there who came by York and brought from the Queen the following Letter to the Marquis in answer to what he had written to Her Majesty which though written in French as all Her private Letters were yet I shall set down translated in English that all may run more smoothly Cousin I Received your Letter with the assurances of the Continuance of your Aâ—fection of which I hold my self secure and make no doubt to see both the effects of it and of that which you promised me at your parting concerning my Lord of Argyle Will. Murray came yesterday from Oxford as for News from hence I refer you to Henry Jermine who will give you an account of them I shall only tell you that the Scotish Lords who were with the King are on their way for Scotland so likewise are the Commissioners that were with the King You will know from Will. Murray the Kings Answers to the Propositions which you made me at York I am very glad to know by Your Letter as likewise by what my Lord Montgomery hath told me the Protestations General Lesly makes concerning the Armies in Ireland and now when all the Kings Servants shall be together you must think of the means for preserving that Army for my part I know not what to say farther about it I am now upon my going to the King and hope to part hence within ten dayes If there be any thing that hath occurred of late I shall be glad to know it and that you will believe how much I am Your affectionate Cousin and Friend HENRIETA MARIA R. About the beginning of May Lowdon and the other Commissioners came down and a day after them came the Earl of Morton who told the Marquis They proceed to final Resolutions in Scotland that in a few days he should see the Earls of Roxburgh Kinnoul and Lanerick with the Kings Instructions but by reason of Kinnoul's Infirmity and Roxburgh's Age they moved slowly On the 21th of May the Iunto of the Church-party moved that there might be a Joynt-meeting of the Council and Conservatours of the Peace and Commissioners for Publick Burdens to consider of the present State of Affairs The Marquis and Morton resisted this all they could but they were over-ruled and so these Judicatories met to them it was proposed that considering the hazard the Nation was in by reason of Armies which were now levying in the North of England there was a necessity of putting the Kingdom in a posture of Defence which could not be done without a Convention of Estates or a Parliament wherefore it was moved that a Convention of Estates should be presently called The Marquis argued much against it shewing that this was to encroach upon the Kings Prerogative in the highest degree and so would be a direct Breach of the Peace with the King and against the Laws of the Land adding Was this all the Acknowledgment they gave the King for his late Gracious Concessions for this struck at the root of his Power In this he was seconded by my Lord Morton but most vigorously by Sir Thomas Hope the Kings Advocate who debated against it so fully from all the Laws and constant Practice of Scotland that no Answer could be alledged and indeed discharged his Duty so faithfully that the Marquis forgave him all former errors for that dayes Service But it was in vain to argue where the Resolution was taken on Interest more than Reason so it was carried that the Lord Chancellour should summon a Convention of Estates against the 22th of Iune A Convention of Estates is called This Resolution being taken they gave Advertisement of it to the King in the following Letter which all who Voted against it refused to sign Most Dread Sovereign THe extreme necessity of the Army sent from this Kingdom by Order from Your Majesty and the Parliament here against the Rebellion in Ireland the want of means for their necessary Supply through the not payment of the Arrears and Maintenance due to them by the Parliament of England the delay of the Payment of the Brotherly Assistance so necessary for the relief of the Common Burdens of this Kingdom by reason of the unhappy Distractions in England and the sense of the danger of Religion of Your Majesties Royal Person and of the Common Peace of Your Kingdoms have moved Your Majesties Privy Council the Commissioners for conserving the Peace and Common Burdens to joyn together in a Common Meeting for acquitting our selves in the Trust committed to us by Your Majesty and the Estates of Parliament and having found after long Debate and mature Deliberation that the Matters before-mentioned are of so Publick Concernment of so deep Importance and so great Weight that they cannot be determined by us in such a
giving a just and true Relation of the Reign of the late King I was my self pretty early acquainted with a great deal more of the Truth of these Affairs than is generally known having had the blessing of my Father's Conversation for many years who had been a very exact Observer of all that passed He was also much importuned by men of all sides to write the History of those distempered Times being esteemed a Person of great Moderation and Candour who as he had his breeding in the Law so lived in great Friendship with the most eminent Persons of both Perswasions for before the Troubles began he was accounted a Male-content but he did afterwards give such signal demonstrations of his Loyalty that he was put from his Employment and made to take a voluntary Exile on him which was granted him as a great Favour by the Covenanters who generally had much kindness for him for all his being so contrary to their way And Warriston his Brother-in-Law in whose hands were all the Original Papers of the Covenanters side offered them to him for his Assistance if he would undertake it but he was over-grown with Age and Infirmities and so could not set about so difficult a Work But I received from him such Informations as made me look on most of the Writers of those Times with Indignation who were either utterly ignorant or so basely partial that Matters of Fact are falsly represented and the whole Counsels and Secret Contrivances either quite passed over or so palliated that there is very little truth in the Relations they have made And particularly I wondred to find James Duke of Hamilton represented to the World with such foul and base Characters as if he had been a Monster both for Ingratitude and Treachery though he had laid down his Life for the King and involved his Estate in vast Debts for His Service It seemed to me the greatest Injustice in the World that one who served his Prince and his Country so long and so faithfully and sealed all with his Blood should not only be deprived of the Honour due to his Memory but that a company of ignorant and impudent Slanderers should do what they could to attaint his Blood and Family by the black Imputations they have cast on him and that this should pass current without any Vindication This made me resolve if ever I could meet with such Instructions as might direct me well to write an account of the late Troubles and in particular to give a true and clear Relation of that Duke's Concerns to set about it I knew well the Temper of those who were most severe in their Censures on him to be a violent and hot-headed sort of People who were for nothing but Fire and Sword and yet knew not how to do much more than to drink and swagger and therefore as I was naturally inclined to disregard their Blusterings so I was apt to think his Counsels must have been moderate for tempering the eagerness of other mens Passions which did enrage them so much against him so that they having dispersed many false Stories of him these were easily received by our Scribling Historians and have been made use of to poyson the Truth of the History It is such a natural and constant effect of Passion to carry men to Extreams that it is no wonder if those who had more temper and fore-sight and studied to heal the Breaches and followed more moderate Counsels were hated on both sides for in all times the Moderate Party is the weakest and has most obloquie cast on it from all hands I also thought that I could not do a greater Service to my Country than to enquire into the whole Course of the late Civil Wars And I knew there were none so eminently Employed as the two Dukes of Hamilton the one having been the Kings High-Commissioner in the beginning of them and the other the Secretary of State in the sequel of them therefore it was certain that if their Papers had not been destroyed in the common fate of Scotland I could not find a clearer thread to direct me than from them I shall not deny that I had many pre-engagements on me to have a high value of that Family both from the Great Worth of those who now represent it and from the Vnblemished Fidelity their Ancestours have always payed the Crown and their constant Affection to their Country so that since the first Greatness of it in King James the third his days who gave his Sister in Marriage to the Lord Hamilton they were never in any Rebellion against their King nor did they ever abuse their Prince's Favour to be a Grievance to their Country And though they stood next the Crown for fifty years together from the year 1543 that King James the fifth died till the year 1593 that Prince Henry was born during all which time there was none but Queen Mary and King James of the Royal Blood yet all that while their Deportment shewed that they had no other design but to serve those Princes with all possible Fidelity and Zeal And though Scotland was then much distracted with Intestine Broyls and Disorders yet they never set themselves at the head of any Faction nor departed from the Interests of the Crown When King James the fifth died he left his only Daughter Queen Mary but a few days old and the Government of Scotland fell by Right to the Earl of Arran being her nearest Kinsman and if such an Ambition as the Enemies of that Family have pretended was hereditary to it had been lodged in him he would never have let such an Opportunity of raising himself slip out of his hands But he was a Person of great Iustice and Candour and set nothing before his eyes but the Publick Good so that Archbishop Spotswood tells of him in his History that in his Court there was nothing seen that the severest eye could censure or reprove In the Publick Government such a Moderation was kept as no man was heard to complain the Governour was reverently obeyed and held in as great respect as any King 's of preceding Times It is true he was of too easie a nature and his base Brother who was afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews had great power over him which did much prejudice his Reputation In the disposing of the Queen in Marriage he had much to have said for himself if he had married Her to his own Son who was but a few years older than the Queen but he shewed he designed Her Greatness more than his own and perhaps more than the true Interest of his Country for I am far from thinking that he carried himself wisely in that when he consented to send Her to the Dolphin of France afterwards Francis the second in acknowledgment of which he was made Duke of Castle-herald or as it is pronounced by the French Chastle-herault by the French King After the Death of Francis the second when Queen Mary
is not yet settled is The King writes to him that this long time I have attended the coming of him your self thought fittest to be trusted in it he is now on the way and shall no sooner be arrived but the direction shall be given as I have already promised you I doubt not but your want forced you to leave me but mine shall not hinder me to help yours and I am sure likewise that as you see I do not forget your Turns you will at this occasion of the late Commission I have sent down shew your self forward in mine So farewel Your constant loving Friend CHARLES R. New-Market 4. March 1627 In another he writes James HAving as I hope dispatched your Business and invites him to Court I must tell you it was ill luck and not ill will that made it so long adoing and likewise of the importunity of a House of Women for calling you hither but it may be the company of some where you are will make you give a negligent Ear to those that are here yet I doubt not but when you know as these lines do assure you that you cannot come before you shall be welcome to your best Friends here that your stay will not be long where you are So referring you for other business to the Bearer your man I rest Your loving constant Friend CHARLES R. The first day of the Year 1628. But the Marquis excused himself upon the great Encumbrances were on his fortune But he prefers a Country retir'd life to the Court. which made it impossible for him to live at Court in the rank that became his quality he seemed also at that time to be in love with a retired life and spent much of his time in the Isle of Arran It cannot be denied to be without example to see a King entreating his Subject to accept of the Favours and Honours he designed for him when he was with much humble modesty declining these Royal Offers But as the King pressed his return to Court very earnestly he was likewise solicited to it by a great many of chief rank there and by none more warmly than by the Duke of Buckingham with the greatest and heartiest offers of all the friendship and service he could do him yet he continued in Scotland till the end of the year 1628. and all the while kept himself at a distance from publick Affairs not medling in any thing beyond his private concernment An. 1628. but his sweet and obliging temper took exceedingly with all people In the end of the year 1628. his Father-in-law Earl Denbigh came down to press his return to Court Earl Denbigh comes for him with a new and kind invitation from the King expressed in the following Letter Hamilton I Have taken this occasion by Denbigh's going to affirm to you under my own hand the Message Traquair brought to you from me I need say little more at this time because according to your Letter I look that you should be quickly here which again I assure you will be well done So referring you to your Father Denbigh I rest Your assured constant Friend CHARLES R. Hampton-Court 25 Sept. 1628. The Earl of Denbigh brought also with him from his Majesty the offer of the Master of the Horse his place He goes to Court and is made Master of the Horse which was fallen by the murther of the Duke of Buckingham This earnest and noble Message brought and enforced by such a Bearer could be no longer refused therefore in the end of the year he went to Court where he was presently made Master of the Horse and Gentleman of the Kings Bed-chamber and Privy Counsellour in both Kingdomes and the King used him with so much tender kindness that his carriage to him spoke more of the affection of a Friend than of the power of a Master he called him always Iames both when he spoke to him and of him His usage at Court as an expression of his familiarity with him and it was presently observed by all that none had more of the Kings heart than he posâ—essed But as high favour with a Prince is ever attended with envy and jealousie and behaviour there so he missed not his share of it from those who were looking on him as the rising Favourite though as he bore that Character worthily he managed it prudently for he neither studied to engross things to himself nor his kindred he grew not insolent upon favour nor impatient of Competitours neither did he obtrude himself upon the management of particular Affairs but did rest satisfied with the Royal marks of his Masters favour which upon all occasions were poured on him liberally The great Design which at this time possest the King wholly was about the affairs of Germany The Affairs of Germany and the recovery of the Palatinat with the rescue of his Sister and her Posterity from the ruine which was not only hanging over them but had already overwhelmed them I need not here resume the too-well-known occasions of these Troubles nor tell how the Wars of Boheme first began nor how the Prince Elector Palatine being chosen their King did by accepting that Crown involve himself and all Germany in a tract of the most lasting and bloody Wars that have been heard of The new-elected King was scarce well-settled on his Throne when it was not only shaken but overturned and the Emperour An. 1629. with the assistance of Spain and the Duke of Bavaria who was thirsting after his Cousins Dignities and Dominions was not content with the recovery of his own Dominions but carried his conquering Eagles into the Palatinat which not being able to resist so powerful an Invasion was forced under his obedience and the Electoral Dignity was by the Emperour afterwards translated to the Duke of Bavaria King Iames was very much displeased with his Son-in-law for engaging in the affair of Boheme but could not be unconcerned when he saw the ruine of his Family following upon it yet his inclinations to Peace overruled his other resentments and his hopes to prevail by Treaties made him still delay entring into Action for at that time the Treaty of the match with Spain was on foot and the King was abused by the Spaniards and made believe the Palatinat should be again restored but his slowness in that missed not the severe censures of all Europe King Iames left his Crowns and Designs to his Son who judged himself bound by all Ties divine and humane to see to the recovery of the Palatinat and the stopping of the Imperial success which by a great Torrent of victories was become formidable and burthensome to all the Princes of Germany yet the opposition the King met in some Parliaments which were dissolved soon after their meeting made his Designs go on slowly But to ravel no further into matters without the lines of this Narration The Marquis was no sooner at Court but the Queen
is here said of these matters shall be It is well known that in Scotland the first Reformation from the corruptions of Popery was Popular without the concurrence or allowance of Supreme Authority though the Nobility for the most part joyned in it and the Preachers being the chief actors and prosecutors of it came to have great power over the People and interest with the Nobility The Ministers were popular and factious It continued thus during King Iames his Minority but no sooner came he to assume the Government and to consider the state of the Kingdom than he found the power the Ministers had with the People was swelled to such insolence that it was more than necessary to limit it to its just bounds for nothing passed in the Court or Council but their Pulpits did ring with it and no favour was shewed to any that were Popishly affected but Jealousies were infused into the minds of the People as if Religion had been in hazard and the People being then in their first fervours against Popery were apt to take those Alarms pretty hot neither did the King cherish any who was not devoted to them but they did represent him a Favourer of Popery They also held Opinions which savoured too much of that Church which was so odious to them concerning the power of their Assemblies and their not being accountable for what they preached how Treasonable soever till it were first judged by the Church-Judicatory where all such things were sure of a mild Censure to say no worse divers other Tenets they held which were judged inconsistent with good Government But many of them being popular Preachers and of insinuative tempers they were much depended upon by the People who looked on all their Excesses as holy zeal King Iames bent all his thoughts to the regulating of this King Iames brought in Episcopacy and judging that the onely course to effectuate it was to have some few of greater temper and discretion to be set over the rest he studied by all means to get Episcopacy introduced in Scotland promising himself by that means an infallible remedy of all these Evils of which he was extremely sensible though his great Gentleness made him very slow in punishing them but they foreseeing well the Kings Intentions and the effects they might produce did as cautiously resist all his attempts that way though not without great and long opposition I shall not tell what endeavours that wise and peaceable King used for compassing of his designs nor with what hindrances they were obstructed but no sooner was he happily settled on the Throne of England but he went more roundly to work and yet it was not without opposition that he got Episcopacy settled and ratified in Parliament Anno 1612. But though great art was used to get Assemblies framed to the Kings designs he could never compass it Episcopacy being settled King Iames also erected a High Commission Court for punishing such as offended against that Constitution of the Church This Court was made up of Bishops and other Noblemen and Gentlemen but the Bishops being those who kept the Diets of it best most of the Secular persons absenting themselves often on design and the Bishops leading all matters in it it was counted their Court and the odium of all that passed there fell to their share This step being made King Iames advanced towards an Uniformity with England in Worship and other Ceremonies moved to it either that he might thereby make way for the Union of both Kingdoms which of all things he most desired or that he might root the seeds of Puritanism out of Scotland But in this he met greater opposition and all the progress he made in it was that in one Assembly it was decreed there should be a Liturgy drawn for the use of the Church of Scotland and in another at Perth the Five Articles that bore the name of that place were settled not without great contradiction and these were the Confirmation of Children Private Baptism Private Communion in cases of necessity Kneeling in Communicating the Observation of the Holy days of the Nativity Passion Resurrection Ascension and Pentecost Those were also established in Parliament Anno 1621. where the Marquis his Father was Commissioner and managed that Affair so dexterously that it gained him an equal share of esteem and hatred these things being generally very odious As King Iames was going on warily in this design he died King Iames dies lamented and admired by all the World and even those who had irritated him most when alive did bewail his Death with deep and just regrates He was succeeded in his Throne by his onely Son CHARLES the First who was zealously conscientious for Episcopacy King Charles goes on in hiâ— designs for the Church so what his Father begun out of Policy was prosecuted by him out of Conscience The Bishops therefore were cherished by him with all imaginable expressions of kindness and confidence but they lost all their esteem with the People and that upon divers accounts The People of Scotland had drunk in a deep prejudice against every thing that savoured of Popery Prejudices are conceived against the Biâ—hops This the Bishops judged was too high and therefore took all means possible to lessen it both in Sermons and Discourses mollifying their Opinions and commending their Persons not without some reflections on the Reformers But this was so far from gaining their design that it abated nothing of the zeal was against Popery they are charged with Popery but very much heightned the rage against themselves as favouring it too much There were also subtile Questions started some years before in Holland about Predestination and Grace and Arminius his Opinion and Arminianism as it was condemned in a Synod at Dort so was generally ill reported of in all Reformed Churches and no-where worse than in Scotland but most of the Bishops and their Adherents undertook openly and zealously the defence of these Tenets and breach of Sabbath Likewise the Scotish Ministers and People had ever a great respect to the Lords Day and generally the Morality of it is reckoned an Article of Faith among them but the Bishops not onely undertook to beat down this Opinion but by their Practices expressed their neglect of that Day and after all this they declared themselves avowed Zealots for the Liturgy and Ceremonies of England which were held by the Zealous of Scotland all one with Popery Upon these accounts it was that they lost all their esteem with the People Neither stood they in better terms with the Nobility The Nobility became jealous of them who at that time were as considerable as ever Scotland saw them and so proved both more sensible of Injuries and more capable of resenting them They were offended with them because they seemed to have more interest with the King than themselves had so that Favours were mainly distributed by their
instructed They continued treating about this till the 20th of August but still declined to execute those particulars that were commanded and threatned to call an Assembly and Parliament themselves wherefore the Marquis craved again the space of twenty days to go and bring an Answer from His Majesty which he did to gain more time and to shew the King into what extremities they were now run and that it was necessary He should immediately break with them or give way to the full Career of their zeal The Marquis goes again to Court and so he took Journey on the 25th to Court But the first night he stopped at Broxmouth to consider with the Earls of Traquair Roxburgh and Southesk what advice to offer His Majesty who agreed on the following Articles taken from the Original penned by Traquair Articles of advice offered to His Majesty SInce the cause and occasion of all the Distractions which of late have happened both in Kirk and Polity seems to proceed from the conceived Fears of Innovation of Religion and Laws and that the Service-Book Book of Canons and the unbounded power of Bishops in the High Commission never yet warranted by Law was that which first gave ground and occasion to the Subjects Fears and seeing the said Books are offered to be proved to be full of Tenets and Doctrines contrary to the Reformed Religion professed and established within this Kingdom and the same introduced against all form and custom practised in this Church it were an Act of Iustice well beseeming so Gracious and Glorious a King absolutely and fully to discharge the same And seeing likewise this High Commission hath given so great offence to so many of Your Majesties good Subjects and as is constantly affirmed is of so vast and illimited a power and contrary to express Laws by which all such Iudicatories not established by Act of Parliament are declared to be of no force it would much conduce to the satisfaction of this People if this Iudicatory were discharged till the same were established by Law The practice of the Five Articles of Perth hath been withstood by the most considerable part of the Subjects of all qualities both Laity and Clergy whereby great Divisions have been in this Church and are like to have an increase if Your Majesty in Your accustomed goodness and care of this poor Kirk and Kingdom shall not be graciously pleased to allow that the pressing of these Articles may be forborn until the same may be considered of in an Assembly and Parliament and although we conceive Episcopaâ—y to be a Church-Government most agreeable with Monarchy yet the illimited power which the Lords of the Clergy of this Kingdom have of late assumed to themselves in admitting and deposing of Ministers and in divers other of their Acts and Proceedings gives us just ground humbly to beg that Your Majesty may be pleased to remit to the Consideration of the Assembly this their unwarranted Power The sense and apprehension of these foresaid Evils hath sâ—irred up the Subjects without warrant of Authority to joyn in a Bond and Covenant to withstand the foresaid Innovations and for maintainance of the true Religion the Kings Majesties Person and of one another in the defence thereof If Your Majesty might be graciously pleased in supplement hereof to allow or warrant such a Confession of Faith with such a Covenant or Bond joyned thereto as that signed by Your Majesties Father and by His Command by the Council and most part of the Kingdom we are very confident the same would be a ready and forcible mean to quiet the present Disorders at least to satisfie most part and if Your Majesty shall condescend to the foresaid Propositions we are hopeful if not confident it shall give so great contenâ— to so considerable a number of Your Majesties good Subjects of all qualities that if any shall stand out or withstand Your Majesties Royal Pleasure after the publication thereof they may be overtaken by Your Majesties Power within this Kingdom without the help or assistance of any Force elsewhere And because it is to be hoped that all that hath past in this business and all the Courses that have been taken herein by the Subjects hath proceeded from the foresaid Fears of Innovations and not out of any Disloyalty or dissatisfaction to Soveraignty and that Your good People may still taste the fruits of Your Grace and Goodness we wish Your Majesty may be graciously pleased upon the Word of a King to pardon what is past and never so much as to take notice of any of the Actions or Proceedings of what person soever who after this shall carry himself as becomes a dutiful Subject and in testification thereof shall give his best assistance for settling the present Disorders And if Your Majesty may be pleased to condescend hereto we conceive all Your Majesties Subjects Petitioners or Covenanters should acquiesce and rest heartily satisfied therewith and if any shall be so foolish or mad as notwithstanding this Your Majesties grace and goodness still to disturb the Peace of Your Majesties Government we in testification of our hearty thankfulness to our Soveraign by these humbly and heartily make offer of our Lives and Fortunes for assisting Your Majesty or Your Commissioner in suppressing all such Insolences or insolent persons Signed Hamilton Traquair Roxburgh Southesk From Broxmouth he went forward to wait on His Majesty and did shew him that unless he enlarged his Instructions he was to treat no further The Marquis advises the King to renew King Iames his Covenant since he saw the Contempt was like to be put on the last Instructions so visibly that he durst not make use of them lest he should thereby have exposed His Majesties Goodness to new Affronts And as he represented this to His Majesty so he told him nothing seemed so likely a Course for removing of Jealousies and settling all things as the Authorising the Covenant that upon King Iames his command was drawn up by Mr. Iohn Craig An. 1580 containing the renunciation of all the Articles of Popery which was the ground of the present Covenant The King reasons against that His Majesty did utterly disrelish the Proposition of signing that Covenant usually called the Negative Confession for he remembred how his Father had resented his doing of that as rash and indeliberate And it seemed strange to him that so many Negatives should be sworn to especially with such aggravations of Epithets as if one might not be firm enough to the Protestant Doctrine unless he not only abjured Popery in bulk but also by retail in so many particulars some whereof might be both uncertain and indifferent And it seemed tyrannical over tender Consciences to require such an Oath from all Persons but more especially from Women and simple People who could not judge well and so were not fit to swear in such nice points therefore the King said he looked upon the Remedy proposed as full
Our Council by Our Letter to that effect CHARLES R. Oatlands the 9th of Septemb. 1638. With these His Majesty did also sign the following Instructions for his behaviour with the Bishops CHARLES R. Instructions to be communicated to the Bishops YOV shall shew My Lord of St. Andrews that We intend by being content with his demission of the Chancellours Place no injury to him and most willing We are that in the manner of doing it he may receive no prejudice in his reputation though we cannot admit at this time of his nominating a Successor and to make it more plain that We are far from having any thought to affront him by thinking of his demission We will in no ways that you urge him to do it yet you are to intimate that in Our opinion a fair Demission will prove more to the advancement of Our Service and be better for him than if he should retain the Place If you find him willing to demit you shall then try what consideration he doth expect from Vs and if the same be not altogether unreasonable you shall promise it in Our Name If a demission then it is presently to be done If he resolve to hold that Place then you must prâ—sently command his repair to Scotland all excuses set apart You shall communicate to him and the rest of his Brethren that far of Our Intentions that it is probable you may indict a General Assembly Thai We are content absolutely to discharge the Books of Service and Canons and the High Commission You shall shew that the Five Articles of Perth We are pleased be esteemed as indifferent and that though We maintain Episcopacy yet We will be content that their Power be limited according to the Laws And it is Our further Pleasure that if an Assembly be indicted he and the rest of his Brethren be there to defend themselves and their Cause and for that end that he and they repair to Newcastle Morpeth or Berwick there to attend your further advertisement that so immediately they may repair to Scotland not only to answer for themselves at the said Assembly but likewise to consult with you what will be fiâ—test to be done for the advancement of Our Service that evil may be kept off so much as in you and them lieth both from Kirk and Commonwealth C.R. Oatlands the 9th September 1638. As for the Place where the Assembly should be held The Assembly was to sit at Glasgow though in the written Instructions it is referred to my Lord Commissioners choice Edinburgh only excepted yet it seems it hath been concerted betwixt the King and him where it should hold for in a Paper concerning the Assembly presented by the Marquis to the King yet extant where mention is made of the Place of the Assembly the King with His Own hand interlined Glasgow if may be and without doubt that was the fittest place for as the City was large and convenient so the Magistracy there was right set Besides it was next to the place of the Marquis his Interest whereby his power for over-ruling them might have been greatest neither was it fit they should go so far from the scene as Aberdeen which was advised by my Lord St. Andrews since for the Strangers it would have been all to one purpose for thither they would all have flocked and it seemed not so proper they should meet in a Place or Country which was still well set lest the numbers and boldness of those Strangers had either poysoned or frighted them from their Duty But to make the whole matter clear I shall here set down the Covenant and Bond which were now enjoyned by His Majesty WE all and every one of us underwritten protest The National Covenant first signed by King Iames and now received by the Kings Order that after long and due examination of our Consciences in Matters of true and false Religion we are now thorowly resolved in the Truth by the Word and Spirit of God and therefore we believe with our Hearts confess with our Mouthes subscribe with our Hands and constantly affirm before God and the whole World that this only is the true Christian Faith and Religion pleasing God and bringing Salvation to man which is now by the Mercy of God revealed to the World by the preaching of the blessed Evangel and received believed and defended by many and sundry notable Kirks and Realms but chiefly by the Kirk of Scotland the Kings Majesty and the Estates of this Realm as Gods eternal Truth and only ground of our Salvation as more particularly is expressed in thâ— Confession of our Faith stablished and publickly confirmed by sundry Acts of Parliaments and now of a long time hath been openly professed by the Kings Majesty and whole body of this Realm both in Burgh and Land to the which Confession and form of Religion we willingly agree in our Consciences in all points as unto Gods undoubted Truth and verity grounded only upon his written Word and therefore we abhor and detest all contrary Religion and Doctrine but chiefly all kind of Papistry in general and particular Heads even as they are now damned and confuted by the Word of God and Kirk of Scotland But in special we detest and refuse the usurped Authority of that Roman Antichrist upon the Scriptures of God upon the Kirk and Civil Magistrate and Consciences of men all his tyrannous Laws made upon indifferent things against our Christian Liberty his erroneous Doctrine against the Sufficiency of the written Word the perfection of the Law the Office of Christ and his blessed Evangel his corrupted Doctrine concerning Original Sin our natural inability and rebellion to Gods Law our Iustification by Faith only our imperfect Sanctification and obedience to the Law the nature number and use of the Holy Sacraments his Five bastard Sacraments with all his Rites Ceremonies and false Doctrine added to the ministration of the true Sacraments without the Word of God his cruel Iudgements against Infants departing without the Sacrament his absolute necessity of Baptism his blasphemous opinion of Transubstantiation or real presence of Christs Body in the Elements and receiving of the same by the wicked or bodies of men his Dispensations with Solemn Oaths Perjuries and degrees of Marriage forbidden in the Word his cruelty against the Innocent divorced his devilish Mass his blasphemous Priesthood his profane Sacrifice for the sins of the dead and the quick his Canonization of men calling upon Angels or Saints departed worshipping of Imagery Reliques and Crosses dedicating of Kirks Altars Days Vows to Creatures his Purgatory Prayers for the Dead praying or speaking in strange Language with his Processions and blasphemous Litany and multitude of Advocates or Mediators his manifold Orders Auricular Confession his desperate and uncertain Repentance his general and doubtsome Faith his Satisfactions of men for their sins his Iustification by Works Opus operatum Works of Supererrogation Merits Pardons Peregrinations and Stations
the Exchequer for payment the Marquis gave him Security out of his own Estate for it and at the same time the Archbishop of S. Andrews resigning the place of Chancellour he gave him also Security for two thousand five hundred pounds Sterlin out of his own Fortune so ready was he to go through with His Majesties Affairs and to hazard the ruine of his Fortune and Family for the Treasury of Scotland was so entirely exhausted that there was no Money in it And though no Payments were made the Marquis for the great Expence he was at yet in all his Letters to the King he never once complained of it nor did he press the King to send him Money except onely ten thousand pounds Sterlin which he earnestly called for to distribute among the Bishops and other poor Ministers who were ruined for their Duty to the King and though this was not sent he suffered none of them to be pinched but supplied them in all their straits for which the Bishops made great Acknowledgments not onely to himself but to my Lord of Canterbury who returned him many thanks in their Names Concerning all these particulars His Majesty wrote to him the following Letter Hamilton THe Letter that Ro. Lesley gave me this day from you though it be long yet will require but Answer by me in two particulars the rest you will find answered by my Lord of Canterbury to wit the Castle of Edinburgh and the Supply of Money to the Bishops To the first I totally agree both for the Man to be put into it and the Summe of Three thousand pounds Sâ—erlin if you can draw it no lower for the other I cannot say how soon I shall be able to doe it Expence daily increasing and in particular the securing of Berwick and Carlisle being of necessity to be done as you know in the middle of the next Moneth But I hope in God at furthest before Christmass yet I cannot promise it with that secrecy that would be wished for I find the way by the Prince of Orange both unpracticable and unsafe So both pitying and praising your Pains in my Service I rest Your assured constant Friend CHARLES R. Whitehall 8 Nov. 1638. Ruthwen made Governour but the Castle is ill furnished Having got the Castle of Edinburgh into his hands he advised the King to trust Gen. Ruthwen who had returned from the German Wars loaded with Fame with the keeping of it to which His Majesty consented And this may sufficiently clear the Marquis of all other Designs but those his Duty inspired him with since to the greatest Trust in Scotland considering those Times and the Command that Castle hath over Edinburgh he recommended one whosâ— Loyalty was as invincible as his Courage But the Marquis having visited the Castle found it in the worst case imaginable not a Musquet but one in it and it not for Service very little Powder and not a Yard of Match The buying the Command of the Castle made so great a noise that he durst not proceed to the furnishing it with Men Victuals and Arms all which were wanting till the first Heats were over and the Body of the Covenanters had gone to Glasgow for besides that they set Guards about it had they set upon it they would have infallibly carried it by starving them within who were able to doe them no hurt Ruthwen would not go to the Castle till it were better furnished neither did the Marquis think fit to change the Captain of it too soon But finding him no Covenanter and having taken his Oath in writing which is yet extant never to surrender it but with his Life he laid down the best course he could for furnishing it which he got no opportunity to doe as we shall see hereafter Now was the Bishop of Ross Bishop of Ross comes from London whom my Lord S. Andrews and the other Bishops had sent to London dispatched home again who brought with him the following Letter from His Majesty Hamilton I Would not answer your two of the 14th and 15th of this moneth till I had fully dispatched the Bishop of Ross whom I have sent away not onely well instructed but well satisfied with my ways It is true that his Instructions were not totally according to our Grounds but I made him alter I am confident as well in Iudgment as Obedience for upon discourse he much approved of my Alterations confessing likewise that you upon the place may find reason to make more wherefore all is referred to you as well what I answered as what not so leaving and recommending him to your care I come to answer your last Letters with the account of which I am much more satisfied than your other Dispatch before as likewise you have fully satisfied me in all my Queries and in particular I confess clearly you had reason to joyn the Covenanters with my honest Servants for procuring of Subscriptions to my Bond because I see the Council would have it so But certainly it had been better otherwise if you could have done it with their consent In short I am truly and fully satisfied with all your Proceedings so that you may be confident that I am Your assured constant Friend CHARLES R. Whitehall 24 Octob. 1638. The draught of the Bishops Declinator was revised by the King The Kings Observations on the Bishops Declinator and His Majesty made divers Observations and Amendments with his own Hand yet extant which Paper though not so clearly to be understood unless the first draught of the Declinator were to be set down with it which is not in the Writers power yet may give some satisfaction and at least will both shew how tender His Majesty was of any thing which might give new Irritations to his distempered Subjects and how diligently himself reviewed all Papers His MAJESTIES Observations upon the Declinator CHARLES R. THe second reason to be advised with my Lord Commissioner whether or not it be safe at this time to except against the Form of the Publication of the Indiction of the Assembly The third is a very good reason against the Proceeding of the Assembly but will not infer a Nullity In all the reasons where the Assembly is called a pretended Assembly it is His Majesties Pleasure that the word pretended be deleted out of the Copy shewed to His Majesty For the seventh reason if it offend not the inferiour Clergie His Majesty is contented with it In the ninth reason to omit the precondemning of the Service-book Book of Canons and High Commission The tenth reason is so full that the eighth may be totally omitted The eleventh reason militates abundantly against all those who hold such Tenets that they cannot Voice in the Assembly though it infer not an absolute Nullity of the Assembly The thirteenth de loco tuto accessu tuto to be totally omitted The fourteenth and last to be totally omitted In the conclusion thereis one clause markeâ— by His Majesties
His Majesty and use the utmost of my Intercession with His Sacred Majesty for the Indiction of a new Assembly before the meeting whereof all these things now challenged may be amended if you shall refuse this Offer His Majesty will then declare to the whole World that you are disturbers of the Peace of this Church and State both by introducing of Lay-elders against the Laws and Practices of this Church and Kingdom and by going about to abolish Episcopal Government which at this present stands established by both the said Laws two points I dare say and you must swear it if your Consciences be appealed to as was well observed by that Reverend Gentleman we heard preach the last Sunday which these you drew into your Covenant were never made acquainted with at their entring into it much less could they suspect that these two should be made the issue of this business and the two stumbling-blocks to make them fall off from their Natural Obedience to their Soveraign Mr. Henderson made a long Speech Mr. Henderson answers wherein he said much to the magnifying of the Kings Authority in matters Ecclesiastical calling him The Vniversal Bishop of the Churches in His Dominions with other such like Expressions which gave no small disgust to many of the zealous Brethren but in the end he said that we must render to God the things that were Gods as well as to Caesar the things which were Caesars and spoke much for vindicating their Proceedings and charging the Bishops And after him many of the Lords spoke about the Freedom of the Assembly to whom the Marquis replied AS for your pretence of your unlimited Freedom The Marquis replies you indeed refused so much as to hear from His Majesties Commissioner of any precedent Treaty for the preparing and right-ordering of things before the Assembly alledging that it could not be a free Assembly where there was any Prelimitation either of the Choosers or of those to be chosen or of things to be treated of in the Assembly but that all things must be discussed upon the place else the Assembly could not be free but whether you your selves have not violated that which you call Freedom let any man judge for besides these Instructions which it may be are not come to our knowledge we have seen and offer now to produce four several Papers of Instructions sent from them whom you call the Tables containing all of them Prelimitations and such as are not onely repugnant to that which you call the Freedom but to that which is indeed the Freedom of an Assembly Two of these Papers were such as you were contented should be communicated to all your Associates to wit that larger Paper sent abroad to all Presbyteries immediately after His Majesties Indiction of the Assembly and that lesser Paper for your meeting first at Edinburgh then at Glasgow some days before the Assembly which Paper gave order for chusing of Assessors and divers other particulars but your other two Papers of Secret Instructions were directed one of them onely to one Minister of every Presbytery to be communicated by him as he should see cause but to be quite concealed from the rest of the Ministers the other Paper was directed onely to one Lay-elder of every Presbytery and to be communicated by him as he should see cause but to be quite concealed from all others in both which Papers are contained such Directions which being followed as they were have quite banished all Freedom from this Assembly as shall appear by reading the Papers themselves These he caused read but they were disowned by the Members of the Assembly and they said they might have been the private Opinions of some but did infer no Prelimitation on the Assembly to which the Marquis answered That all the Elections being ordered according to these was a clear proof they were sent by an Authority which all feared to disobey And after that he told That for many moneths the Orders of the Table had been obeyed by all but he would now make a trial what Obedience they would give to the Kings Command and protested that one of the chief Reasons that moved him to dissolve this Assembly was to deliver the Ministers from the Tyranny of Lay-elders who if not suppressed would as they were now designing the ruine of Episcopal Power prove not onely Ruling but Over-ruling-elders By this time his Heart was so full of Grief which was easily to be observed by divers Indications that almost all present were affected with it In end seeing nothing said in reason did prevail he in His Majesties Name dissolved the Assembly and dissolves the Assembly but they continued to sit and discharged their further Proceeding under pain of Treason Mr. Henderson and the Earl of Rothes answered him that they were sorry he left them but their Consciences bore them witness they had hitherto done nothing amiss so they could not desert the Work of God protesting much of their Duty and Obedience to the King in its due line and subordination and after this a long Protestation was begun and read This being done the Marquis presently went out and called a new Council The Council approved of it to whom he told how sorry His Majesty would be for this Breach and how really desirous he was to have done all was possible for satisfying of his Subjects but that their Behaviour had extorted what was done he therefore encouraged them all to their Duty to the King assuring them that whatever any of them might suffer for it His Majesty would see they should be no losers From this Council the Earl of Argyle withdrew and fully cleared all Jealousies about him for he told the Marquis in plain Language he would take the Covenant and own the Assembly But most of the Councellours seemed satisfied with the Marquis his Carriage in the Assembly particularly all his Assessors Argyle onely excepted yet the Marquis durst not offer the Proclamation for dissolving the Assembly to be signed in Council for fear of a refusal not having tried them all in it beforehand but got most of them to sign it next morning and then he sent it to the Market-Cross to be proclaimed where it met with a new Protestation Argyle's Example was followed by some few Privy-Councelours whose declaring themselves the Marquis judged rather an advantage than a loss The Council also wrote a Letter to the King highly commending the Marquis his zeal and industry in what had passed in the Assembly which is in the Large Declaration to which the Reader is referred for the perusal of all the Papers set down there at length these being onely inserted here that were not then made publick Thus he left Glasgow and went first to Hamilton The Marquis returns to Edinburgh carrying some of the Bishops with him for their security from hazard and after two or three days stay there went to Edinburgh hoping that as he had outlived their
I should be glad of if it should not retard the Service and so I rest Your assured constant Friend CHARLES R. York 5 Apr. 1639. A Dispatch came at this time from Ireland shewing that it would be about the end of Iune before the Lord Lieutenant could come with the Army he was preparing for His Majesties assistance The hopes from Ireland fail adding that all Antrims fair undertakings were like to vanish in Air and that he was not able to doe as he had engaged for after he had used many Arts to find some colour of fastening the failing on the Lieutenants part by unreasonable demands finding him satisfied with them all was forced to acknowledge that he was not able to doe the King the Service he had undeâ—taken that Summer yet most of the Scots in Ireland offered their Service very cordially and willingly declared their dislike of the Covenant The King advises about the Indempnity he was to offer the Covenanters His Majesties next care was about His Proclamation for Scotland wherein he gave an account of the Affronts His Authority had received by the Covenanters and his designs to doe â—imself right according to the Power and Authority God had put in his hand withal offering Indempnity to such as should within eight days lay down their Arms some few excepted Declaring such as would not obey Rebels setting a Price upon their Heads and ordering their Vassals and Tenants not to acknowledge them nor pay them Rents But by His Majesties Letters it will appear how he was advised to change some particulars of the first Draught to which Counsels His Majesty did willingly give ear though there were some about him of both Nations studious enough to disswade him from any thing that looked like a temper some carried on by their Revenge and passionate Resentments others were acted perhaps with worse Principles and Designs In end His Majesty having resolved on a draught of a Proclamation he sent one to the Marquis with this following Letter Hamilton I Send you with this my Proclamation as I have now made it upon debate with Sir Lewis Stewart wherein I have altered nothing from the first but what I wrote you by my last only I have added some things of favour to those that shall repent which nevertheless are of so little moment that although this should not come to your hands time enough the other might pass very well As for the publishing of it I shall doe my best to get it proclaimed both in Edinburgh and in the rest of the Kingdom nevertheless you must not leave to doe your best for the publishing of it So wishing good success as well to your Person as Cause I rest Your assured constant Friend CHARLES R. York 7 Apr. 1639. And with this Letter the King sent the following Order written with His Own Hand Hamilton I Send you herewith my Pleasure in a Proclamation to my Subjects of Scotland and by this command you to use all sort of Hostility against all those who shall not submit themselves according to the tenour of the same for which this shall be your Warrant CHARLES R. York 7 Apr. 1639. At the same time the Marquis received the following Letter Hamilton I Have spoken with Henry Vane at full of all those things that were concerted betwixt you and agree in all things but one which is that he thinks your going into the Frith will make the Rebels enter into England the sooner whereas on the contrary I think that my poâ—sessing of Carlisle and Berwick hath made them so mad that they will enter in as soon as they can perswade an Army together except they be hindred by some awful Diversion wherefore I could wish that you were even now in the Frith though the Borders might be quiet till my Army be brought together which they say will hardly be yet these ten days Yet I am not out of hope to be at Newcastle within these fourteen days and so to Berwick as soon as I may with either Honour or Safety wherefore my Conclusion is go on a Gods Name in your former Intentions except I send you otherwise â—ord or your self find some inevitable necessity and so I rest Your assured constant Friend CHARLES R. York 10 Apr. 1638. POSTSCRIPT I have sent yâ—u ten Blanks whereof four be Signaturewise Both these found him at Yarmouth Road on the fifteenth of April whither he was come to take in his Souldiers The Marquis is at Yarmoutâ— to put his Souldiers aboard The Officers were very affectionate to His Majesties Service but did not know what their employment was to be save that in general they were to go to Sea When he told them they must go to Holy-Island and there receive the Kings further Orders they seemed surprized yet were resolved on Obedience Their men were good bodies well cloathed and well armed but so little exercised that of the 5000 there were not 200 that could fire a Musket The occasion of this was a Clause in the Councils Letter to the Lieutenants of the Counties in which they were levied that if other good men could be had the trained men should be spared and the Deputy-Lieutenants upon this ordered it so that not so much as the Serjeants and Corporals were trained But whether there was a Design in this God knows for nothing appears to make it out beside Jealousies This was a great affliction to the Marquis for he knew the King confided much in him and yet he saw there was an Impossibility of his doing any thing to purpose till the Souldiers were some ways exercised which he caused doe upon the Ships as frequently as was possible The furnishing them with Water and other necessaries together with Cross Winds kept them some days in the Road and before they got out of it the Marquis received the following Letter from His Majesty Hamilton IT is true that I was content to hear your Advice concerning your going into the Frith it being chiefly to shew Henry Vane that your Iudgement went along as well as your Obedience though I had a care ever to take off from you the envy of seeking this particular Imployment taking it as it is just upon my own absolute Command yet I will not say but that you might have cause to wonder because neither of us expressed our selves so clearly as we might But my chief errand to you at this time is that upon serious Debate upon your long Letter to Henry Vane only with him and Arundel for I dare trust no otâ—er we found no reason to alter my former Commands but were more confirmed in the fitness of them only we have thought requisit to alter some things in the Proclamation which you shall receive by the next Dispatch at furthest within a day or two of this so that you are not to indeed I think you cannot publish any until the New one come to you for I believe it will be at the Holy-Island before you
of the Magazine in the Navy which being done the Fleet was to be sent out of the Frith And accordingly on the 24th of Iune he came to Edinburgh but he met with such Reproaches and Hootings from the Vulgar that he was forced for preventing a Tumult to desire some of the Covenanting Lords to wait on him to the Castle and yet on the way he was all along cried out upon with most unworthy Names as Pyrate Traitour Enemy to God and his Country with other such-like Invectives These he could not but despise though he was sensible of the Dishonour put upon the Kings Commissioner by that Usage yet he might well have expected that it should have secured him from the Jealousies Stories which were spread of him as if he had been all that time so popular that he was looked upon as the chief Friend of the Good Cause which was as well grounded as the rest of these Reports But having executed the Kings Orders about the Castle of Edinburgh he left the Earl of Traquair whom with the Earl of Roxburgh His Majesty had again received into his Favour to see the rest of the Conditions fulfilled The Tables continued to sit The Tables continue to sit pretending it was necessary they should doe so till all were scattered It is true I have in my hands a Copy of a Warrant for them to sit till the 20th of Iuly but whether it was signed I can neither assert nor deny Divers Disorders fell out in Edinburgh and Traquair met with many Insolences in one of which the White-staff which was carried by his Servant before his Coach was pulled out of his Hand and Complaint being made of this to the Town-Council of Edinburgh all the Reparation they offered was to bring my Lord Treasurer another White-staff so it was said they rated the Affront put on the King in the Person of his Treasurer at Six pence Other Insolences were also complained of and the Covenanters partly excused them and the Covenanters are insolent partly denied what was alledged but no Reparation was made These Disorders obliged His Majesty to change his purpose of coming to Scotland in Person resolving to be present onely by his Commissioner The Marquis returned to His Majesty and stated all that was to be thought upon for Scotish Affairs in a Paper presented to His Majesty at Berwick the 5th of Iuly yet extant in these words To leave all that is past the Question is briefly The Marquis his advice to the King WHether the Assembly and Parliament now indicted is fittest to be held or discharged If held the Success of the Assembly will be the Ratisying of what was done at Glasgow or if that point be gained yet certainly most of the Acts that were made there will of new enacted nor is there any hope to prevent their finding Episcopacy to be abjured by their Covenant and the Function against the Constitution of their Church This will be by the Members of Parliament ratified and put to the Kings Negative Voice and if it be not condescended to by him it is more than probable that his Power even in that Court and in that Place will be questioned If it will be discharged nevertheless the Assembly be keeped by the Rebels and the same things done in it by them and thereafter maintained by the generality of the Kingdom this consequently will bring alongst with it the certain loss of Civil Authority and so necessitate the re-establishing the same by Force or otherwise the desertion of that Kingdom So it is to be resolved on whether it be fit to give way to the Madness of the People or of new to intend a Kingly Way If way be given to what is mentioned it is to be considered in that case if the King shall be personally present or not if not present who shall be imployed and how instructed If the Kingly Way be taken what shall be the means to effectuate the intended end particularly how Money may be levied for the waging of this War and if that be feisible without a Parliament If a Parliament what the Consequence may prove So all may be summed up in this Whether to permit the Abolishing of Episcopacy the lessening of Kingly Power in Ecclesiastick Affairs the Establishing Civil Authority in such manner as the Iniquity of the Times will suffer and to expect better and what will be the Consequence of this if way be given thereto or to call a Parliament in England and leave the event thereof to hazard and their discretions and in the interim Scotland to the Government of the Covenanters This Freedom declares how candidly he dealt with the King in all his Counsels It is true he pressed the King earnestly to give way to the abolishing of Bishops judging that to be the onely mean to bring Scotland again into Order but this was out of no other Principle save his Desire to see the King again enjoy the Affections as well as the Obedience of his Subjects of Scotland thinking Episcopal Government not so essential or absolutely necessary as not to be parted with for a time in such an Exigency wherein the Ruine of the King and Kingdom was was so manifestly threatned His Majesty considering that God did not tie him to Impossibilities The King intends to send him again Commissioner into Scotland resolved notwithstanding his Conscientious adhering to Episcopacy in England to give way for some time to lay aside that Government in Scotland hoping to draw more good from it but intended to imploy another for executing it knowing that his Countenance and Carriage would betray the Discord was betwixt his Heart and his Actions if he went himself and being well satisfied with the Marquis his Behaviour desired him to return to Scotland in the same Character and finish that Business But he made use of all his Forces both of Reason Friendship who opposes it with all his Interest and Interest to divert the King from this representing the following Reasons to dissuade him from it in a Paper presented the 8th of Iuly in these words IF Your Majesty give way to the Covenanters Demands it would be seriously considered which will be the fittest way to doe it if by Your Majesties Own Personal Presence or by a Commissioner if Your Self I shall say in that case nothing in this Paper if by a Commissioner then give me leave humbly to represent to Your Majesties Consideration how unfit it is that I should be imployed The Hatred that is generally carried me and in particular by the chief Covenanters will make them hoping thereby either to ruine me or at least make my Service not acceptable stand more peremptorily on these other Points of Civil Obedience which Your Majesty aims at than they would doe to one that is less hated Since they are the same men I have formerly treated with who now again must be principally used they cannot but find these Particulars which I
came to them and with great vehemence pressed them to engage in a new War and among other Motives brought them Engagements in writing from most of the greatest Peers of England to joyn with them and assist them when they should come into England with their Army This did much animate them for they had not the least doubt of the Papers brought them But all this was discovered at the Treaty of Rippon to have been a base Forgery for there the Scotish Lords looking very sullenly on some of the English Lords as on Persons of no Faith or Truth the Lord Mandevil came to the Earl of Rothes and asked the reason of that Change of their Countenance and Behaviour in them who after some high reflections at length challenged him and the other Lords of not keeping what they had engaged to them Upon which that Lord stood amazed and told him and so did the other Lords there that they had sent no such Messages nor Papers to them and that they had been abused by the blackest Imposture that ever was Thus it appeared how dangerous it may be to receive some things that seem to have the highest Probabilities in them easily and upon trust In April following the King called a Parliament in England A short Parliament in England but they begun with their Grievances in which they rose to so high a strain that after twenty days Sitting the King by advice of his Council dissolved them but the hopes of Money from the Parliament failing the next Course was to try what could be drawn by Loan and for good example the Councellours subscribed for near two hundred thousand pounds Sterlin The Councellours lend Money What the Marquis his part was in this I should have willingly concealed judging fit that his Story should be as sparing in relating it as himself was modest in not boasting of it but Sanderson and some other malicious or ignorant Pens who say That he pretended Poverty and subscribed for none force me to free him of that Calumny by a true Relation of what his Duty to the King cost him at this time He subscribed for 10000 l. Sterlin and laid down Eight thousand of it presently in Gold likewise in August following at York he again subscribed and laid down Six thousand and three hundred pounds for both which he had Tallies struck Besides this when he served as Commissioner in Scotland in the year 1638. he got no Payments made him Ten thousand pounds Sterlin was allowed him of which he had not received a farthing and besides the great expence he was at in that Service he laid that year out of his own Money about 5000 l. Sterlin on the Kings account And thus in the space of four years he advanced to the King near Thirty thousand pounds Sterlin and this was in a time when the advantages he had by his Places and Pensions were through the necessity of the Kings affairs dried up But since I was forced to say this I must not conceal His Majesty who now reigns His Justice and Goodness to his Heiress in repaying the sum contained in those Tallies together with the other Royal effects of His Favour which they have felt in the repayment of the Scotsh Debt This is said once for all and all this was little reckoned of by him who was ready to hazard both Life and Fortune for His Majesties Service acknowledging that it was Just since he and his Ancestors owed so much to the King and his Progenitours bounty that all he had should be spent in his Service The Covenanters in Scotland were beginning to look to themselves and fearing Ruthwen Ruthwen a terror to the Covenanters who was in the Castle of Edinburgh they required him to obey their Orders but he told them he had his Trust from the King and would acknowledge no Commands but his whereupon they blockt him up He might easily have done them much Mischief but his Orders were to hold himself most on the Defensive and to amuse them but not to break out to open Hostilities within which limits he contained himself The second of Iune came which was the day the Parliament was to Set but the King had sent down an Order to the Justice-Clerk for proroguing it The Parliament sits notwithstanding the Kings Orders for proroguing of it and he was to carry along with him in this Affair the assistance of the Kings Advocate who was at this time confined to his House in Fife by the King upon pretence of some petty maleversation in his Office but really because of his adhering to the Covenanters too much The Kings Advocate was glad both of being delivered from that Disgrace and for being honoured with the Employment But to clear the Method in which he intended to proceed to make this Prorogation legal I must look back a little when Traquair got his Commission under the Broad-Seal there was another Commission given under the quarter-Seal to the Lord Elphinstown the Lord Napier the Kings Advocate and the Justice-Clerk these or three of them were impowred to act as Commissioners in Traquair's absence and upon his Orders Therefore the Kings Advocate judged it needless to fill up a Blank that was sent down to be made use of if need were to make the Prorogation Legal but resolved to require one of the other two to concur with the Justice-Clerk and himself in the Prorogation which was to be done after the Parliament was Fenced therefore they provided the persons necessary for Fencing of it a Ceremony they use in the beginning of a Session who are the Constable the Marshal the Provost of Edinburgh the Sheriff of Lowthian and a Doomster and if any of these be absent the King must name others for their Service that day So the Members of Parliament being met the Kings Advocate required the Lord Elphinstown who was first in the Commission to go up with them to the Throne for executing the Kings Commands who having read the Commission found their Power was only to act by the Commissioners Order and therefore called for Traquair's Warrant the Kings Advocate answered That as when the King is present a Commissioners Power of it self expires so also when his Warrant is produced there is no need of one from his Commissioner But Elphinstown stood on the Letter of the Commission and so found he was not legally warranted to doe it That same was the Lord Napier's Answer who was also of the Commission and so the Kings Advocate and the Justice-Clerk could doe nothing but take Instruments Many imputed this to the Kings Advocat's Jugling but he vindicated himself solemnly which is extant under his Hand with a long Narrative of this whole Affair sent up by him to the King However the effects of this Errour were great for the Members voted themselves to be in a Parliamentary Capacity as being summoned by the King at first and again adjourned to this day whereupon they proceeded to
Petitions and true Informations of my Innocency and Loyalty but doth notwithstanding thereof harbour any opinion of my Disloyalty or casting off my dutiful Obedience and Subjection to His Majesty or offering Subjection to any other King or Potentate in the World I am content to undergo the most exact Trial which is agreeable to the Laws of that Kingdom by which onely I ought to be judged rather than lie under such a heavy Imputation which to me who am conscious of my own Innocency and of my most tender and humble Duty towards His Majesty is more grievous than my Sufferings which can onely prejudice and hurt me and my private Estate but can no ways conduce for advancing of His Majesties Service but rather be a hinderance to the Accommodation of Affairs whereas my Liberty or lawful Trial will serve for the Illustration of His Majesties Iustice to the World and will make His Subjects without fear of danger to tender their humble Suits and Remonstrances at the Throne of His Royal Iustice. An. 1639. Upon this the Marquis pressed the King much for my Lord Lowdon's Enlargement since the Covenanters made great noise with it in all their Complaints The Marquis treats with him by the Kings Order and pretended that they durst send up no more Commissioners and therefore they sent their Acts in the Packet He did also shew His Majesty that he knew by the Lieutenant of the Tower that Lowdon was very fearful wherefore he desired permission from the King to try what this Fear could draw from him and to see if his Enlargement with the hopes of a Noble Reward could engage him to the Kings Service which if obtained might prove of great advantage since the Irritations he had received would make his Advices less suspected in Scotland His Majesty approving this he treated with Lowdon and found him abundantly pliant and so on the 26th of Iune he agreed with him on these Terms which he got under Lowdon's Hand in two Papers yet extant THE Lord Lowdon doth promise to contribute his faithful and uttermost Endeavours for His Majesties Service and furthering of a happy Peace and shall with all possible diligence and care go about the same and shall labour that His Majesties Subjects of Scotland may in all humility petition that His Majesty may be Graciously pleased to authorize a Commissioner with full Power from His Majesty to establish the Religion and Liberty of that His Majesties Native and Ancient Kingdom according to the Articles of Pacification and that by a new Convening or Session of the Parliament without cohesion or dependence on what hath been done by themselves without His Majesties Presence or of a Commissioner to represent His Majesties Royal Person and Power That if there be not an Army already convened in Scotland in a Body he shall endeavour that they shall not convene nor come together during the time of Treaty in hope of Accommodation and if they be already convened in a Body before his return he will labour that they may dissolve and return to their several Shires or dispose so of them that they remain not in one Body as may best evince that they intend not to come into England but may carry themselves in that respective way as may best testifie their Duty to His Majesty and their Desires of Peace That if General Ruthwen shall happen to become their Prisoner they may as a testimony of their desire to shun every thing which may provoke His Majesties displeasure preserve him and that the Lord Lowdon will shew how far he is engaged for his Safety That when Affairs shall be brought to a Treaty in Parliament and that His Majesty shall be Graciously pleased to settle the Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom according to the Articles of Pacification he will endeavour that the Kings Authority shall not be entrenched upon nor diminished that they may give a real demonstration to the World how tender and careful they are that His Majesties Royal Power may be preserved both in Church and State That what is done or imparted to the Lord Lowdon concerning His Majesties Pleasure shall be kept secret and not revealed to any here further than His Majesty shall think expedient That the Lord Lowdon shall as soon as conveniently he can return an account of his Diligence There was given with this another Paper which follows An. 1640 Memorandum of what passed betwixt the Marquis of Hamilton and me 26 Iune 1640. BEcause no great matters can be well effectuated without Trust Fidelity and Secrecy therefore it is fit that we swear Fidelity and Secrecy to others and that I shall faithfully contribute my best Endeavours for performance of what I undertake and that my Lord Marquis doe the like to me Our desires and designs do tend mainly for Preservation of Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom the Kings Honour and of His Royal Authority and for establishing of a happy Peace and preventing of Wars and we are to advise and resolve upon such ways and means as may best conduce for these ends If after using of our utmost Endeavours it be not Gods will that we may be so happy as to obtain such a Peace in haste as may content the King and satisfie his Subjects till differences draw to a greater height and beginning of Wars to resolve what is fit to be done in case of such an Extremity for attaining a wished Peace and to condescend what course we shall take for keeping of Correspondence If my Endeavours and Service which doubtless will put me to a great deal of expence and pains shall prove useful for His Majesties Service and Honour and the Good of the Kingdom which are inseparable the Marquis will intercede really and imploy his best Endeavours with the King to acknowledge and recompence the Lord Lowdon 's Travels and Service in such manner as a Gracious King and Master should doe to a diligent and faithful Servant Upon this Lowdon was enlarged next day Lowdon is enlarged and permitted to go down to Scotland but those who did not know the Secret of this thought the King had weakened himself much by letting go an Hostage of such importance and this gave new Suspicions of the Marquis his Tamperings with the Covenanters His Majesty commanded the Earl of Lanerick to write by the Lord Lowdon the following Answer to the Letter sent up by the Lords of Scotland with the Acts they had lately passed My Lords BY my former of the Date the 23th of June Lanerick 's Answer to the Committee in Scotland His Majesty was pleased to promise by me to let you know within few days His further Pleasure concerning those Proceedings and Desires of the Noblemen and Barons and Burgesses which you sent me to be presented to His Majesty whereupon he hath now commanded me to tell you that the not proroguing of the Parliament in a Legal and Formal way was not for want of clear
Peers advised a Settlement with Scotland and a Parliament in England Strafford's Advice was more severe and the Marquis pressed a Pacification But though their Opinions varied yet their Friendship continued since both had the same designs for the Kings Honour and Service A recruit of Money which was beginning to run low was not to be hoped without a Parliament and their late experience told on how uneasie terms that was to be had Earl Lowdon also assured the Marquis by his Letters that the Covenanters were well armed well commanded and very resolute nor did they doubt of a strong Party in England and therefore shewed how dangerous it would prove to His Majesties Affairs if a Treaty should not presently follow The Marquis little regarding how ill these Counsels would be represented by others used all his Industry to prevail with the King for a Pacification on any terms since none could be so bad as the hazard the King was like to run if matters continued so broken for it was now apparent how faintly His Majesties Forces did serve him and with how much resolution the Scotish Armies proceeded neither were they without fears in their own Army and that many of the Peers and People of England would have assisted the Scots if matters had run to extremities A Breach betwixt the Marquis and the Earl of Montrose But at that time a passage fell out which drew after it a tract of great Troubles on the Marquis The Earl of Montrose had in Iuly that year procured a Meeting of some Noblemen at Cumbermwald the Earl of Wigtons house where there was a Bond signed by them of adherence to one another in pursuance of the Covenant and from New-Castle he continued to keep Correspondence with His Majesty notwithstanding an Act that had passed in the Committee that none should under pain of Death write any Letters to the Court but such as were seen and allowed of by at least three of the Committee But this Correspondence of my Lord Montrose came to the knowledge of the Covenanters and there were ill Instruments who suggested that this Advertisement must have been given by the Marquis which being too easily believed occasioned a Breach betwixt them that could never be made up And Sanderson hath had the Impudence not only to fasten this on him but as if there had not been Imputation enough in it he adds that the Marquis had in the night picked His Majesties Pockets for his Letters Indeed he needed not take such Courses had he been capable of that Treachery for the Kings Confidence in him was such that he delivered all the Letters he had from Scotland to his keeping and if he had designed such a thing upon Montrose it was in his Power to have done it long before for in October and December of the former year Montrose had writ much in the same strain to the King which Letters the King gave him and are yet extant but were never heard off till now that the Writer gives this account of them But the way how that Letter was discovered was this the Covenanters sent Sir Iames Mercer to York with their Letters to my Lord Lanerick of September the 14 th with whom my Lord Montrose sent his Servant with Letters to some of his Friends at Court and these Letters had been shown to the Committee but as he sealed them up he put within one to Sir Richard Grahame a Letter to the King which had not been seen and Sir Richard opening his Letter carelesly the inclosed to the King dropt out whereupon Sir Iames Mercer being near him stooped down in civility to take up the Letter and read the Direction of it and he returning next day to the Scotish Camp told what he had seen to the General who in a Committee that sate that afternoon wherein it was my Lord Montrose's turn to preside said that the Gentleman they had sent must be examined concerning any Letters he carried to the Court and so he was called in and examined But Montrose understanding that his Correspondence with the King was discovered said that seeing others kept a Correspondence with the Court he knew not why he might not do it as well as they it was answered if others were guilty that did not excuse his fault but when that could be made out against any they were liable to the same Censure he had now incurred whereupon he was commanded to keep his Chamber and he called a great many of his Friends to him to try who would adhere to him whereupon the General bade the Earl of Calender who was then Lieutenant-General tell him that if he came not and submitted himself he would hold a Council of War upon him and proceed against him Capitally Upon this my Lord Montrose came and produced a Copy of the Letter he said he had written and craved pardon and so this Matter was passed over â—ut it was suspected that his Letter had been sent to the Covenanters by the Marquis whereas indeed they knew no more of his Letter but what they had from Sir Iames Mercer who read the Address of it and so they knew not what was in it but by the Copy he produced Yet this went current for the Marquis his Treachery though Sir Iames Mercer did often vouch the truth of this before many Witnesses and particularly particularly to Sanderson himself before Noble Witnesses who acknowledged his Mis-information and promised to expunge that in the next Edition of his Book though there are no grounds to fear the Woâ—ld will ever be troubled with another Edition of so ill a Book The Treaty at Rippon In the end of September a Treaty was agreed upon and His Majesty named the Marquis and my Lords of Traquair and Lanerick to be amongst the Commissioners who should Treat in His name But the Covenanters excepted against the Marquis and Traquair whom they intended to pursue as Incendiaries and therefore they could not Treat with them as for Lanerick they had nothing to fasten on him Upon this the King resolved to send none but English Lords conceiving it not fitting to send any Scotchman if the persons he had imployed as Commissioners were not of the number Rippon a little Town fifteen miles from York was appointed to be the place of Treaty instead of Northallertown and the King sent the English Lords thither appointing Traquair and Lanerick to wait upon them for giving them Information of Scotish Affairs but he kept the Marquis to wait upon Himself The Treaty begun at Rippon and after a few days by reason of the new Parliament the King had summoned against the beginning of November was removed to London The Covenanters Demands were the same with those contained in their Letter of the 8th of September about which they continued Treating till the Iune of the next year and so this year ended But here I shall insert a Paper all written with His Majesties hand which though it do not relate
all so that no clear Proof being brought the Parliament could come to no other Decision but that the Lords had good reason to withdraw themselves and so they were invited to return to their place in Parliament But he is again in His Majesties favour This was a tedious business and put a great stop to the Settlement betwixt the King and the Nation but further Particularities are thought needless to be set down since this Matter vanished no effect following on it The Marquis quickly recovered his former â—oom in the Kings Affection so that there remained not so much as a vestige of this cross Adventure Things in Scotland took presently a Settlement and those were called Plotters and Banders after examination and a delivering up of their Bond which was burnt by the hand of the Common Hangman were set at Liberty after some time of further Restraint but the Process of the alledged Incendiaries was to go on yet they were to enjoy their Liberty and undergo no other Censure but the loss of Publick Imployment which though yielded at London was long resisted in Scotland they pretending their Oath to bring them to condign Punishment But as the King was going on with the Settlement of one Kingdom The Rebellion breaks out in Ireland he got the saddest News that ever were heard out of Ireland of the desperate Rebellion and Massacre had broken out there whereupon His Majesty recommended to the Parliament of Scotland the Relief of his oppressed Protestant Subjects in Ireland which they undertook very willingly But because of the interest England had in Ireland Commissioners were appointed to Treat with the Parliament of England for Concluding a Peace betwixt the two Nations and Settling of Trade and particularly about the Terms upon which they should engage in the War of Ireland and so about the middle of November the King having granted to the Scotish Nation all they could demand ended the Parliament there and returned to London about the end of that month But before the Marquis left Scotland he by the Kings particular Command entred in a close Friendship with Argyle considering that besides the great Power of that Family his Interest with the Clergy and Covenanters was such that none could be so useful to His Majesties Service as he And this Friendship was to be twisted closer by a Bond of a near Alliance betwixt their Children But from all the Letters that passed betwixt them yet to be seen it is as clear as can be that all the Marquis his design in this Friendship was for the Kings Service and that all that time Argyle expressed a hearty concurrence in it To gratifie the Covenanters the more the King had created him a Marquis Lowdon was also made Chancellor Lesley Earl of Leven and Lindsay put in a fair way to be Treasurer Traquair being turned out The King at his return to London The King returns to London where he finds matters worse found the Edge he had left on some of their spirits was no way blunted but growing into more sharpness When the Marquis was in Scotland a Member of the House of Commons laying out their Grievances among other things inveighed against Monopolies and spoke so plainly that all understood he meant the Marquis as a Person that deserved to be accused as well as either Strafford or Canterbury but others of that same Cabal took him up sharply And now upon the Kings return his Enemies finding their designs against him could not take with the King in whose Favour he was as much as ever they took a strange Course to destroy him which was to set on some Members of the House of Commons to accuse him as the Incendiary betwixt England and Scotland who had engaged England into all that Expence who had also invited the Scots to march into England and had been always the third in Strafford's and Canterburie's Counsels who had advised the Dissolving of the former Parliament and had oppressed the Subjects by the grants of many Monopolies which he had This was smelled out even by some of the same Cabal who perswaded their Friends to desist shewing them That for his Carriage betwixt England and Scotland an Oblivion was passed in the late Treaty which was ratified by the Parliament of England That for other things though his Engagement in the Court had carried him along to some extreme Counsels yet they said it was well enough known how moderate his Inclinations were how great an Instrument he had been in the late Settlement of Scotland and how much he was hated upon that account and that this was a design to destroy him either out of malice or because some feared his moderate Counsels in England as much as they hated them in Scotland This seems to have flowed from the Friendship which divers of the Leaders in the House of Peers had for him whom he had often obliged and as they were not unsensible nor forgetful of his good Offices so they seem to have had a particular kindness for his Person And while he was in Scotland he kept Correspondence with Mandevil Essex and others and chiefly with the Lord Say and Seale but all their Letters shew that his greatest business with them was to prepare them to a better Correspondence with the King But when the Marquis smelled out the design against him he gave the King an account of it and told him that if His Majesty intended to go on in his Affairs in a Kingly way he would wait on his Commands and expose himself to the displeasure of the House of Commons but if His Majesty intended to settle Matters by an absolute Compliance with the Parliament then he conceived it was fit that his Servants should use their endeavours for their own Preservation that so they might be afterwards useful to his Service yet he said he would do nothing for himself but by His Majesties Allowance and Direction being it is like taught more caution by the Jealousies had been taken from his care of vindicating himself in the Parliament of Scotland The King upon this allowed him to use all means for his own Preservation which he so managed that the designed Accusation came to nothing This particâ—lar His Sacred Majesty vouchsafed to tell the Writter adding that he had it from the Queen His Mother Anno 1642. An. 1642. THe Tumults and Disorders about Whitehall and Westminster rose to that height that the King withdrew to Windsor in the beginning of the year The Scotch Commissioners continued Treating about their engaging for Ireland The Sâ—ots Commissioners animate the Houses to press the change of the Laws about Church-Government which the King pressed forward very earnestly but some of the Commissioners begun to tamper with those who were most opposite to the Court in the Two Houses and in stead of Moderating them were instigating them to persist in their Demands about Religion to get Episcopacy brought down and Presbytery set up To
should I be an undertaker to the Parliament for either having neither my Instructions nor Directions from Him to mention to the Parliament or any Member there But these Reports proceed from such who perhaps if the matter were looked into have said what probably they will not make good and so endeavour to make other men bear the Burthen I am not sorry they have joyned you with me in this since it cannot prove your disadvantage the thing being so eminently false I see my Enemies malice will have no end and when they want other grounds Sickness is enough for them to take advantage of but if they had been in the Condition that I have been in these three weeks they would have been more charitable and so I leave them The uncertainty of my Recovery hath made me write thus much to you and truely not without trouble that you may let His Majesty know my Innocency in these particulars and that I still continue in a Condition not able to attend Him which is a great grief to Your faithful Friend and Servant HAMILTON Whitehall 7th April 1642. In the middle of April the King signified to his Council in Scotland his Design of going in Person against the Rebels in Ireland The King thinks of going to Ireland which he purposed both to put more vigour in the Army by his Presence as also to refute those Calumnies were spread upon him as if he inclined to Popery and had been accessory to the late Rebellion with which damnable Calumnies his Enemies were beginning to asperse him But the Scotish Council as well as the Two Houses but that motion is disliked by both Nations interceded earnestly with him against this Design pretending the Hazard his Sacred Person would be in Some judged that they were afraid lest by such a real Argument the Calumnies were cast on His Majesty and scattered among the Vulgar for carrying on their Designs might be refuted and some feared lest His Majesty had he gone to the Army might have gained too much upon their Hearts whereby he might have been in a Condition to have over-awed the Two Houses In May the Scotish Council sent up the Lord Chancellor to offer a Mediation for a better Understanding betwixt the King and the Two Houses but the King was much irritated The Chancellor of Scotland sent to mediate betwixt the King and the Two Houses by the Affront he had lately received before Hull from Hotham He likewise found the Chancellor insisting on Vniformity of Church-Government therefore he ordered his return into Scotland and gave him a full account of all had passed betwixt him and his Two Houses requiring him to give a true representation of it to his Council there In the end of the Month the Marquis had recovered so much Strength as to come and wait on the King at York where he would gladly have prosecuted his former Counsels for advancing a Settlement betwixt the King and his Two Houses but he knew not how to advise the King to grant more than he had already yielded to which as the King said to him was more than had been granted by all the Kings of England since the Conquest adding that though he had gone a great length in Concessions to them they had not obliged him by one favourable Vote so that nothing remained for the Marquis but to lament the Kings Misfortune yet he offered the uttermost of his Services to him and subscribed for the pay of threescore Horse in the Kings Army But he represented to His Majesty the Hazard of Scotland's concurring with the Two Houses which the King might easily apprehend both from the late carriage of their Commissioners and from what he knew of their Temper especially of the Ministers Zeal and Power with the People For his own part he said he was able to do the King small Service any where but having neither Interest friends nor followers in England he would be but a burden to His Majesty there but if he could signifie any thing it was in Scotland where he should use his utmost Endeavours to divert them from assisting the Kings Enemies for to expect Aid from them was not to be thought upon His Majesty judging this most expedient sent him to Scotland without any positive Instructions recommending only to him his Service in General of which he was so confident that he wrote the following Letter after him Hamilton and is sent by the King to Scotland I Have no time to write Particulars and to perswade you to serve me I suppose that I have less need than time therefore in a word this is a Time to shew what you are assuring you that at all times I will shew that I am Your most assured and constant Friend CHARLES R. MEMOIRES OF THE LIFE and ACTIONS OF James Duke of Hamilton c. LIB IV. Of the Duke's and his Brother the Earl of Lanerick's Negotiation in Scotland till their Imprisonment THE Marquis came to Edinburgh in the beginning of Iuly Great Jealousies of the King in Scotland and found very many disgusted with him for his late concurrence in the Council at York as a Peer of England He studied by all means to remove the wicked Insinuations which some in England had sent to Scotland against the King the most hurtful of them was about his favouring of Popery and his Designs of falling upon Scotland by Force as soon as he had mastered the Two Houses These were zealously propagated by the Emissaries from England and all Places sounded with the danger Religion was in so that he found his Negotiation was like to prove again unfortunate The only means by which he had any hopes of engaging Scotland in the Kings Quarrel was to move that an Invitation might be sent from Scotland to the Queen for her return whom the Tumults at London had driven beyond Sea that she might mediate for a Settlement betwixt the King and the Two Houses This he judged might insensibly draw them on to own the Kings Service for if the Queen came upon their Invitation they would be obliged in Honour to protect her and see that she met with no Injuries and to resent such as should be done her and therefore he sent a confident Friend to give His Majesty an account of the Posture things were in according to the following Instructions SHew His Majesty with what a prejudicated Opinion I was received by reason of what I have done at York which I still lie under Shew in what Temper I found this Kingdom occasioned as I conceive by the apprehension they have of His Majesties not observing what He hath already granted if He shall be in a Condition to force them seeâ—â—g it is believed that what He hath given was against His Will Next divers eminent Persons apprehend that if He obtain His ends by Force they will be neglected and Persons obnoxious to this Kingdom cherished Shew that some activâ— mâ—n will not lie
sent to Scotland to inform them of all had passed betwixt him and the Two Houses whose account of the state he found things in follows in a Letter to my Lord Lanerick My much honoured Lord who informs about the State of Affairs there WHen I arrived here your Brother was in Argyle but upon knowledge of my coming came himself and brought that Marquis with him to Hamilton whither the Chancellor went likewise and there I attended all three I found them with the same Affections and Desires your Lordship left in them but as they conceive not so able to Act as they were then They apprehend the Parliament of England will be much higher in their Demands than at that time as understanding now both the Kings Power and their own which were then but upon forming and promised a greater Equality The Kings two Messages to the Parliament have likewise so discredited His Majesties Affairs in this Country that they fear many forward enough before will now unwillingly engage in any way which may displease the Parliament yet they are resolved to do their best and I believe say little less in this inclosed Letter signed by all three His Majesty must expect in point of Religion to be prest for Vniformity in Church-Government and if His Majesty may be moved to publish some handsome Declaration satisfactory in that point it would infinitely advance all his Affairs in this Country and from hence have a powerful influence upon that The Parliament hath gained much here by their last Vote and there is a very fine Answer expected to their last Message sent by the Lord Maitland which will extraordinarily confirm the former Correspondence if the King do not something plausible in the same kind timeously and unconstrained the two Kingdoms will shut upon him in despight of what his best Servants can do Here is no Order for publishing His Majesties Declarations and great care taken to the contrary which occasions great prejudication in the common Peoples minds and were very fit to be amended I am looked upon here with great Iealousie yet it lessens because they see I am not busie I am advised by your Brother and the rest for avoiding of suspicion to go up to Court which having dispatched some particular business I have of my own I am resolved to do They have entrusted me with these particular Queries of which they desire His Majesties Resolution if your Lordship find opportunity you may acquaint His Majesty with them They desire likewise your Lordship may be sent down with a Letter to the Commissioners full of Confidence and allowing them all Freedom in their Consultations In respect of this great Meeting your Brother cannot make his Iourney to Holland no Act of that nature being now to be done their Opinion and Authority not consulted but I find them all right set in the thing and truly so respective to the Queens Person it did my Heart good to hear them All the Lords Conservators which are with you will receive Summons but it is not desired they should come down and truly I believe their Presence will do more hurt than good I must intreat your Lordship to acquaint His Majesty with these Particulars to receive his further Commands and convey them to My Lord Your Lordships faithful humble Servant M. MVRRAY Edinburgh 10th Sept. 1642. POSTSCRIPT The King must send to New-Castle Directions concerning his Ships for their Victuals are quite spent my poor opinion is they should be sent to Holland where they may be safer and attend the Queen What the Queries mentioned in this Letter were appears not to the Writer but for the Letters and Declarations the King sent to Scotland they are all of one strain and because the clearest and fullest was sent the next Summer I shall refer all to that which shall be set down in its proper place Only I have here inserted an account of the Kings Affairs with the Two Houses written by Lanerick to one in Scotland whose Name I find not set down but believe it was to Mr. Murray and corrected with His Majesties Pen in some places SIR AS you desired me I moved His Majesty for a Copy of the last Message to the Houses of Parliament which you will herewith receive An account oâ— Affairs in England His Majesty hath not as yet had any Answer from them but we are informed here His Messengers have been far otherwise received than he expected since they were the Carriers of so good a Message for the Earl of South-Hampton a better Poster than the Earl of Dorset came to the House upon Saturday last and as he was going to take his place he was called to to withdraw He said he had a Message to deliver them from His Majesty but received no other Answer than still a Command to withdraw which at last he obeyed then they sent the Black Rod to him requiring him to send the Message to them by him which he refused having Commands to deliver the Message himself to the House But they again pressed it yet he still refused at last they declared that if any Evil did arise from the not delivering of his Message they were free of it whereupon he sent it to them by Mr. Maxwell to which he received no other Answer than their absolute Command immediately to remove from Town The House of Commons were something more favourable to Sir John Culpeper who after some Debate was admitted into the House though not to his Place but as I am informed delivered his Message at the Bar and thereafter was commanded to withdraw It was then taken into Consideration whether or not he should any more be admitted as a Member of that House which was voted in his favours so that it is like their Answer will be returned by him which I hear will only be to let His Majesty know that so long as his Proclamations are out against the Earl of Essex and such others their Adherents of whom they account themselves to be as Traytors and the Standard up for raising of Men to suppress them they account themselves as out of His Majesties Protection and so incapable to Treat By this the World will see whether His Majesty or they be the occasion of this War and of all the Blood which is like to be shed in this unfortunate Kingdom His Majesty hath left no means of Accommodation unessayed for he hath even descended to make the first Offer of a new Treaty so careful is He of His Subjects Lives that for their Safeties He is even prodigal of His Own Honour and certainly he hath not a Subject that hath Honour but will be sensible of the Extremities he is now reduced into I wish our Countrymen may take it so to heart as not to neglect this occasion of witnessing their Affections to His Majesty by making some Overtures for such a Treaty or offer of their Service to Him since His Majesty is absolutely resolved to send no
more Messages as may be most for His Majesties Honour and Peace of His Kingdoms which if they shall refuse or despise I hope we will not then forget that it is our King that is reduced to this necessity and that we will never look on unconcerned where he is so deeply engaged I hope you will pardon the Trouble I give you in reading this long ill-written Letter for had I not been Commanded to it by a Power which God willing I shall never disobey it had not been hazarded on by Your most humble Servant LANERICK Nottingham the last of August 1642. The Marquis took all the pains imaginable on Argyle and Lowdon to perswade them to a cordial owning of the Kings Service Much pains taken to engage Scotland to the Kings Service as the only way to give Scotland a lasting Interest in the Kings Affection which also would make them famous all the World over And since the Scotish Troubles had involved the King in all His difficulties it was just they should study to extricate him and for the pretence of Religion with which the English were cajoling our Scotish Clergy he said he was to be pardoned if he presumed to know them better than they could assuring them that Religion was only pretended by them He took also a great deal of pains in many others to prepare them against the day in which the Conservatours were to meet to which Lanerick came with the following Letter from His Majesty Right trusty c. The Kings Letter to the Conservatours of the Peace HAving been informed that upon Petition of the Commissioners from Our late General Assembly Our Council thought fit that you should meet for discharging of that Trust imposed on you by Vs and Our Parliament whereby all fair means may be used to prevent such Troubles and Divisions as may interrupt or endanger the common Peace of Our Kingdom And as it ought to be the continual study of all Good and Pious Princes to preserve their People so certainly it is the Duty of all Loyal and Faithful Subjects to maintain the Greatness and Iust Authority of their Princes so that without this reciprocal Endeavour there can be no Happiness for the Prince nor Security for the People We are sure Our late Actions in Scotland will to all posterity be an acceptable witness of Our Care in preserving the Liberty of those Our Subjects and Our Desire to settle perfect Peace in that Our Kingdom And We are also confident that the many good Acts We have past here since the Sitting of this Parliament indeed denying none but such as denyed Vs any Power at all and were never so much as demanded from any of Our Predecessors will bear the like Testimony of Our Affection to the Good and Peace of this Kingdom though the success hath not been alike For though We have used Our best Endeavours to prevent the present Distractions and threatning Dangers yet so prevalent have been the opposers of Vs and the Peace of Our Kingdoms that not so much as a Treaty can be obtained though by Our several Messages We have descended to demand and press it unless upon such Conditions as would either by taking all Power of Government from Vs make Vs as nothing or by forcing Vs to quit the Protection of such as for obeying Vs according to Law and their Oath of Allegiance they would have Traytors and so make Vs do an Act unworthy of a King Yet so desirous We are to save Our Subjects Blood which cannot but be prodigally spent if We be necessitated by force of Arms to decide these unhappy Differences that no sooner any such Treaty shall be offered unto Vs by them which with Honour and Safety We can receive but We shall chearfully embrace it This We have thought fit to acquaint you with that from Our Selves you may know Our love to Peace and We doubt not but your Meeting at this time will produce something which will witness your tender respect to Our Honour and Safety and so much We do confide in your Affections as We shall absolutely leave the ways and means of expressing it to your selves So We bid you heartily farewell From Our Court at Stafford the 18th of September This so far prevailed with them at their first Meeting The Conservatours incline to serve the King that all things went very fairly so that they sent a Return to the Kings Letters without making any Judgement on the Differences betwixt Him and the Parliament They also resolved to Mediate betwixt the King and the Two Houses and for that end designed to send the Marquis to Holland with an Invitation from Scotland to Her Majesty for her Return to mediate a Peace betwixt the King and Parliament and to invite the Queen And the Marquis got a Paper signed by almost all the Lords not only those who were the best-affected but by Lowdon Argâ—le Waristoun Mr. Alexander Henderson and the other Leaders of the Party containing an Invitation for Her Majesty to come to Scotland with assurance of Security for Her Person and the free exercise of Her Religion for Her Self and Family so that no others were admitted to share in it and that they should concur with Her Majesty in mediating a Peace betwixt the King and the Two Houses which if it were rejected by the Two Houses they obliged themselves to engage for the King against them This was carried with great Address and managed so prudently that wise men called it the Master-peece of the Marquis his Life Lanerick carried it to the King to receive His Pleasure about it a Note whereof follows written by Lanerick in general Terms DIvers of the most considerable of the Nobility of Scotland and send Lanâ—rick to the King have by the Earl of Lanerick humbly offered unto His Majesty their sense of the present Differences betwixt Him and His Parliament of England which they conceive will hardly be reconciled so long as Her Majesty is at so great a distance and therefore are perswaded it would conduce much for Settling these Distractions if Her Majesty might be moved to return and mediate in so good a Work for which end the Marquis of Hamilton if His Majesty think fit and conceive it may be acceptable to Her Majesty will be ready to go to Holland humbly to invite Her Majesty hereunto in Name of this whole Kingdom of Scotland who will as dutiful and faithful Subjects humbly joyn their Endeavours and Mediation with Her Majesty that His Majesty may have Honour and Contentment and His People Happiness and Security under His Royal Government But the King was jealous of them The King at first welcomed this Proposition with a great deal of Joy but upon other grounds he thought not fit to listen to it for his Affection to the Queen made him fear the hazard of Her Person so much that this Proposition was not entertained which the Marquis often regrated as a Loss
may be had and He and all His Subjects may discern what is to be left or brought in as well as what taken away He knows not how to consent to an Alteration otherwise than to such an Act for tâ—e ease of Tender Consciences in the matter of Ceremonies as His Majesty hath often offered And His Majesty hath formerly expressed Himself and still continues willing that the Debates of Religion may be entred into by a Synod of Learned and Godly Divines to be regularly câ—osen according to the Laws and Customs of this Kingdom to which end His Majesty will be very willing that some Learned Divines of the Kirk of Scotland may be likewise sent to be present and offer their Reasons and Opinions This was the Success of that Negotiation but because the Reader may wonder how Lowdon and the Marquis came to be in such terms I shall set down the occasion of their Breach When Lowdon was to go up the Marquis resolved on a Course that should either stop his Journey or make him so obnoxious to the King that he should not dare to act contrary to his Duty which was this Lowdon had purchased from the King a Right to the Annuities of the Tythes that was confirmed to His Majesty by Act of Parliament whereupon the Marquis caused the following Petition to be drawn by Traquair's Advice To the Kings most Excellent Majesty the Humble Petition of the Noblemen Barons and Gentlemen occasionally met at Edinburgh Humbly Sheweth THat whereas Your Majesty at Your late being in Scotland being humbly moved to disburden and liberate the Subjects of this Kingdom of the Annuity due to Your Majesty out of the Tythes The Petition against the Annuities were pleased in that only Particular to delay to give us our Hearts desire and now out of the sense of the great Burdens that lye on us and in Confidence of the Continuance of Your Majesties Fatherly Care of the Good of Your Subjects we presume humbly to supplicate Your Majesty to be Graciously pleased in this Particular to dispense with Your Own Benefit or at least till Your Majesty be informed of the true state thereof to discharge Execution against us for the said Annuities And for Your Majesties incomparable Goodness and Gracious Favours we shall as in duty bound behave our selves in every thing as becometh Loyal and Faithful Subjects As we have unanimously endeavoured so shall we still continue to return such thankâ—ul Acknowledgment as may give to Your Majesty a real Testimony of our zealous Affections to Your Majesties Sacred Person Honour and Greatness derived upon Your Majesty by so many unparalelled Descents and as Your Majesty may expect and justly challenge from the Allegiance of us Your Majesties most obedient and obliged Subjects 16th February 1643. The last words of this Petition were by the first draught so conceived as would have amounted to a Bond of Mutual Defence and Adherence which the Marquis thought might draw on a Rupture and occasion a pursute as against Plotters therefore since this Paper was to be avowed and publick he judged such Expressions as were smooth and general were fittest for their Design This Petition was signed by him and a great many of the Nobility he also sent it up and down all the places where he or his Friends had Interest to get Subscriptions to it This was generally lookt upon as a well-couched Bond both by such as took it and those who refused it and yet this smoothing of the Expressions of it was represented by the Marquis's Enemies as done in prejudice to the Kings Service These Petitions were sent immediately to the King upon which great Complaints were made as if by these immediate Addresses the Judicatories of Scotland had been neglected but the King justified that part of it in an Answer he wrote to the Council and for the thing it self he resolved to keep Lowdon under the fear of it and therefore delayed to make any Answer In the end of February Her Majesty landed at Burlingtown whither the Earl of Montrose went to represent to Her the hazard of a new Rebellion in Scotland The Queen lands in England and Montrose waits on Her and offers his Service and that the only way to prevent it was to take the start of them before they were ready and with a great deal of forwardness offered his Service in that Design adding that he had great Assurances of a considerable Party who he knew would own the Kings Quarrel but he did not condescend on the particular way of prosecuting it so that the Queen was not satisfied of his being able to effectuate what he undertook Mean-while the Marquis hearing of Her Majesties Landing went to wait on Her to whom She proposed the Earl of Montrose's Offer but he studied by all means to divert Her from listning to it upon the following Grounds The King had settled a Treaty with Scotland The Marquis goeâ— to Her and disâ—wades the precipitating a Rupture with Scotland and till that were violated on their part he knew His Majesty would never consent to a Rupture on his part and the King had so often and so lately in his Letters and Declarations protested he was resolved unalterably to adhere to the late Settlement that if he should now authorize the first Breach it would bring an indelible stain upon his Honour and create a perpetual Difâ—idence in his Subjects of all his Concessions and Assurances He confâ—ssed he had great Fears of Scotland and therefore would undertake for nothing but his own Faithfulness and Diligence yet he hoped to get things kept in Agitation all that Summer so that for that Year there should not be a Scotish Army in England But that was the utmost of his Hopes yet it was much fitter to spin out things as long as could be than to precipitate them by an over-hasty Rupture besides he could not see how any Hopes could be conceived from that design of Force There was never a Castle nor Strength in Scotland in the Kings Power to which they might retire The Vulgar were still at the Ministers devotion and by late and fresh experience they saw them all as one man resolved to die in the Defence of the Covenant and any handful of Gentry could be gathered together would signifie nothing but to expose their own Throats to their Enemies Rage and the Kings Authority to their Hatred and Scorn so there remained no hopes but in the Highland-men which he accounted as good as none Their two chief Heads where the Marquisâ—es of Huntley and Argyle the former was not to be much rested on being unable to do what so brisk an Undertaking required and they knew well what to expect from the other Besides any Companies could be brought down from the High-lands might do well enough for a while but no Order could be expected from them for assoon as they were loaded with Plunder and Spoil they would run away home to their
Lurking-holes and desert those who had trusted to them And after all this there was a Scotish Army in Ireland which was now well trained and disciplined consisting of ten thousand men who were for the most part at the Covenanters devotion and these would be instantly brought over there being no way to stop their Passage and it was not to be imagined that any Body of an Army could be raised in Scotland able to resist that Force Upon these Reasons it was that he not only disswaded the Queen from consenting to a present Breach but resisted it as long as was possible yet he undertook for none but himself of which he put the Queen frequently in mind and the utmost of his expectation was to drive off Matters for that Year And in this both my Lord Traquair and Mr. Murray concurred with him and desired the whole Matter might be laid before His Majesty that his Pleasure might be made known about it but after a few days waiting on the Queen the Marquis returned back to Scotland The Scotish Commissioners continued all this while at Oxford The Commissioners at Oxford get their last Answer giving in Papers and receiving Answers but advancing nothing and the last Answer they got from His Majesty the 19th of April containing both the Substance of their Papers and of His Majesties former Answers will give a clear account of the Grounds on which His Majesty went The Paper follows IT is acknowledged by His Majesty that if any one of the Articles of Treaty had been broken or violated as His Majesty doth not so much as see pretended or any Debate or Difference had risen thereupon about which there is now no Dispute the Commissioners had then been not only warranted but obliged to have laboured to prevent all Troubles and Divisions which might arise by such a Breach to the disturbance of tâ—e Common Peace and to remove and compose all such Differences according to such Power as was granted to them but till His Majesty be satisfied that Authority by some Law is given to the Commissioners for Conserving the Articles of Treaty to represent His Majesties Native Kingdom of Scotland in this Offer of Mediating for a desired and blessed Pacification here His Majesty cannot see how the pious dutiful provident or charitable Concernment of that Kingdom in the Calamities of this or their Sympathy and sense of the Troubles of their Head and fellow-Subjects can interess the Commissioners any more than any other of His good Subjects of that Kingdom to bestir themselves in Matters of that kind or why any such Endeavours should be by any much less universally expected from them so far is he from seeing that any undeclinable Necessity constrained them to it And since the express words of the Act of Pacification it self are that the Power of the Commission shall be restrained to the Articles of Peace concluded in the Treaty His Majesty cannot but wonder whence they can pretend any Obligation or Authority to meddle with or press him concerning any such Articles as are not included but still left dependent how important soever they suppose them to be even to the Common Peace And it giving them only liberty to convene to that effect among themselves or with the Commissioners chosen by His Majesty with consent of the Parliament of England and restraining them in all their Proceedings to the Power granted to them in manner aforesaid and no otherwise as clearly intending to restrain all Power that might be pretended to by any Inserences Analogies or Consequences how manifest soever they might appear and requiring them to consist of the number of Twelve and not giving them Power to delegate a smaller number His Majesty cannot consent That that number the Laws allow not that is Three should address themselves to those the Law hath not appointed them this is Both Housâ—s not only concerning that which the Law intrusted not to them as a Pacification here but even concerning that from which the Law expresly restrains them that is one of the Articles of the Treaty no way concluded or agreed on but expresly reserved by the Parliament to be considered in due time that is in their own time concerning Church-Government the intermixture of which with the Civil State as His Majesty still conceives to be very great and of very high Concernment and not to be understood by the Commissioners who have not the knowledge of the Laws and Policy of this Kingdom so His Majesty is confident notwithstanding the Declaration and Bill abolishing the Order of Bishops that if they well knew how generally any thing of that kind was opposed whilst the Houses continued full and how the Major part of Both Houses were absent at the passing of that Declaration and Bill in so much that His Majesty is credibly informed that there were not above five Lords present when the Bill past and what violent and tumultuous Assemblies had occasioned so great and unusual Absence they would be confident as he is that in a full and peaceable Convention of Parliament Both Houses will appear to be of the same opinion with His Majesty in this Particular and to have in that the same thoughts of the Law and Policy of this Kingdom His Majesties care that the deluge of the Troubles of this Kingdom affect not that with the danger of the like is very visible to all the World His Majesty out of His great desire of continuing tâ—em in Peace and Tranquillity not desiring any assistance from them even for His Own Preservation And whoever doth desire any Commotion there to assist their Rebellious and Invasive Armes here will He hopes be lookt upon as the Troublers of Peace and as Incendiaries labouring to lay foundations of perpetual Hostility betwixt the Two Kingdoms And then for ought His Majesty can see there will be no cause to expect any Commotions there and such Dangers will rather prove imaginary than real though the Conservatours of the Treaty contain themselves within their legal and proper Bounds His Majesty wonders that since His approbation of their Mediation was desired when His Safe-conduct was asked and the first was not given when the latter was that it should not have been easily seen by these Proceedings of His Majesties that as He never granted the first as seeing no Authority they had for such a Mediation so He only at last granted the other as being contented to hear what they could say to Him upon that Point either as private persons or to give Him better satisfaction than He could give Himself what Right they could pretend to any Publick Capacity of that kind but having heard all they have offered and not finding any thing that warrants them in this in any special manner above His Majesties other Subjects His Majesty cannot with reason admit of any private Persons whatsoever into such a Publick Capacity nor with His Own Dignity and that of this Nation can allow His Subjects of another
said Army still in Ireland and for recovering payment of the Brotherly Assistance providing always that in the doing thereof no Resolution be taken for Levying of Forces or doing any Act whereby this Kingdom or any part thereof may be put in a posture of War or under any pretence to bring over the Scotish Army in Ireland or any part thereof without special Warrant from His Majesty wherewith if such as shall meet at this Convention rest not satisfied His Majesties Servants here are resolved to Protest and adhere to these Grounds and to oppose all other derogatory to His Majesties Authority or prejudicial to His Service The Duke by the same Bearer wrote to Mr. Iermine since Earl of St. Albans what follows which is set down to shew how far he was from abusing their Majesties or any about them with hopes of a good issue of Affairs in Scotland Noble Friend THere is so much said to this Bearer by word and in writing that I shall add but little thereto only this which I have often said The Duke apprehends the Ruine of the Kings Affairs in Scotland Time is precicious and would not be lost while we are quiet how long that will be for my own part I cannot tell so many unhappy Accidents have intervened of late that His Majesties Service is much prejudiced thereby I mean not so much your Misfortune at Wakefield as other Particulars which you will be informed of Howsoever think not that I am discouraged for never was Man more resolute to oppose all that shall endeavour the Dis-service of the King than I am and there are considerable men in this Country of the same mind But I ever feared our want of Power and never more than now Resolution we want not but Means how to put that in execution and therefore I say build no confidence but that you may receive great Prejudice from hence notwithstanding all we can be able to do which will be as much as you can expect from Men of Honour so deeply ingaged as we are Having thus freely expressed my thoughts to you it is eâ—sie to conjecture what Advice I would give you are Iudicious and so I shall conclude in a word Lose no Opportunity that is offered to end your business either by one means or other and esteem of me as Your most obliged Friend and humble Servant HAMILTON Holyrood House June 5th 1643. He wrote also the following Letter to Her Majesty May it please Your Majesty I Had not presumed to have troubled Your Majesty with any thing from me if Your Letter I received from Mr. Murray had not encouraged me to hope for Your Majesties Pardon And advertises the Queen of his fears I shall then humbly beg this may rather be believed an effect of Obedience than Boldness Vpon Tuesday last I delivered to His Majesties Council a Letter from Him to them wherein was inclosed a Declaration to His Scotish Subjects which was unanimously appointed to be Printed and Published but the Letter they have written in Answer to His Majesty a Copy whereof I have presumed to send Your Majesty did receive great opposition and with difficulty was carried Since there hath been no Publick Meeting but it is like there will be one appointed upon Wednesday next where they that came last from His Majesty are to be accused as Incendiaries The great Offers are to be made from tâ—e Two Houses of Parliament are like to work much upon the Affections of this Country being seconded with an alledged hazard to Religion and Government from Papists pretended to be in Armes in England and Ireland a popular though groundless Inducement for taking Arms in this Kingdom to which though many Noblemen and divers of the Gentry have hitherto been averse yet I both doubt tâ—e Continuance of their Resolutions and the Power of these few who must and will oppose it The Authority the other Party receives from the Iudicatories the absolute Power they have of the Magazines and Ammunition the popular Pretences they have of a danger to Religion and Liberty gives them so great advantages that I cannot but apprehend great Disservice to His Majesty from hence if the Differences betwixt Him and His people of England be not quickly decided either by Treaty or Force The Resolutions about the Convention of the States of such well-affected Noblemen and Gentlemen as are accidentally now in Edinburgh Your Majesty will know from the Bearer the Particulars being of that nature as are not without hazard to His Majesties Service to be trusted to Paper by May it please Your Majesty the humblest and faithfullest of all Your Servants HAMILTON To which Her Majesty wroâ—e the following Answer Cousin I Received your Letter The Queen writes to the Duke and have given an Account to the King of what you tell Me. I hope the Kings faithful Servants shall be so much the more firm to His Service that the wickedness of others appears and will by their Care and Diligence prevent the Malice of others We had here a mischance in one of Our Quarters by the negligence of Our People the greatest loss We have had is known yet We are not at all discouraged and hope quickly to have a Revenge Our Army consists without reckoning the Garrisons of seven thousand Foot and 69 Troops of Horse besides My two Regiments so that for all Our mischance We are in no ill Condition I have News from the King that His Army is as strong as Essex's and that Essex dares not advance The King hath sent Prince Maurice to the West with 2000 Horse and a thousand Foot the Gentlemen of the West have promised to raise an Army of 10000 Men in six Weeks so that I can assure you all Our Affairs go well And from France except the Death of the King My Brother I have very good News as likewise from Denmark If the King does not press me to go to Him quickly I hope to see Leeds taken befâ—re I part You will give a share of these News to all Our Friends if any dare own themselves such after the House of Commons hath declared Me Traytor and carried up their Charge against Me to the Lords This I assure you is true but I know not yet what the Lords have done upon it God forgive them for their Rebellion as I assure you I forgive them from my Heart for what they do against Me and shall ever continue as I have promised Your affectionate Cousin and Friend HENRIETTA MARIA R. To this he returned the following Letter May it please Your Majesty I Shall not presume to take up much of Your Majesties Time with reading Particulars they being so well known to this faithful Bearer The Dukes Answer to Her Majesty therefore I shall only in the general crave liberty to say that though the State of Affairs here be far otherwise than I could wish yet I was never so hopeful as at this present that no Forces will
Instrument of his producing it which was also refused so having taken witness of it he withdrew and none of these Lords would sit in the Convention any more After this some came to the Duke and asked his Advice if they should sit or not he suspected their Intentions were only to betray him and told them that his Practice declared his own Judgment which he wished the whole Convention had followed but for particular Advices he left it to themselves Others of their Friends were by them all thought necessary to sit still in the Convention to keep up delays in the approaching Treaty with the English but divers of their Friends being over-awed with the Power of the Church-party did forsake them Great Jealousies and Divisions in Scotland At the same time some of the Church-party who feared the Duke more than all that opposed them knowing the depth of his Designs and the smoothness of his Address took a strange Course to render him suspected to the Kings Party which was to let a Whisper fly out but so as they should not appear in it that he and they kept a Correspondence which was too easily believed by many who were already ill-affected to his Person and displeased with his Methods and the great forwardness of some for appearing in the Kings Service made them impatient of all Delays But the Duke sent divers Messages by Mr. Murray of the Bed-chamber who was at that time sent by His Majesty to Scotland to those of the Kings Friends who he saw were displeased with him to mediate a Reconciliation who dealt in it with all possible diligence but their Jealousies of the Duke were insuperable And a little after that in the end of Iuly some of them went to Court to represent to the King how ill His Affairs were managed by those He trusted them to and to offer their Serviâ—e if He would change his Tools and Methods The Duke upon this wrote to the King that he found himself betwixt two Tides of those who were perverse on the one hand and over-forward on the other yet he wished not only Life and Fortune but his Soul might perish if he left any thing unessayed and undone that was in his power for the Kings Service But all in which he could hope to prevail was Delays which to draw out longer than this Winter he could not promise And the Methods he used to draw out the Treaty by Delays were to set some on work to get Scotland to insist on their Demands for the rest of the Brotherly Assistance and for what was agreed to by the former years Treaty to be paid for the Army in Ireland before they engaged further all which amounted to a round Sum and he knew it would neither be soon nor easily advanced The time of the Assembly was also approaching wherefore they advised the King for his Advocates encouragement to Name him Commissioner for it The Convention did little at first only they begun a new Process against some alledged Incendiaries and named many Committees waiting still for the English Commissioners who were daily expected On the first of August came the Kings Advocat's Commission with his Instructions and a Letter to the Assembly His Instructions were First to assure the Assembly of the Kings constant adherence to the late Establishment and his willingness to encourage all good Motions He was to oppose all Treaty with England or Declarations about the Commotions there He was to oppose any new Commission of the Kirk He was to hinder any Censure to pass on those who had subscribed the Cross Petition On the second of August the Assembly sat down The General Assembly sitâ— but no curb could hold them so high was their Zeal and so void were they of respect of Persons that the opposition the Kings Commissioner gave them was little regarded for they went on at a great rate The Convention voted an hundred thousand Marks Sterling to be raised by a Loan this was a pretty Device to fine all that were not judged well-affected for they were appointed to lend Sums upon the Publick Faith which every one knew would turn to no Security for their Money On the ninth of August came the much-longed for Commissioners from England Commissioners come from England with a large Declaration from the Two Houses justifying all their Procedure and intreating the assistance of their Brethren in Scotland This was cheerfully welcomed by the Assembly and some did run so far back as to remember how Queen Elizabeth helped the Lords of the Congregation in the Scotish Reformation in opposition to the Queen Regent and therefore it was but Justice that they should now repay them with the like Assistance But that which generally prevailed to engage the greater part of the Nation in the War The Arguments that prevailed for entring in a League with them shall here be set down with that fulness and freedom that becomes a Historian The now Duke of Newcastle had raised a great Army in the North of England for the King upon which that Countrey was like to be for some time the seat of the War and though Berwick and Carlisle had no Garrisons in them according to the Treaty between both Kingdoms yet it was not to be doubted but either the one side or the other would see their advantage in putting Garrisons in these places upon which all in Scotland judged it necessary to raise some Forces otherwise the best Counties in Scotland which lye toward the South had been put under Contribution by those Garrisons and they had been all a prey to the prevailing Army yea and which side soever were either beaten or straitned it was not to be doubted but they would send in Parties to Scotland to bring Provisions and what else could be had therefore it was Concluded that a Force must be raised for the Security of Scotland This being laid down it was not uneasie to perswade all that it was better to carry in and maintain their Army in England than keep it in Scotland to be a vast Charge upon themselves And the Forces that were raised in the years 1639 and 40 had been very heavy on the chief Nobility and Gentry nor had the Brotherly Assistance which the Two Houses had Voted to be raised for their reimbursement come to their Supply the War of England intercepting it therefore they had generally a great mind to Quarter their Army in England Now this could not be done they keeping up the Neutrality they were then in therefore they must either joyn with the King or the Two Houses For joyning with the King many Arguments were used both from the Laws of Scotland that obliged all the Subjects to assist the King in his Wars and from the Covenant wherein they swore to assist Him in every cause in which His Majesties Honour was concerned There were also private assurances given not only to the leading Men but to the whole Nation of signal
receive of their Plagues and that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our several Vocations endeavour with our Estates and Lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms And to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the World may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majesties just Power and Greatness We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant That they may be brought to publick Trial and receive condign Punishment as the degree of their Offences shall require or deserve or the Supreme Iudicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient And whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denyed in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of GOD granted unto us and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Vnion to all posterity and that Iustice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article We shall also according to our places and callings in this common cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing And shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Vnion and Conjunction whether â—o make deâ—ection to the contrary part or to give our selves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this Cause which so much concerneth the Glory of GOD the Good of the Kingdoms and Honour of the King But shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continâ—e therein against all opposition and promote the same according to our power against all â—ets and Impediments whatsoever And what we are not able our selves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known that it may be fully prevented or removed And which we shall do as in the sight of God And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against GOD and his Son Iesus Christ as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers the fruits thereof We profess and declare before GOD and the World our unfained desire to be humbled for our own sins and for the sins of these Kingdoms especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts to walk worthy of him in our liâ—es which are the causes of other sins and transgreâ—sions so much abounding amongst us And our true and unfained purpose desâ—re and endeavoâ—r for our selves and all others under our power and charge both in publick and in private in all Duties we owe to God and Man to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the example of a real Reformation That the Lord may turn away his wrath and heâ—vy indignation and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in Truth and Peace And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty GOD the Searcher of all hearts with a true intention to perform the same as we shall answer at that great Day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his Holy Spirit for thâ—â— end and to bless our desires and proceedings with such success as may be deliverance and safety to his People and encouragement to other Christian Churches groaning under or in danger of Antichristian Tyranny to joyn in the same or like Association and Covenant To the Glory of GOD the Enlargement of the Kingdom of Iesus Christ and the peace and tranquility of Christâ—an Kingdoms and Commonwealths This was offered to the Assembly on the 17th of August The Censures that generally were passed on it and after it was publickly read Mr. Henderson being then Moderator had a long Speech about it Then it was read the second time and many of the most eminent Ministers and Lay-Elders were desired to deliver their Opinions about it who did all magnifie it highly and though the Kings Commissioner pressed a Delay till at least it were communicated to the King yet the approving it was put to the Vote and carried unanimously and they ordered the Lord Maitland the now Duke of Lauderdale and Mr. Henderson and Mr. Gillespy to carry it up to the Two Houses at Westminster On the same day it was also approved in the Convention Wise Obfervers wondered to see a matter of that Importance carried through upon so little Deliberation or Debate It was thougâ—t strange to see all their Consciences of such a size so exactly to agree as the several Wheels of a Clock which made all apprehend there was some first Mover that directed all those other Motions this by the one Party was imputed to Gods extraordinary Providence but by others to the Power and Policy of the Leaders and the simplicity and fear of the rest One Article of it was thought strange that one Government of the Church was abjured but none sworn to in its place for England this was not the fault of the Scots who designed nothing so much as to see Presbytery established in England But the English Commissioners would not hear of that and by that General words of Reforming according to the Word of God cast in by Sir Henry Vane thought themselves well-secured from the inroads of the Scotish Presbytery and in the very contriving of that Article they studied to out-wit one another for the Scots thought the next words of Reforming according to the Practice of the best Reformed Churches made sure game for the Scotish Model since they counted it indisputable that Scotland could not miss that Character Those of Scotland would have had Episcopacy abjured as simply unlawful but those of England would not condemn that Order which had merited so much Glory in the whole Christian Church therefore the second Article was so conceived that it might import only an Abolition of the present Model of England and it was so declared both in the Assembly of Divines and in the Two Houses of Parliament when they swore it The Scots either perceived not this Change or were
glad to get it carried on at any rate But many judged the oddest part of it all was their Oath to maintain the Priviledges of both Parliaments since that was never defined and was scarce capable of a Definition and the Priviledges of the Parliament of England were far enough from the knowledge and divination of the Scotish People who in this case must believe all that to be Priviledge which they called so The Covenant was carried up by those trusted with it to the Two Houses to be approved by them and being returned to Scotland the Committee of Estates did by their Printed Act of 22th of October ordain it to be Sworn and Subscribed by all the Subjects under the pain of being punished as Enemies to Religion His Majesties Honour and the Peace of these Kingdoms and to have their Goods and Rents confiscated and they not to enjoy any Benefit or Office within the Kingdom and to be cited to the next Parliament as enemies to Religion King and Kingdoms and to receive what further punishment His Majesty and the Parliament should inflict on them At this time His Majesty sent Mr. Mungo Murray to Scotland to assure his Friends of his Confidence in them who brought the following Letters from the King and Queen to the Duke Hamilton Letters from the King and Queen to the Dukâ— I Find there hath been a great Mistaking about that mark of Favour which I thought fit to bestow upon you the particulars I have commanded Mungo Murray to tell you only this I assure you that my Confidence of you is not lessened from what I commanded your Brother to assure you of in my Name for you shall find me Your most assured real constant Friend CHARLES R. Cousin AS soon as I had occasion since my Arrival hither to write to you I have resolved to do it both to assure you of all that I said to you when I was at York as also to tell you that I am none of the least sharers in rejoycing at the Honour the King hath put on you This is a mark of the Confidence He hath in you which I am assured you will make the World see was founded on very good reason The Bearer is a Person who will tell you more than I can write to him I refer my self and shall say no more but that I am Your affectionate Cousin HENRIETA MARIA R. Oxford 28th August The Kings Friends had gone to the several places where their Interests lay to see what likelyhood there was of Raising any Force for advancing the Kings Service by extreme ways and to put a better colour on their Gathering of People together they carried with them the following Letter which was Signed by His Majesty and of which Lanerick was ordered to give an attested Copy to all who were well-affected CHARLES R. RIght Trusty and Right well-beloved Cousin and Councellour The Kings Letter to His good Subjects in Scotland We Greet you well Since nothing on Earth can be more dear to Vs than the Preservation of the Affections of Our People and amongst them none more than those of Our Native Kingdom which as the long and uninterrupted Government of Vs and Our Predecessors over them doth give Vs just reason in a more near and special manner to challenge from them so may they justly expect a particular Tenderness from Vs in every thing that may contribute to their Happiness but knowing what industry is used by scattering Seditious Pamphlets and employing private Agents and Instructions to give bad impressions of Vs and Our Proceedings under a Pretence of danger to Religion and Government to corrupt their Fidelities and Affections and to engage them in an unjust Quarrel against Vs their King We cannot therefore but endeavour to remove these Iealousies and secure their fears from all possibility of any hazard to either of these from Vs We have therefore thought fit to require you to call together your Friends Vassals Tenants and such others as have any dependance upon you and in Our Name to shew them Our Willingness to give all the Assurances they can desire or We possibly grant if more can be given than already is of preserving inviolably all those Graces and Favours which We have of late granted to that Our Kingdom and that We do faithfully promise never to go to the contrary of any thing there established either in Ecclesiastical or Civil Government but that We will inviolably keep the same according to the Laws of that Our Kingdom and We do wish God so to bless Our Proceedings and Posterity as We do really make good and perform this Promise We hope this will give so full satisfaction to all that shall hear of this Our solemn Protestation that no such persons as study Division or go about to weaken the Confidence betwixt Vs and Our People and justly deserve the name and punishment of Incendiaries shall be sheltred from the hand of Iustice and all such others as shall endeavour Peace and Vnity and Obedience to Vs and Our Laws may expect that Protection and increase of Favours from Vs which their Fidelity deserves So expecting your Care hereof We bid you heartily farewell From Our Court at Oxford the 21st of April 1643. These Lords appointed at parting to meet again about the end of August The Lords whom theKing employed meet and send Propositions to the King which accordingly they did and when they met divers told they found much coldness among their Friends Many professed a cordialness to the Kings Service but they had neither Armes nor Ammunition nor saw they a place of Security for a Rendezvouz nor of Safety for a Retreat in case of a Misfortune so that divers of the Noblemen said It was not in their power to bring any with them to the fields but their own Domesticks Whereupon it was agreed by them all to send one Neal Servant to Mr. Murray of the Bed-Chamber to the Marquis of Newcastle to desire him to seize on Berwick which was of great Importance and was at time without a Garison that it might be the Place whither they might bring what Forces they could draw together which was indeed the most proper Place for them since the Counties that lay next it were best-affected They likewise desired my Lord Newcastle to send them such Arms and Ammunition as could be spared them out of the Kings Magazins which were then in his hands they also ordered Neal to go forward from him to Oxford to give the King an account of their Desires that they might be presently supplied He was dispatched on the 29th of August but on the 4th of September my Lord Newcastle wrote back to them a short answer referring them to Neal who in a large one both which are extant told them that my Lord Newcastle said he could spare them neither Armes nor Ammunition and as for Berwick he could not seize on it without bringing Ruine on himself and his Posterity unless
he had a Commission for it under the Great Seal of England it being contrary to the Articles of the late Treaty of the two Kingdoms which was ratified in Parliament At this time the Treaty betwixt the Two Houses in England The Treaty betwixt Scotland and England is concluded and the Convention in Scotland was closed Against the 5th of October a hundred thousand pounds Sterling was to be paid in Scotland and against the Twentieth of that Month an Army of Twenty thousand Horse and Foot was to be on the Borders from Scotland who were to have thirty thousand pounds Sterling a Month for Pay only the hundred thousand pounds Sterling was to serve for the first three Months The General was to be chosen by the Scots the Army was to receive Orders from a Commitee of both Kingdoms no Peace should be treated or concluded without the Scots and the Publick Faith was given by the Convention of Estates in Scotland that their Army should return out of England when a Peace was concluded by both Kingdoms And so the Convention Adjourned till Ianuary having chosen a Committee of Estates to whom they gave full Power in all matters Civil and Military About the middle of September the fairest opportunity of all was lost for the Parliament of England apprehending the hazard of the loss of Berwick sent down some Ships by which Berwick seized on by the Parliament with the Concurrence of the Scots it was presently Garrisoned and the Committee of Estates issued out toward the middle of September Commissions for making of Levies â—hrough the Kingdom so that nothing kept them from Marching but that they heard not of Money from England The Kings Friends were now in the greatest perplexities imaginable they saw his Affairs in a ruining Condition and themselves able to do nothing but regrate it All September passed over ere they had a return from Oxford and since the hope of Berwick was irrecoverably lost nothing remained but Despair The Church-party became daily more resolute and the Kings-party became fainter At length in the beginning of October Mr. Mungo Murray came from Court but brought no present Relief only large hopes of Assistance to follow quickly He also brought Letters from the King both to the Council and the Conservatours of the Peace that to the Conservatours of the Peace follows CHARLES R. RIght Trusty and Right well-beloved Cousins and Councellours Right Trusty and well-beloved Councellours and Trusty and well-beloved The Kings Letters to the Conservatours of the Treaty We greet you well No Industry hitherto could have so far prevailed with Vs as to gain any belief that Our Scotish Subjects would countenance much less assist this bloody Rebellion in England yet We know not how to understand the Levying of Forces both Foot and Horse within Our Native Kingdom and their entring Our Town of Berwick in an hostile manner You are particularly trusted by Vs and Our Parliament and solemnly sworn to be faithful in the discharge of that Trust of seeing the Articles of the late Treaty observed which here is most grosly violated therefore We require you as you will be answerable to God to Vs and Our Parliament to take speedy and present Order for recalling and suppressing those Forces Our most malicious Enemies must bear Vs witness how religiously We have observed these Articles on Our part whereof if We had not been more tender than the advisers of the Breach have been of the Publick Faith it is obvious to any how easily We could have secured that Town from all Rebels We have likewise thought fit to take notice of the private Preparations in that Our Kingdom of Raising an Army by a new Authority to come into Our Kingdom of England under the pretence of securing themselves from a Popish and Prelatical Army falsly alledged to be upon the Borders such Forces as We have there being only for Protecting of Our distressed Subjects from the Incursion of Rebels from their Ships at Berwick and Holy-Island and for no other end Such then as shelter themselves under that Pretext will find from thence but a slender Warrant before God who knows the integrity of Our Heart and how inviolably We intend to preserve all that We have granted to that Kingdom so long as they suffer themselves to be capable of Our Protection and those Favours We do require you not only to oppose and suppress all such unwarrantable Levies but by your Publick Declaration to disabuse those Rebels in England who endeavour to engage you in their Rebellion and expect Assistance from you in all which We look for ready Obedience and expect a present account thereof We bid you heartily farewell Given at Our Court at Oxford the 26th day of September in the 19th Year of Our Reign 1643. The Letter to the Council follows CHARLES R. The Kings Letter to the Council RIght Trusty and Right well-beloved Cousins and Councellours and Trusty and well-beloved Councellours We greet you well Whereas Our desire of preserving Peace within Our Native Kingdom and preventing such Disputes which malicious Instruments might so heighten as to divide Vs and any of Our Scotish Subjects moved Vs by Our Letter of the tenth of June to dispense with the unwarrantable Calling together of the Nobility Commissioners of Shires and Burroughs at Edinburgh the twenty second of June 1643 and so far to give way to the Meeting as to allow them to take into Consideration the best ways of Maintaining Our Scotish Army in Ireland for Suppressing of that bloody Rebellion there since Our Two Houses of Parliament here had failed in the performance of the Treaty concluded upon betwixt the Two Nations for that effect and likewise for such other Particulars as Our said Letter doth more fully contain expecting they would have limited their Resolutions thereunto and paid an equal Gratitude of Duty and Obedience to Vs and Our Iust Commands as We have so lately and so many ways expressed Our Affection to that Our Kingdom in General and so many Members of that Meeting in their own particulars all which notwithstanding they have proceeded to Resolutions as unjustifiable as their Meeting and would engage Our Subjects to an Obedience of their Arbitrary Commands beyond the Power of any of the most Free and Lawful Conventions of the Estates Our Authority and Consent being so absolutely contemned that they have exâ—eeded the Bounds We have prescribed and proceeded to Conclusions of the highest nature without so much as acquainting Vs therewith Such high Indignities to Vs and Our Authority make Vs believe they have forgot they have a King and their Oaths in preserving Vs in Our Iust Power as their King but God will discover and punish such undutiful Thoughts how closely soever they be clouded with pretences of Safety to Religion and Liberty which they know will ever be dearer to Vs than Our Own Preservation Our good Subjects will likewise suffer with Vs by their heavy Taxes upon
Law every advantage his Learned Counsel have suggested who besides many things they have laid before him from the Priviledges of the Peers do assure him that in Law every impeachment ought to contain in it the matter of Fact particularly and certainly set down with all necessary circumstances of Time Place and Witnesses otherwise the Party accused may Demur in Law Besides the Charge given against him is so general and historical so aggravated with scandalous Glosses invective Expressions groundless Suggestions and Pretences false Collections and Inferences seeming Probabilities with cunning Suppositions and Conjectures together with the Opinions and Words of his Friends Acquaintances and Enemies all so ambiguously penned by the Contriver that he may Demur in Law upon the whole Charge for matter of Insufficiency and Form since many Insufficiencies and Absurdities might be observed in it upon a strict Disquisition and Dissection of Law and indeed the Defendant cannot but desire the last words of the Charge be considered wherein his Accusers pretend to be able to prove some of the weightiest points by several Witnesses and all the rest by some and strong Probabilities which words alone his Lawyers do assure him are sufficient to invalidate the whole Charge since no man can be Arraigned of Treason upon some Probabilities to which other Probabilities may be always opposed with equal colours of truth Many of the particulars charged upon the Defendant were done before the Pacification and Act of Oblivion passed in both Kingdoms by which no remembrance is to be had of what passed before it and His Majesty did verbally express at the last Parliament at Edinburgh that the Defendant had carried himself during the former Troubles as became a faithful Subject and one that tendered the Good and Happiness of his Country There was also in that same Parliament a particular Act passed declaring he had carried himself during the former Distractions as a faithful Servant to His Majesty and a loving Patriot to his Country upon which the Defendant may well plead that he is not bound to answer for any thing charged on him that was done before that Parliament and that his Accusers do incur Punishment for going against the Act of Oblivion then passed nor is he bound in Law as his Learned Counsel assure him to answer for any Words alledged to have been spoken by him unless questioned for them within three Months after they were spoken according to the Laws of this Kingdom But though the Defendant hath so far complied with his Lawyers as to have named the former particulars yet it is not out of any design to escape either Trial or Justice therefore he is ready to give an account to His Majesty of the Actions of his whole Life in reference to His Majesties Service whenever he shall be called to it particularly for the Trusts and Imployments his Majesty honoured him with being so confident of his own constant unstained Integrity and Loyalty and of His Majesties Justice that he is not afraid of the issue of the whole Matter himself being so Innocent and his Judge so Just therefore he shall answer plainly and particularly to all the Matters of Fact laid to his Charge leaving the Plea in Law together with the necessary distinction of points of Treason from Misdemeanours to his Learned Counsel when they shall be allowed to plead Answer to Article 1. To the first Article the Defendant says nothing can be more false than that he ever used any such Expressions The Answer to the first Article he knowing well his Majesties Affection to that Kingdom and to the Liberties and Freedoms of it There is neither Time Place nor Persons expressed to whom such Words should have been spoken nor upon what occasion nor to to the People of what Kingdom they were used nor are any of his Actions condescended on to make out what is charged on him nor knows he who are meant by his Emissaries Instruments or Creatures if any have used such seditious Speeches let them be punished for them but he cannot be answerable for other men unless it be proved they acted by his Order and Direction therefore the Defendant simply denies what is alledged in this Article as basely false and forged Charge That he hath most seditiously endeavoured to exasperate His Majesty against His Subjects of Scotland Article 2. by Invectives against them to His Majesty even before their falling off from their Obedience by advising His Majesty to make War against them affirming that His Majesty would never be King of Scotland unless He conquered it which he likewise then averred would be a Work only of three Months time and at the same time encouraging them most treacherously to withstand His Majesty and take from Him His Power and His Rights particularly exciting them thereunto by vilifying Speeches of His Sacred Person That if they awed Him He was such a Coward they might have of him what they would but if they gave him his Will he would prove a verier Tyrant than ever Nero. Answer To the first branch of the second Article the Defendant says The Answer to the second Article he appeals to His Majesty how false it is who knows well that the Commotions of Scotland were begun a year before he was imployed in Scotish Affairs Comp. p. 30. and p. 43. which had been before that trusted to other Persons of Honour in that Kingdom and that the Covenant was generally taken the Courts of Justice removed from Edinburgh the Tables formed Protestations used against His Majesties Proclamations before he was engaged His Majesty also knows well that he had never advised these Innovations which gave the rise to these Commotions nor engaged in the Affairs of that Kingdom but upon His Majesties particular Command without which he had designed to avoid all meddling in them See p. 38. so that nothing can be more notoriously false than that part of this Article is That the Defendant did exasperate His Majesty against that Kingdom or advised Him to conquer them before they fell from their Obedienee It is true after His Majesty had thought fit to imploy the Defendant in those Affairs he did give him clear advertisements of the state of Affairs in that Kingdom not sparing his nearest Friends as His Majesty well knows but gave no advice but what he thought agreed both with the Duty of a good Subject and Patriot He never advised His Majesty to conquer or subdue that Kingdom or to govern it as a Province for he takes the suppressing of a Party in Arms against the King or who were rejecting his Authority to be very different from conquering the Kingdom and therefore as he simply denies the first branch of this Article so he refers the clearing of his Innocency in this to His Majesty who cannot but know best what he advised him and to the Letters he wrote to His Majesty if they be yet remaining The next branch of the Article is of
Defendant says The Answer to the sixth Article that he sees there is nothing so false but his Enemies have the impudence to fasten it on him since he was one of the chief Contrivers and Promoters of that Petition as he can prove by hundreds of Witnesses nor did he dash See p. 211. or cause to be dasht out any Clause that was conceived in His Majesties favours which his Enemies with their usual falshood say was too great an eye-sore It is true he saw divers Draughts of a Petition against the Annuities and some of them had expressions in them which the Judicatories of that time would have declared contrary to Acts of Parliament which by the advice of good Lawyers all that were well-affected to His Majesties Service rejected and yet the Draught agreed to will be found to contain very plainly the Assurances of their Fidelity to His Majesty and that Draught being agreed on the Defendant sent it to all the Places where he had Interest and procured very many Subscriptions to it so unjustly is the Defendant charged in this Article But as these Subscriptions were thus procured the Council stopped all further Proceedings in that Business by a Declaration forbidding any to subscribe it nor did His Majesty send any Answer to those Petitions to the Defendant It is true by his Instructions he did empower them to discharge the Annuities to such as had petitioned about them See p. 220. if this was not done it was not only the Defendants deed but was the concurring Opinion of the others joyned with him in Trust by His Majesty who he doubts not shall be able to give a very good account of that See p. 223. as of all the other particulars committed to their Trust when-ever His Majesty shall call them to it and shall shew him very good reasons why they did not proceed any further in that Affair Charge That since he left His Majesty at York Article 7. he hath been still labouring to frustrate the good Intentions of His Majesties faithful Subjects of Scotland and to bring Matters to the Pass they are now at which may be clearly evinced by the particulars which follow First when some Noblemen of that Kingdom well-affected to His Majesties Service perceiving the Intentions of some there to engage that Nation in Rebellion with the Malignant Party here made offer of all their best Services and ready endeavours to prevent the same for themselves and in the name of all the Kings greatest and best-affected Party there he to disappoint those promising and evident Courses thrust himself into the Business and in a very seeming plausible way undertook to keep that Kingdom in Peace and Quiet and from attempting any thing upon this Nation or against His Majesties Service now depending here and to make it appear the more specious without making use of any Force or putting His Majesty to any Trouble or Charges and withall solemnly engaged to break off all his Alliance Ties and Friendship with the Marquis of Argyle who doth make himself so much the Head of that Rebellion against His Majesty or otherwise perswade him to acknowledg himself and become a good Subject and that betwixt and three Months thereafter at farthest the effect of all which undertaking had this result First that immediately upon his return to Scotland a Convention of tâ—e Estates was indicted without the King's knowledg or consent a Precedent whereof can never be shown in any Records which coming to His Majesties knowledg He did immediately direct a Letter under His own Hand willing that Hamilton and some other of his Complices who had His Majesties Trust for the time should declare the said Meeting Illegal and disapprove it in His Majesties Name About the time of the Receipt of which Letter the said Hamilton and some of his Cabal did employ the Earl of Calander from them to speak with a great many Noblemen of the Kings Party and take their Advices in what was to be done and they who understood nothing of His Majesties Letter it being altogether kept up from them declared all in one voice their Iudgments were that His Majesty should disclaim the Convention and declare it Illegal and that they would all be willing to joyn with Hamilton and his Party and take their Lives in their hands to maintain His Majesties Honour and Authority and free themselves from the Slavery of those rebellious Tyrants It was answered them again by the said Earl of Calander His Majesties Letter being still supprest That the King would needs approve of the Convention with Limitations To which it was replied That they behooved either to be very ignorant or unfaithful who had given His Majesty such Advice seeing those People would never confine themselves within Limits or take a part if it should be left them in their power to extend themselves and over-reach all and that they would on no terms assent to any such Course as being intended for nothing else but a hollow undermining of His Majesty and all His faithful Subjects So they parted with little satisfaction on either hand and some days thereafter the said Earl of Calander was again directed to the same Parties to perswade them still to the former Overture but to no effect yet in end lest the Service might seem to suffer by so much difference in Opinion they desired Calander to shew Hamilton and those of his Party that since he was only trusted and employed by His Majesty in the Business their Affection and Tenderness to the Service should make them very unwilling to differ with him in the way and however in their own Iudgments they did no way approve that the King should so far wrong His Authority as to allow of any such Illegal Proceedings which did portend from bad Causes worse Effects yet since His Majesty would do it and they needs have it so they should go along but with one Caveat which was That if the Convention did not observe these Limitations prescribed by His Majesty in that case that they should protest and withdraw presently from the House and that then all who were for His Majesties Service should immediately joyn themselves together and take the Field This being solemnly concluded and with much attestation it was resolved that all who did affect the Kings Service and had Vote in the Convention should be present there upon certain hopes that they should be able to ballance either by Voices all violent Courses or at least to protest against them and adhere to His Majesties Service and Authority in a vigorous way But all their great Promises and fair Assurances were either not intended or very soon forgotten for whilst it was the first Act of the Convention after His Majesties Letter was read to Voice themselves a Free Assembly as any had ever been kept in that Kingdom notwithstanding of the Restraints in His Majesties Letter and that in that case Protests and Declarations and every thing
time than Mr. Henderson did his They were given by His Majesty to Sir Robert Murray to transcribe the Copies under Sir Robert Murray's hand were by him delivered to Mr. Henderson and Mr. Henderson's hand not being so legible as his he by the Kings Appointment transcribed them for His Majesty and by His Majesties permission kept Mr. Henderson's Papers and the Copies of the Kings as was signified to the Writer by himself a few days before His much-lamented Death All this while they were consulting at Westminster They consult at VVestminster about Propositions to be made to the King about the Propositions to be sent to His Majesty for now the Independent Party begun to prevail and as they were certainly the strongest in the English Army so they had a great Party in the House of Commons Their Design was to perpetuate a Military Power in their own hands and to set up a Toleration of all Sects and so the Propositions at Vxbridge were much altered The Scotish Commissioners The Scotish Commissioners are for making them easie to the King in the Papers they gave in concerning the Propositions first complained That the Settling of Religion was conceived in general Terms and that no particulars about Vniformity of Religion were laid down next they opposed much the Propositions about the Militia desiring that no new ones differing from what had been offered at Uxbridge might be made that so it might appear they were not taking advantages from the Straits His Majesty was in to diminish His Iust Power and Greatness to which they were bound both by Covenant and Treaties and which had been often repeated in all their Declarations adding that they could not consent to any Proposition that should take from their Soveraign the Power of Protecting and Defending His Subjects which necessarily followed were the Militia put into the hands of the Parliament wherefore they pressed that the Militia might not be settled in the hands of the Parliament but of the King and Parliament jointly and so consigned to such Commissioners of both Kingdoms as should be chosen by the King and them together This they backed with a Paper Many Papers past betwixt them and the Two Houses containing the Extracts and Citations of the former Declarations and Papers emitted by Both Houses to the same purpose both about Uniformity of Religion and the Maintaining the Kings Authority even in the matter of the Militia which was a long and smart Paper They also in another Paper appealed to all the Treaties that had been betwixt the Kingdoms since the beginning of that War wherein the Maintenance of the Kings Just Power had still been laid down as a ground on which they were to proceed in order to a Peace But upon this the Independent Party begun to say that the Agreement made with Scotland An. 1643. was no Treaty and that the Parliament was not bound to make good what was agreed to in it And this drew from the Scotish Commissioners another large Paper proving That to be a Treaty wherein they did shew How that the Kingdom of Scotland had engaged both in the Irish and English War upon the invitation the Two Houses sent them by Commiâ—sioners impowered with ample Credentials Signed by the two Speakers which gave them power to Treat and conclude both about the Scotish Army then in Ireland and the Army they invited to come to their Assistance in England upon which an Agreement was treated and concluded betwixt the Committee of Estates in Scotland and the Commissioners from England and Signed by them and so transmitted to the Two Houses who by frequent Letters to Scotland expressed their Ratification of that Agreement and whereas in some of the Articles then Agreed to there was an Alternative concerning the Scotish Army then in Ireland their Stay there or their Transportation upon which the Independents founded their Allegation that matters were not finally concluded they did shew how false that was since that Alternative was emitted in their Agreement then made to the Determination of the Two Houses who thereupon declared by repeated Letters to what branch of it they agreed So they made it appear that no obligation could be brought on any State by any Treaty that was wanting in that But at length the Propositions were all agreed on The Propositions are agreed on and the Scotish Commissioners though they opposed that Article of the Militia yet gave way to it rather than hazard on a Rupture The Propositions being so oft in Print need not be at length set down only the Heads of them follow taken from the Original that was delivered to the King which he gave to the Earl of Lanerick and is among his Papers FIrst The annulling of all Oaths The Heads of them and Declarations against the Parliaments and Kingdoms was desired The next five Propositions were about establishing the Covenant the Abolition of Episcopacy and Liturgy and the Kings taking and authorizing the Covenant The next five were against Popery and Papists The 12th was for the observation of the Lords Day and against Pluralities and Nonresidences and about Vniversities 13 That the Militia should be in the hands of the Parliament for 20 years who should also have a power to raise Money and that after those years the Two Houses might raise what Forces they pleased by their Bills though His Majesty gave not his assent to them and that the Rights of the City of London should be confirmed 14 That all Honours and other Writs passed under the great Seal since it was taken away from Westminster should be annulled 15 That the Treaties betwixt England and Scotland should be ratified 16 Delinquents were to be excepted from the general Oblivion and those were put in several Classes and accordingly several Punishments designed against them 17 The late Cessation granted by the King in Ireland to be annulled and the management of that War to be remitted to the Two Houses The 18 was about the City of London 19 That all Writs passed under the Parliaments Great Seal should be in force In Iuly the Duke came to Newcastle to wait on His Majesty The Duke waits on the King and is well received by him and and when he first kissed the Kings Hand His Majesty and he blushed at once and as the Duke was retiring back with a little Confusion into the croud that was in the Room the King asked if he was afraid to come near him upon which he came to the King and they entred into a large Conversation together wherein His Majesty expressed the sense he had of his long Sufferings in terms so full of affection that he not only brake through all of his Resentments but set a new edge again upon his old Affection and Duty He told him He ever had Iudged him Innocent as to the bulk of things though he confessed there were some particulars he was not so well satisfied with but that his Restrain was extorted from
Grounds therefore the Duke resolved on a present abandoning of Affairs and of retiring from the World Lanerick was so angry at this Design that he spared nothing that either his Affection or Wit could suggest to divert him from that desperate Resolution as he termed it He told him could he not be Religious but he must turn a Monk and did he not think it best to serve God in that Station whereunto he had called him or must he reject the choice of Gods Providence and turn his own Disposer and was he so mean-spirited as to abandon matters because of the difficulties that were in theâ— But all he could devise was not like to prevail for the Duke protested it was impossible for him to look on and see His Majesties Ruin which was inevitable upon the Grounds he went on At this time the Independents The Independents cajole the King fearing the extremity to which the King was driven might force him to consent to any thing upon which a Settlement might follow betook themselves to strange Methods to obstruct it they therefore gave some hopes that they would be willing to dispense with the imposing of the Covenant and consent to a Toleration of Episcopacy and the Liturgy provided they might be satisfied in other points This suiting so well with the Kings Inclinations had too good a hearing from him but my Lord Lauderdale wrote from London very warmly for undeceiving the King But Lauderdale disabuses his Majesty assuring him that he infallibly knew their Designs were the Ruin of Monarchy and the Destruction of the King and His Posterity and though they might cajole His Majesty with some smooth Propositions those were meant for His Ruine that they might once divide Him from His Parliaments after which they would destroy both Him and them were it in their power But if the King would now consent to the Propositions all would go right and in spight of the Devil and the Independents both he would be quickly on His Throne but Delays were full of danger for they that wished well to the King were becoming daily more heartless and the other Party grew in their Insolence and the Earl of Essex his Death at that time had given the greatest blow to the Kings Affairs they could have met with This he continued to represent by many Letters both to the King and those about Him yet His Majesty was much wrought upon to give credit to those Offers of the Sectaries which made Him the less apprehensive of hazard At length when the Duke saw His Majesty immoveable The Duke obtains His Majesties permission to retire he begged His permission to retire But the King resisted that with so much reason and affection that in the whole Course of His Favours to him there had not been any since the business of Ochiltry wherein He had more obliged him than by the tenderness that then appeared in him Yet the Duke was so importunate that at length the King seemed to give way to it at least the Duke understood it so whereupon with as sad a heart as ever man had he took leave of the King which he apprehended to be his last Farewell and it proved to be so indeed except a transient view he had of Him at Windsor So he left the King and carried home with him a heart so fraughted with Melancholy that all could be done was not able to rouse him out of it and neither the tears of his dying Mother nor the intreaties of his Friends nor the constant persecution of his Brother who was much vexed at it were able to divert him from his Resolution for having overcome the Kings dislike of it which was stronger than all other things with him he was proof against every thing else But His Majesty quickly repented Him of that tacit consent He seemed to give and therefore sent after him this handsom Letter Hamilton I Have so much to write and so little time for it that this Letter will be suitable to the Times Which His Majesty retracts by His Letter without Method or Reason and yet you will find Lusty Truths in it which puts Me again out of fashion but the fitter for him to whom I write Now to My business but lest I should now forget it I must first tell you that those at London think to get Me into their hands by telling Our Country-men that they do not intend to make Me a Prisoner O No by No means but only to give Me an honourable Guard forsooth to attend Me continually for the security of My Person wherefore I must tell you and 't is so far from a secret that I desire every one should know it only for the way I leave it to you to manage it for My best advantage that I will not be left in England when this Army retires and these Garisons are rendred without a visible violent force upon My Person unless clearly and according to the old way of understanding I may remain a Free-man and that no Attendant be forced upon Me upon any pretence whatsoever So much for that A Discourse yesternight with Rob. Murray was the cause of this Letter having no such Intention before because I esteemed you a man no more of this part of the World believing your Resolutions to be like the Laws of the Medes and Persians But however he shewed Me such Reasons that I found it fit to do what I am doing for I confess one mans errour is no just excuse for anothers omission which is to stay your forreign Iourney by perswasion As for the Arguments I refer you to Robin only I will undertake to tell you some positive Truths the chief whereof is That it is not fit for you to go then It is less shame to recant than to persist in an Errour My last is By going you take away from Me the means of shewing My Self Your most assured real faithful constant Friend CHARLES R. New-Castle September 26th 1646. But this Letter will be lame unless made up with the Cover that went about it from Sir Robert Murray which was as he wrote in his next almost wholly the Kings words and not only his sense for the King the night before falling in Discourse with Sir Robert about the Duke discovered very fully the Constancy of His Royal kindness to him whereupon he laid His Commands on Sir Robert to put him in mind of the Inconveniences his obstinacy in that Resolution would heap upon him and mentioned them these are Sir Robert's words with a Friendliness that related not to his own Concernments Indeed they are such as the very apprehension of them cannot but deeply wound a Soul so great as yours They are briefly these The withdrawing your self at this time will be believed to proceed from a tacit Ioy at the appearance of the bad Success of his Affairs or rather out of a design to contribute to it under the disguise of a seeming Retiredness and
the English Parliament at which Proposition the Duke and his Brother expressed their horrour with language so full both of Reason and Affection that nothing but violent and enraged Passion could have resisted it They said Would Scotland now quit a Possession of 1500 Years Date which was their Interest in their Soveraign and do it to those whose Enmity both against Him and them did now visibly appear Was this the effect of all their Protestations of Duty and Affection to His Majesty Was this their keeping of their Covâ—nant wherein they had sworn to defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority Was this a suitable return to the Kings Goodness both in his consenting to all the Desires of that Kingdom An. 1641. and in His late trusting His Person to them what Censures would be past upon this through the whole World what a stain would it be to the whole Reformed Religion and in fine what Danger might be apprehended both to the Kings Person and to Scotland from the Party that was now prevalent in England But notwithstanding all this the Question was put in these words Whether they should leave His Majesty in England to the Two Houses there or not so softly did the prevailing Party present that infamous Business to the Vote of the Parliament The Dukes Vote was suitable to his Discourse and Temper being a Negative uttered with much grave and deep Sorrow but I shall set down Lanerick's in the formal terms wherein he expressed it As God shall have mercy upon my Soul at the Great Day I would chuse rather to have my Head struck off at the Market-cross of Edinburgh than give my consent to this Vote The Earl of Lindsay now Earl Crawford was President and so could not debate but as in the stating the Vote he expressed much honest Zeal so when it was carried in the Affirmative he dissented from it and to him those who had voted in the Negative did adhere But some of their Friends were accidentally absent others on design and some downright deserted them so that though there were divers who dissented yet they were far short of being able to ballance the Vote When all this was done Lanerick with a deep Groan said this was the blackest Saturday that ever Scotland saw alluding to a great Eclipse that was many years before on a Saturday from which it was still called the Black Saturday This being sent to the Commissioners at Newcastle did not at all shake His Majesty he being resolved not to yield to that no not at Holmby which He had refused at Newcastle The King is delivered and sent Prisoner to Holmby In the end of the Month the English Commissioners and Forces came down and the Arrears for the payment of the Army being delivered the Scotish Army withdrew and left the King in the hands of the English who presently sent him to Holmby And this is a free and faithful Relation of that great Transaction only in invidious Passages I have spared the Memories and Families of the unhappy Actors which is variously censured It was presently the matter of Discourse and Censure of Christendom and brought an Infamy on those who acted it which though an Indempnity could pardon yet no Oblivion was able to deface It was thought strange since the King had trusted himself to Scotland that they should have thus deserted Him What grounds Montrevil had for giving the King those Assurances did not appear and certain it is they were very slight ones and were only from single Persons but not from any Iunto or Judicatory But generous minds thought the Kings frank casting Himself into their hands was an Obligation beyond any Engagements they could have given And it was thought strange madness in those of Scotland to do it at that time since they saw the Independents prevailing whose Designs against the Kings Person and Monarchy had been faithfully discovered to them by some of their Commissioners at London and who were as little Friends to the Covenant and Presbytery as the King himself was so that considering their Power such a Strengthening of them brought Religion under a hazard of another nature than could have been apprehended upon their Accepting of the Kings Concessions But the Contradiction that this course had to the Covenant was so plain that none could avoid observing it for to make their King a Prisoner was an odd Comment upon their Defending of His Person and Authority and to do all that because he would not force his Conscience was judged a strange Practice from those who had so lately complained heavily against any appearance of Force upon Tender Consciences These were the Censures that generally passed on that Transaction the Kings stifness was also very much condemned and most men not understanding the strictness of a Tender Conscience thought it was Humour that swayed Him and judged that in the posture Affairs were then in He should have yielded to any thing how unreasonable soever rather than have so exposed Himself His Posterity and His Kingdoms to such visible hazards reckoning that no Form of Government that ever was deserved to be so firmly adhered to All persons looked for dismal effects from these Resolutions few thinking the Friendship betwixt Scotland and England would be lasting and all apprehended some strange Curse would overtake those who were active in this infamous Business Amidst these greater Reflections there were some who suspected the Duke had not acted in that Affair with that Candour and Zeal He expressed and this was chiefly founded on the base Votes of some of his Friends chiefly of one who had served him but was then a Lord. But as the tract of this Account hath cleared the whole Progress of his Negotiation so the visible affliction of his Mind which drew after it a great indisposition in his Body did abundantly refute these Calumnies And indeed that great Mind which did not succumb under the hardest Trials when it imployed its utmost strength was now reduced to the most pinching Straits and almost to desperate Resentments so that he repented his Stay in Scotland since he foresaw nothing but imminent Ruine to King and Country yet His Majesties opinion of his Zeal and Affection to His Service was at this time proof against all Whispers which appears by the following Letter Hamilton I Know it were needless to recommend this Bearer Will. Murray to you but that his Persecution at this instant for My sake is such that in a manner it even extorts these lines from Me to tell you that your hearty and real dealing to procure his waiting upon Me is a good occasion which I am confident you will not let slip to shew your constant zealous Affection to Your most assured real constant Friend CHARLES R. Newcastle 29th January 1647. Now it was that genuine Melancholy and Horrour dwelt in all the Dukes thoughts The Duke contrives how to turn Scotland to the Kings Service his Brother was too deeply prepossessed
with the like apprehensions to minister much Comfort to him only he pressed him not to give way to languishing Sorrow but to see what could be done for setting things right again and for infusing that sense of Shame and Horrour in all People for the late Action which might prepare them to a Noble Reparation of it by a generous Engaging in the Kings Quarrel And upon this much pains was taken to infuse Jealousies of the Independents in the minds of the Kirk-men though there were other violent persons as careful to refute them Most of this Year was spent in possessing all mens Minds with these Apprehensions so preparing them for what they designed to execute upon the first Opportunity The Duke and the Earls of Lauderdale and Lanerick were they who united most closely and cordially for the contriving and prosecuting of that Design The King was Prisoner at Holmby without any other Liberty save that of taking the air sometimes all his Servants were denied access to him and so cruel was the zeal of his Enemies that it reached to his Soul for they refused liberty for his Chaplains to wait on him a favour not denied to the worst of Malefactors but God was his Refuge who supported him in all his Sufferings and Solitudes The Two Houses wrote to the Committee of Estates in Scotland that they should take such a joynt Course with them as might tend most to bring things to a happy Peace But now the Jealousies betwixt the Parliament and the Army begun to grow visible and above board for the Presbyterian Party in the Parliament saw their Error too late Disorders rise in England most of them seemed to have intended the Kings Good only they were mistaken in Judging that the Parliament in which they were most numerous would never be disobeyed by the Army but being disappointed in this they ruined all their confidence in their Power in Parliament having been the cause why they let the Scotish Army go home for till they were gone the Independents crouched under them and trepanned them into Severities against the King and the Dismissing of the Scots who were no sooner gone but the Army acted what had been before projected but most industriously concealed from the Presbyterians Lauderdale is sent to England In April the Earl of Lauderdale was sent from Scotland to London to insist on the motion for a Settlement with the King and chiefly to hinder the adding of any new Propositions and he was also Instructed to deal for a permission to the Duke and the Earl of Dumfernline to go and serve the King in his Bedchamber But the Earl of Lauderdale found matters in great confusion at Westminster for the chief thing thought on was the Disbanding of the Army which was an unnecessary Burden to the Kingdom many grounds of Fear appearing that their Designs were to keep themselves up and govern the Nation by a Military and Arbitrary Power therefore such as were best-affected judged it necessary once to disband them before they engaged in a new Treaty with the King But for that private Proposition concerning the Duke and Dumfernline the Earl of Lauderdale seeing it would not take because there was not a Family yet settled about the King nor could it be expected that any from Scotland would be the first they would set about His Majesties Person did not present it and indeed the Duke's late Behaviour in opposing the Delivery of the King had forfeited his Credit with those of England then in Power But it is not my meaning to go on with a regular History of the irregular Transactions that past in England this Year I shall only say so much of them as will make appear what reason the Scots had for their Proceedings and to clear what may have relation to the Dukes Concerns In the middle of May the King sent a new Message to the Parliament of England in order to a Treaty but his Offers were the same upon the matter they had been at Newcastle and so not like to take and the Two Houses were then busied about Disbanding the Army They therefore ordered the Army to be disbanded and some of the Forces they kept up to be sent over to Ireland and all Satisfaction being offered The Army refuses obedience to the Parliament the time of their Disbanding was named But the Ring-leaders of the Army disposed them to mutiny against the Parliament upon pretence of want of Satisfaction in matter of Money and Reparation in point of Honour so the Army drew to a Body and erected a Court who were called the Agitators Mean-while Cromwel puts his Party in the House of Commons on the Recalling oâ— their Declarations against the Army and goes to the Army though his Commission was expired More Money was offered to the Army but nothing was accepted only divers of the Presbyterian Officers submitted and subscribed for Ireland whereupon they were by the prevailing part of the Army disbanded and takes the King from Holmby And the Army to make a sure game for their Party sent one Ioice a Taylor by Trade but now a Cornet by his Employment to Holmby who came at twelve a clock at night and forced the King to go with him against his will Upon which the Earl of Lauderdale emitted a Declaration in Name of the Scotish Nation against that Force put on the Kings Person contrary to all their Treaties and Declarations and demanded that His Majesties Person might be presently set at Liberty and brought with Honour Freedom and Safety to some of His Houses in or about London and after that he went to Newmarket to wait on the King who was there with the Army But the Army begun to abuse His Majesty into some Confidence in them And use Hiâ— civilly and used Him at another rate than had been done at Holmby They gave free access to all His Servants to come to Him they allowed His Chaplains to attend about Him and serve in their Office according to the Liturgy and permitted Him free Correspondence with the Queen and every body else and in their Discourses intimated their willingness to lay aside the Covenant and allow the Toleration of Episcopacy and the Liturgy all which though smoothly said was meant to cajole Him to his Ruine Assoon as His Majesty was at Liberty He wrote the following Letter to my Lord Lanerick Lanerick THe present condition of My Affairs is such He writes to Lanerick that I believe you and your Brother may do Me better Service at London than where you are therefore I desire that both or at least one of you would come up assoon as you could the rest I leave till meeting and so farewel Your most assured real constant Friend CHARLES R. Newmarket 22th Iune 1647. To this my Lord Lanerick wrote this Answer Sir YOur Majesties Letter of the 22th of June had been immediately obeyed Lanerick's Answer if our Stay here for some time had not
gone to some Place where you might be safe and free from Your Enemies and where Your Majesties Friends might have access to You. But as the Place to which You are gone so Your Majesties Message of the 16th hath infinitely disabled us to serve You for what You offer in matter of Religion comes far short of Your Majesties Message of the 12th of May besides it grants a full Toleration of Heresy and Schism for ever And as for Your Concessions in things Civil more is granted than was expected by some or wished by others and although we know not how effectual Your Majesties Message may prove for a Personal Treaty yet our Endeavours shall be really contributed for that end as we have done in part already If this Message be rejected a Personal Treaty denied the new Propositions pressed by the Two Houses and Your Majesty in no better Security than formerly You would advise us in time what to do and wherein we can be useful to Your Majesty who are resolved to serve You as becomes Your Majesties most humble most faithful most loyal Subjects and Servants LOWDON LAVDERDALE LANERICK 22th Novemb. 1647. Next day His Majesty wrote what follows to my Lord Lanerick Lanerick His Majesties Answer to Lanerick I Wonder to hear if that be true that some of My Friends should say that My Going to Jersey had much more furthered My Personal Treaty than My Coming hithâ—r for wâ—ich as I see no colour of Reason so I had not been here if I had thought that Fancy true or had not been secured of a Personal Treaty of which I neither do nor I hope shall repent for I am daily more and more satisfied with this Governour and find these Islanders very goâ—d peaceable and quiet People This Encouragement I have thought not unfit for you to receive hoping at least it may do good upon others though needless to you from Your most assured real faithful constant Friend CHARLES R. Carisbrook 23th Nov. 1647. But in the end of November the Two Houses passed the four Bills without the consent of the Scotish Commissioners which was a manifest Breach of Treaty The Two Houses pass the four Bills In them the Covenant was not so much as mentioned for they related wholly to Civil matters as the perpetual Power of the Militia the unlimited Authority of Parliament and in effect the Giving up at once the Kings Authority But the Scotish Commissioners complained and Remonstrated against this with open mouth and gave in a large Remonstrance against the four Bills Declaring The Scotish Commissionerâ— protest against them that contrary to all the former Treaties and Declarations the Propositions made to His Majesty were still altered the Propositions sent to Newcastle to which notwithstanding their dislike of them yet for Peace sake they had yielded were now quite changed They also protested first against the sending of Propositions without a previous Treaty which they earnestly pressed as the likeliest Course for removing all Mistakes and bringing things to a Final Settlement and therefore they insisted on their former Desires for a Personal Treaty in or about London Next they excepted against the Bills both because the Covenant was quite omitted and the Settling of the Uniformity of Religion was turned to a Desire for a vast Toleration The Treaties with Scotland were not desired to be confirmed but only the making of them to be approved which was rather an Indemnity for making them than a Confirmation of them Next they remonstrated that the Kings Legislative Power was quite taken away by an unlimited Power they desired to be put in the Hands of the Two Houses and that their Demand about the Militia did put the King out of a capacity of Protecting His Subjects In fine they complained of the making Propositions without the concurrence of the Scotish Commissioners wherefore they remonstrated against the Bills and resolved to follow the Commissioners whom the Two Houses were to send to Wight and protest against these Bills upon which divers Papers passed betwixt the Two Houses and them The Earls of Lowdon Lauderdale and Lanerick wrote their sense of these Bills to His Majesty thus May it please Your Majesty and write to the King concerning them IT is of no advantage to expostulate about what is past either the carrying Your Majesty into that sad Place or the Prejudice Your Service and we suffer by Your Majesties Message for while You study to satisfie all You satisfie no Interest We shall insist on the grounds we went on at Hampton-Court and shall constantly press a Personal Treaty at London but not as the new Propositions do hold forth which if Your Majesty agrees to You divest Your Self and Your Posterity of the Militia for ever You settle this Army and Entertainment for it over Your Self and Your Majesties People perpetually and by giving leave to Adjournment You and Your Parliament shall be carried about at the Armies Pleasure as their Sub-Committee If Your Majesty will further enable us we shall by our Actions give more real testimonies how intirely we are Your Majesties most humble most faithful and most loyal Subjects and Servants LOWDON LAVDERDALE LANERICK 25th November 1647. With this Lanerick sent to His Majesty the Papers they gave in against the Bills and the other late Votes upon which the King wrote the following Letter Lanerick ALbeit that Letters can ill dispute at this distance yet I cannot but tell you His Majesty is well satisfied with their Papers that many things may be fitly offered to obtain a Treaty that may be altered when one comes to Treat and there is a great difference betwixt what I will insist on and what I will permit for the obtaining of a Peace Likewise it is neceâ—sary in many respects that I should seek to satisfie as far as I can with Conscience and Honour all chief Interests All these things impartially and duly considered I will boldly say My Message will not be found much amiss which recommending to Yâ—ur better consideration I must now desire You to give hearty thanks in My Name to your fellow-Commissioners of which though you take a large share to your self they will not want for their Paper of the 17th of this Month which was sent to the Two Houses for seriously it is as full to My sense as if I had penned it My Self And let me tell you that it will turn to the greatest Honour I say no more that ever befell you wherefore I conjure you by all that is dear to wise or honest men that you adhere close and constantly to it and as the Song sayes I ask no more So I rest Your most assured faithful real Friend CHARLES R. Carisbrook 29th November 1647. To which with another of that Date which His Majesty wrote to the three Lords which is not in the Writers hands they wrote the following Answers Sir They write again to the King IN answer to Your Majesties of
Lanerick Cousin YOu will perceive by this that you cannot make more haste in obliging Me A Letter from the Queen to Lanerick than I shall on My part in witnessing My Acknowledgements of it I ascribe a great deal of the good Inclinations your Commissioners do now express to the good Offices you do of which I intreat the Continuance The testimonies of Friendship which I receive from those of your Family surprize Me less than what I met with from other Hands and I promise My Self to see further effects of it And as I have all the esteem of you that you can expect so you owe Me the Iustice of believing that I shall give evidence of it upon every occasion that shall be offered to Me nor shall I rest satisfied with that but shall diligently search out every opportunity of expressing it Therefore I entreat you to believe that I am Cousin Your very good and very affectionate Friend and Cousin HENRIETA MARIA R. Towards the end of December the Earls of Lowdon Lauderdale and Lanerick The Scotish Commissioners go to His Majesty followed the English Commissioners to the Isle of Wight and after they had protested against the Bills they concluded their Treaty with His Majesty to engage for his Rescue and Re-establishment on his Throne and to bring in an Army into England assoon as it were possible for that effect An Agreement with the King to bring an Army for His Service The King on the other hand engaged to them for all the Assistance they could demand from the Queen or Prince or any other who would obey His Authority and that the Prince should come to Scotland assoon as they found it convenient to invite him and that His Majesty should grant all the Desires of Scotland which with a good Conscience he could grant And the Commissioners having advised and agreed with His Majesty both about the Methods of carrying on their Designs and the ways of keeping Correspondence with him they resolved to return home to Scotland and so they left His Majesty at Wight in the end of the Year But upon the Kings refusing to pass the Bills he was made close Prisoner and a Vote passed in both Houses against all further Addresses to him MEMOIRES OF THE LIFE and ACTIONS OF James Duke of Hamilton c. LIB VI. Of the Dukes Engagement for the Kings Preservation and what followed till His Death Anno 1648. An. 1648. THe former Book has given the Reader a just and full Representation of His Majesties Imprisonment and the Danger his Person was in of the Force put on the Two Houses by the Army and of the breach of former Treaties with the Scotish Nation and now it cannot but be imagined that such Illegal and Unjust Proceedings must have inflamed the Resentments of all good Subjects and more signally of such who had formerly been carried away in the crowd to act against the Kings Interests but now seeing how fatal the Breach between the King and his People was likely to prove to both were much concerned to correct all former Errours and expiate all past Faults by a vigorous appearance for the Kings Rescue out of his Imprisonment In order to this Design the Duke was not idle in Scotland The Dukes endeavours in Scotland but by all the Art and Diligence he was Master of did study to rouse up and work upon the Fidelity and Loyalty of that Nation representing that now an Occasion was in their Hands to witness to the World the sincerity of their Intentions for their King when he was under so base a Restraint and Designs were hatching against his Life Would they now look on and see the King murdered the Parliament of England over-awed the City of London oppressed the whole English Nation enslaved the Treaties with Scotland so unworthily violated the Covenant and Religion so neglected and swarms of Sectaries over-run all Now or never was the time for declaring themselves and if Duty did not move them yet the apprehension of their own Danger might provoke them to look to themselves for did they think to escape the fury of the Sectaries if they were so tame as to suffer them to prevail in England therefore all Laws Divine and Humane did oblige them to look to themselves and to those Enemies of theirs And there was good reason to hope for success since besides the Blessing of God which might be expected upon so just and Noble Enterprizes the People of England were groaning under this Usurpation and would be ready to assist them and they had reason to expect a welcome from the City of London and the better part of the Two Houses These things did prevail much on the most of the Nobility and Gentry Three Parties in Scotland But at this time Three Parties begun to appear in Scotland The one was of those who would hear of no Proposition for the Kings Delivery unless he first gave satisfaction in matters of Religion and this was made up of the Preachers and a few of the Nobility and the Western Counties Others were for a direct Owning of the Kings Quarrel without any restrictions and for taking all Persons who had been in Arms for the Kings Service within it The Earls of Traquair and Calendar were the chief of these and many Noblemen were of it who called themselves the Kings Party but their Power in the Country was not great The Duke was as much for that in his thoughts as any of them but saw it impossible to effectuate the Kings business at that rate and therefore judged it best to go on in so great a Design by degrees The present Strait was that he first looked to which was the Rescue of the Kings Person and he doubted not if they once got a good Army engaged upon that account though all were at first clogged with many severe Restrictions yet it would be easy afterwards to carry things that were not to be then spoken of and this way took with almost the whole Gentry of Scotland The Scotish Commissioners spent much of the month of Ianuary at London The Commissioners return to Scotland establishing a good Correspondence with the Kings Friends in England and they had Letters from St. Germans in France in which the Queen and Prince undertook to make good to them all that had been promised by the King in their Name And in the Commissions the Prince gave to Sir Marmaduke Langdale and others for Levying of Forces in the North of England he commanded them to receive their Orders from the Earls of Lauderdale and Lanerick and follow their Commands Thus having laid down the best Methods they could think of with their Friends in England they set out for Scotland about the end of Ianuary At their coming to Scotland they found a general dissatisfaction with the Kings Message in November about Religion And though all the Duke's Friends were ready to have hazarded their Lives for His
of a long Preamble and Eight Articles THe first was That before they went on to a War and find great opposition from the Ministers the Grounds and Causes of it might be well cleared Secondly that the alledged Breaches of the Covenant and Treaties might be condescended upon and Reparation of them first sought Thirdly that there might be no such Grounds of War as might break the Vnion of the two Kingdoms and disoblige the Presbyterians of England Fourthly that none of the disaffected or Malignant Party might be admitted to Trust but on the contrary that they should be opposed and suppressed Fifthly that the Kings late Concessions might be declared unsatisfactory Sixthly that they should engage not to restore His Majesty to the exercise of His Royal Power till He should by Oath bind Himself and His Successors to consent to Acts of Parliament for confirming the League and Covenant and settling Presbytery the Directory and the Confession of Faith Seventhly that none might be trusted but such as were of known Integrity and good affection to the Cause Eighthly that the Church might have the same Interest in carrying on this Engagement which they had in the Solemn League and Covenant These Demands run in so high a strain that those of the Church-Party judged either they would be rejected and so the Church would pretend somewhat for their breaking with the Parliament or if they were yielded to it would so alienate the Hearts of the King and all His Friends in England from them that they would hate them as much as they did the English Parliament or Army The Committee of Parliament found the Strait they were in and saw what an unhappy practice it had been to give the Church-men so great an interest in Civil Affairs Some were for brisker Courses and for clapping up in Prison all the more turbulent Ministers but the Duke apprehended great trouble from that fearing it should raise stirs among the people which might retard the design of the Kings Delivery upon which all his thoughts were bent The hazard of intercepting Letters made the Intercourse by them so slow that the Lords that corresponded with His Majesty had no Return from him before the beginning of April and then they got that which follows I Was as glad to see the constancy of your Resolutions as I was sorry to understand the great Opposition you find in Your Vndertakings The King writes to his Servants in Scotland But as for any Enlargement concerning Church-affairs I desire you not to expect it from Me for such expectations have been a great cause of this My present Condition which I assure you I am still resolved rather to suffer than to wrong My Conscience or Honour which I must do if I enlarge My Self any thing in those points But I take very well the freedom of your Advice because I see it flows from your Affection being also confident that you will cheerfully and resolutely go on according to your Engagements to Me who am Your most assured real constant Friend CHARLES R. 17th March 1648. And to this the Earls of Lauderdale and Lanerick wrote the following Answers SIR WE have received Your Majesties of the 17th of March Nothing but the cruel slowness of Proceedings here would have made us so long silent and that was occasioned by the great Opposition we have met with from the Ministers and the rigid Persons who strongly pretend Your Majesties not satisfying in matters of Religion and upon these grounds have gained upon many and obstructed any Engagement Yet we and those we have interest in are so sensible of our Duties our Honour and of Your Majesties sad Condition which goes nearer our Hearts than any earthly thing that although an Engagement upon the terms we parted on be impossible yet we shall either procure Scotland's Vndertaking for Your Majesties Person or perish let the hazard or opposition be what it can We can boldly say we have the Major Vote of the Parliament clear and if we were blest with Your Majesties Presence the work were done We dare not presume in this troublesom way to express the particulars of our Difficulties or Resolution but hope shortly to give a more satisfactory account having vowed to live and die Your Majesties most humble most faithful and most loyal Subjects and Servants LAVDERDALE LANERICK 22th March 1648. Lanerick also wrote what follows taken from an imperfect Copy under his hand SIR I Have been long silent and possibly should have been so a little longer had I not received Your Majesties of the 17th of the last Moneth but lest I be involved in other mens Guilt I must first speak and then perish or do my Duty Sir at our first returning to Scotland we met with a general Dissatisfaction with what you offered concerning Religion from the Ministers and their Party though all I have Interest in would have cheerfully hazarded their Lives for Your Majesties Preservation upon these or easier terms but after long Debate upon the Consequences of engaging in so great a Work not only without Vnanimity but with the Opposition of the Church and most of those who have been of greatest Eminence and Power during these late Troubles this moved us to a willingness for a very extraordinary Compliance with their Desires providing we might be assured of an Engagemennt But now when we have gone a greater length than even our Loyalty can allow us we find that nothing is intended by them but either a Conjunction with those that seek your Ruine or at least a dull and stupid Suffering and enduring of those destructive Resolutions to Religion and Government which are now designed by the Enemies of God and Your Majesty After this there was a new Committee of 24 chosen by the Parliament for a Conference with the 12 Commissioners of the Kirk who had many Meetings with them and gave them satisfaction to all their Demands so that all back-doors were shut and they were ashamed that they had asked no more wherefore being driven from all their Pretences they fled to the last starting-hole of Jealousie and said that their Designs were contrary to their Professions This was a tedious Affair and cost many Conferences In end great Offers were made to satisfie the Church-party but nothing did prevail whereupon the Committee drew up a large Declaration of all the Violations of the Covenant and Treaties made by the Two Houses together with an account of their own Intentions suitable to the Propositions made by the Ministers only they stood much upon the sixth Article that seemed most contrary to their Duty to their Sovereign and it took them up many days at length they yielded even to that but for this the Reader is referred to the Declaration printed with the Acts of that Parliament On the 25th of April the great Business was carried The Parliament vote an Engagement for the King of putting the Kingdom into a posture of Defenâ—e but the account of the
urge more out of my Duty to Him than kindness to our selves The next was of the 24th of April 1648. SInce my last to you I have received yours of the 18th and 22th of the last Moneth We have made an indifferent good progress in our Parliament here for we have stated all the Breaches of Covenant and Treaties we have resolved upon some Demands to be sent to the Houses of Parliament for Religion for His Majesty and for Disbanding of the present Army of Sectaries and we have pressed a Declaration containing the Grounds of our Resolutions In order to all these we likewise Voted the present putting of this Kingdom into a posture of War and this Week we are to nominate and make choice of all the Officers of our Army The Church doth still violently oppose us and threatens us with cross Declarations if not the extremity of Church-Censures Argyle and his Party maintain them in their Obstinacy or rather they do him in his Disloyalty but neither the fear of their Curses nor want of their Prayers can fright us from our Duty so soon as we are ready to act which possibly may be sooner than you imagine The next was of the 28th of April to His Majesty MY last to you was of the 13th of this Moneth by the Conveyance of Doctor Frazer Since that time we have perfected what was then designed for we have made choice of all the Officers of our Forces wherein we have been forced to spend much time and the next Week we intend to model our Army for England which we hope shall be upon the Borders against the 21th of the next Moneth which is the time limited for the Return of our Messenger from London who this day parts from hence with the three Demands to the Houses of Parliament wherof my last made mention and with a positive Command to stay only 15 days for his Answer We intend likewise in the beginning of the next Week to dispatch Sir William Fleming to the Queen and Prince to give them an account of our Proceedings and to know his Highness's Resolution concerning his coming hither and to desire the present sending of Arms and Ammunition to us whereof we are absolutely unprovided so that if the Queen or Prince of Orange to whom we beg Your Majesty would write do not supply us it will infinitely retard the Service We have passed a Declaration which is full of many rude Restrictions both in order to Your Majesty and Your faithful Servants But we are forced to them for the satisfaction of the Nice Consciences of the Clergy and their Proselytes whom we find still so inflexible that nothing can perswade them to a Conjunction with us in the Work on the contrary we meet with all imaginable Opposition from them yet as we have carried the Declaration and all that is yet done against their strongest Endeavours so we hope in despight of them to be Instruments in accomplishing the chief end it drives at which is Your Majesties Rest and Restauration Our next will certainly bring you the Knowledg of some Acting in order to that which we dare not hazard to this Cypher lest there may be more Copies of it than what we have with Your Majesty The slowness of their Motions in Scotland begun to give great Jealousies of their Proceedings every-where Jealousies of the Scotish Proceedings At Paris the Prince was much courted to go to Ireland but he resolved rather to go to Scotland and designed to go first to Holland Yet there were some about him who studied to give him ill Impressions of all that passed in Scotland grounding them on the old Calumnies that had been cast on the Duke and on the slowness of their Procedure at that time in Scotland together with the extraordinary Cajolery they gave the Church-party all which were made use of for alienating his Highness from that Resolution But he resolved to obey the Kings Commands and sent them new Assurances of that by Sir William Fleming and to oblige the Duke the more a Book being dedicated to his Highness containing some passages much to the Dukes dishonour he refused to accept of it and ordered it to be called in While things were thus preparing in Scotland His Majesty in the Isle of Wight was contriving an Escape being resolved if it succeeded to have come to Scotland but the means failed oftener than once which being discovered made his Prison the straiter He was also courted under hand with new Propositions from the Parliament of England but refused to enter into any Treaty without the Concurrence of the Scotish Nation Yet it troubled him much to hear no more of the progress of their Designs on which all his Hopes were then set for in that disorderly time it was not easy to transmit frequent and clear accounts of all that passed At length having understood from Scotland what advance was made in that Affair he was satisfied with the Fidelity of those he had imployed there At London there went various Constructions on the Scotish Actions The Commissioners of the Two Houses that were at Edinburgh wrote up that the Church-party would undoubtedly keep the Duke and his Party in play at least that Year and that the zeal of the Ministers would make the Levies go slowly on they either believing this themselves or at least designing that others should do so At this time there was a great Inclination all over England to shake off the Armies Arbitrary Yoke Great Disorders in England Stirs were rising in every place The Duke with his other Friends in Scotland dealt earnestly with their Correspondents in England to get all kept quiet till they were ready to march that so there might be an universal Rising at once which would have undoubtedly divided the Army that was against them into so many Fractions as might make way for their easier Overthrow This Design was zealously promoted by many who saw the great advantage it might produce but many were too jealous of the Scotish Designs and so did precipitate their own Ruin Others apprehended from their Declarations that the Bondage would be the same only the Masters changed if they prevailed and this made the Kings Party resolve rather to perish than receive any help from the Scots on these terms Their slowness made others despair of their Sincerity and the reports of the Power of the Church-party made all suspect their Strength so the untimely Rising in England was the Ruin of this Years Design for they rose only to be destroyed and to animate the Army with those many Victories they obtained over them And as these Defeats did much discourage the Scotish Army so it forced them to march into England before they were ready and e're they had looked well to the Security of Affairs behind them The first Rising was by Poyer in Wales to whom Langhorn came within a little and Commanded most of the Country At Westminster as they understood the state
raised Regiments of five or six Troops on their own expences And though it is not to be imagined that the publick Expence of so great a Design was not likewise great yet there was a sad want of Money which the Duke and his Brother did all they could to supply as far as their Credit could go and raised above two and twenty thousand pounds sterling for prosecuting of the Engagement and were on all publick occasions so liberal of their own Money as if some Bank had been put into their hands The Curses the Ministers thundred against all who joyned in this Engagement made the Souldiers very heartless being threatned with no less than Damnation This obliged the Lords to use Force in some places for carrying on their Levies and indeed the Ministers counter-acting the State was such that it is hard to judge whether their Boldness or the Parliaments Patience was most to be wondred at The Lords resolved to chastise them to purpose in due time but judged the present time improper for it and to carry on the Levies the better the Parliament adjourned for three weeks So the Lords went to the several places of their Interests leaving a Committee behind them at Edinburgh but before their Adjournment they wrote the following Letter to the Presbyteries The Parliaments Letter to the Presbyteries THe many Scandals that are tâ—rown on our Actions by the favourers of Sectaries and haters of the Person of our King and Monarchical Government invite us to this extraordinary Address to you conjuring you as you will answer the Great God whose Servants you are not to suffer your selves to be possest with unjust and undeserved Prejudices against us and our Proceedings who have since our late Meeting in Parliament preferred no earthly thing to Religion and the promoving all the ends of our Covenant and have constantly used all real Endeavours to have carried on these Duties to the satisfaction of the most tender Consciences and especially by our great Compliance with the many Desires from the Commissioners of the General Assembly we have proceeded to greater discoveries of our Resolutions in the ways and means of managing of this present Service than possibly in prudence we ought to have done having so near and active Enemies to oppose us neither can it with any Truth or Iustice in any sort be alledged that we have in the least measure wronged or violated the least Priviledges and Liberties of the Church or taken upon us the determination or decision of any matters of Faith or Church-discipline though we be unjustly charged with making an Antecedent Iudgment in matters of Religion under pretence whereof great Encroachments are made on our unquestioned Rights for what can be more Civil than to determine what Civil Duties we ought to pay to our King or what Civil Power he ought to be possessed of and if we meet with obstructions and opposition in carrying on these Duties are not we the only Iudges thereof is there any other Authority in this Kingdom but that of King and Parliament and what flows from them that can pretend any Authoritative Power in the choice of the Instruments and Managers of our Publick Resolutions is it a Subject for the Dispute of Church-Iudicatories whether His Majesty have a Negative Voice or not These things certainly cannot be pretended to by any Kirk-man without a great Vsurpation over the Civil Magistrate whereof we are confident the Church of Scotland or any Iudicatory thereof will never be guilty nor fall into the Episcopal disease of meddling in Civil Affairs and if any have already in these Particulars exceeded their bounds we expect the ensuing General Assembly will censure it accordingly and prevent the vilifying and contemning the Authority of Parliament by any of their Ministers either in or out of their Pulpits who shall offer to stir up the Subjects of this Kingdom to disobey or deny to give Civil Obedience to their Laws it being expresly prohibited by the 2 and 5 Acts of King James the sixth his eighth Parliament Anno 1584. That none of His Majesties Subjects under pain of Treason impugne the Authority of Parliament And therefore seeing the Cause is the same for which this Kingdom hath done and suffered so much and that we are resolved to proceed for the Preservation and Defence of Religion before all wordly Interest whatsoever and to carry on sincerely really and constantly the Covenant and all the Ends of it as you will find by our Declaration herewith sent to you we do confidently expect that as the Ministers of this Kingdom have hitherto been most active and exemplary in furthering the former Expeditions so now you will continue in the same Zeal to stir up the People by your Preaching and Prayers and all other ways in your Calling to a chearful Obedience to our Orders and Engageing in the business that you will not give so great advantage to the Enemies of Presbyterial Government and bring so great a Scandal on this Church as to oppose the Authority of Parliament or obstruct their Proceedings in their necessary Duties for the good of Religion Honour and Happiness of the King and his Royal Posterity and the true Peace of His Dominions Signed by Order of Parliament Alex. Gibsone Clerk Regist. Edinburgh May 11 1648. The Parliament having resolved to raise an Army for the Kings Relief The Parliament sends for the Scotish Army in Ireland found it expedient for encreasing the number and strength of their Forces to send to Ireland for a part of their Scotish Army there which as was told An. 1642 had been sent from Scotland thither by Commission from the King under the Great Seal and upon a Treaty and Establishment betwixt the two Nations for suppressing the Irish Rebellion and for perswading them to desert for so Noble an Undertaking their Interest in Ireland which was very considerable for there was above seven hundred and seventy thousand pound sterling of Arrear resting to them upon a stated Accompt fitted by Persons intrusted by the Parliament of England and Commissioners from them preceding the 16th of Iune 1647 besides a year more until Iune 1648 not at all reckoned they sent over three of their number two Knights Sir Iames Macdougal and Sir William Cocheran now Earl of Dundonald and Mr. Crawford Burgess of Linlithgow with Letters and Instructions to that purpose They were kindly received by such of the Officers as had chief Power there but most unwelcome to a contrary Party who had notice how averse the Kirk to which they were addicted had declared themselves from the Designs of that Parliament nevertheless it was quickly agreed to that about twelve hundred Horse and two thousand and one hundred Foot should be provided and regimented and transported to Scotland to be conducted by Sir George Monro in the quality of a Major-General and to be joyned with the Dukes Armie At Westminster they were in great Confusion fearing that the General
that had been sent from Edinburgh but before I go further a little must be premised of the state of the Army and of those who commanded it The chief Officers of the Army The Duke was General of whom I find an old experienced Souldier who served under him passing this judgment His Conduct of Forces was as good as that of any under his Command without exception but it was his Fate I dare not say his Fault in Military matters as was his Masters in Political Affairs not to trust to his own Iudgment but to the Iudgments of others though inferiour as all the World knew to their own and to this Character all with whom the Writer ever spake who served in that Army did agree Calander's Character The Lieutenant-General was the Earl of Calander who was bred from his youth a Souldier in the Wars of Germany and the Low-Countries where he long commanded a Regiment of Scotish Foot and had gained deservedly the reputation of a man of great Courage and understood well the Dutch Discipline of War which he observed with a strictness that seemed not free of Affectation The promptness of his Deportment and the Authority he usually took on him being judged far beyond his skill in the Conduct of an Army he was made Lieutenant-General of the Scotish Army that went against the King under General Lesley Anno 1640 and joyned with Montrose and the other Noblemen and Gentlemen who signed the Bond mentioned in the account of that Year and from that time he continued for some Years in a great Friendship with Montrose which as it did alienate the Church-party from him so it set him at a distance from the Duke of whom he was ready both to receive and give ill Impressions Yet he having made great and constant Professions of Loyalty and having got himself to make a considerable figure among some Noblemen who were called the Kings Party a Conjunction with him being also earnestly recommended by the Queen in her Letters to the Duke he and some of his Friends though many condemned the choice were easily induced to such an opinion of the Reality of Calander's Loyalty and Military Conduct and Courage as to accept of him for Lieutenant-General of the Army though the Duke had no reason to have any confidence in his Friendship But as he left nothing undone to overcome all Obstacles that lay in the way of this loyal Expedition so he complied with divers things that were uneasie to him whereof this was none of the least because he would leave no ground for Calumny it self to charge him with Slackness in attempting to do this signal Service to God the King and his Country The Lieutenant-General was quickly observed to design a Faction in the Army for himself and to oppose all that the General suggested which he did so peremptorily that he usually pressed all his own Propositions with such warm Language as that the Kings Service was ruined if other Courses were followed and this never failed to over-rule the Duke and in effect he gave away almost his whole Power to him But if he expected little Friendship from Calander he had as much confidence in Middleton Lieutenant-General of the Horse who was a Person of great Courage and Honour and none had been more gallantly active in carrying on this Expedition than he was for which and other Great Services he was by His Majesty that now reigns created Earl of Middleton nor had he less assurance of Baylie Lieutenant-General of the Foot who had given many signal demonstrations of Valour and Conduct The Inferiour Officers stood all divided according as their Affections led them either to the General or Lieutenant-General and thus was the Army modelled The Regiments were not full many of them scarce exceeded half their number and not the fifth man could handle Pike or Musket The Horse were the best mounted that ever Scotland set out yet most of the Troopers were raw and undisciplined They had no Artillery not so much as one Field-piece very little Ammunition and very few Horse to carry it for want of which the Duke stayed often in the Reer of the whole Army till the Country-men brought in Horses and then conveyed it with his own Guard of Horse Thus the precipitating of Affairs in England forced them on a March before they were in any posture for it but now they were engaged and they must go forward an account whereof follows but not drawn as the former Parts of this Work have been from the Dukes Papers and little Notes he used to take on all occasions for if any of these were taken by him in this Expedition they were either destroyed by himself or fell into the Enemies hands when he was made Prisoner so that the Writer was forced to seek help from others for supplying this Defect and procured divers Relations from very worthy Gentlemen who were Eye-Witnesses or Actors in the whole Affair upon whose Informations he must rest and therefore offers them as follows UPon the Armies march to Carlisle Lambert drew back and we advanced to Crofton-Hall where we lay about eight or ten days The account of the March of the Army from thence we went towards Penreith but the Duke sent out a Party of some three hundred Horse who discovered the Enemies Main-Guard of Horse and gave the General notice of it who thereupon commanded the whole Cavalry to march purposing to fall upon the Enemy that very night and he sent orders to Baylie to hasten the advance of the Infantry A full discovery being made of the Enemy our Cavalry was drawn up in their view where expecting the advance of the Foot we stood in Arms till night but about midnight the Enemy drew off quietly Next morning betimes a great rain falling we advanced to a Bridge a mile beyond Penreith with design to engage the Enemy but missing our hopes were forced for our accomodation in Quartering to return to Penreith Next day my Lord Levingstoun commanding a Party of Horse discovered the Enemies Main-Guard within a mile of Appleby-Castle in Westmoreland consisting of about three hundred Horse of which having sent advertisement to the General he ordered the Army to march immediately towards the Enemy and Middleton commanded the Captain of the Generals Troop to charge who beat back the Enemies Horse into the Town of Appleby That evening our whole Cavalry made a stand for several hours expecting the advance of Langdale who being marched up did presently with his Foot engage with the Enemy into the Town till it was dark Our Infantry Quartered that night on the Moor near Appleby but before the next morning the Enemy marched away both Horse and Foot leaving only a Garrison in Appleby-Castle and did cut the Bridge so that it was impossible to follow for the rains had fallen in such abundance that the Waters were not to be forded whereupon we went to Kirby-thure in Cumberland where we lay three Weeks
be said of the Duke Anno 1649. ON the 4th of December Orders were sent to bring him to Windsor and he came thither the 11th of that Month. He was lodged in the House of one of the poor Knights of Windsor and kept under strict Guards yet on the 21th of that Month as the King was carried through Windsor he prevailed so far with his Keepers as to permit him to see his Majesty and as he passed he kneeled down and with a transport of humble Sorrow kissed his hand and had only time to say My dear Master the King embraced him very kindly and said I have been so indeed to you but they were parted and suffered to have no discourse It may easily be imagined with what sorrow he followed the King with his eyes as far as he could see him knowing he was to do so no more nor did he much regrate his present Trouble or imminent Danger all his thoughts being swallowed up in sorrow at the Consideration of his Master's Ruin which was then no more to be doubted the Army and House as it was then modelled or rather forced having avowed their Design against his Person and thrown off the Disguise with which they had long mask'd themselves The Parliament of England had upon the matter condemned the Duke to perpetual Imprisonment Much pains is taken to draw discoveries from him but in vain by setting an hundred thousand pound sterling for his Ransome which sum could not be raised by him at a time when by the Debts he had contracted in the Kings Service his Fortune was fallen so low Cromwel came several times to him to draw from him some Discoveries of his Correspondents in England and gave him great assurances of Life Rewards and Secrecy but he rejected the Proposition with horrour and disdain though often repeated and apprehending they might get his Brother into their hands sent him at that time the following Note which I set down though unfinisht and written with the Juyce of a Lemmon I Vnder the power of the Sword and merciless men no favour to be expected oft examined but nothing discovered being ignorant perhaps you will abide the same Trial beware if you do The thirtieth of Ianuary was that fatal and never-to-be-forgotten Day wherein His Sacred Majesty after the Pageantry of a Trial to add the appearance of Justice to so base and barbarous a Murder was beheaded to the Amazement of all Europe by an unexampled practice in any Monarchy But the particulars of his Royal Constancy and Christian Patience being so punctually related by others I shall not stand to repeat what is already known but having proposed to my self nothing more in this whole Work than to let the World see the great Piety and strictness of Conscience that Blessed Prince carried along with him in all his Affairs and to publish such Remains of his Pen as had not been formerly seen or known I shall therefore insert a Copy of Verses written by his Majesty in his Captivity which a very worthy Gentleman who had the honour of waiting on him then and was much trusted by him Copied out from the Original who avoucheth it to be a true Copy but I shall first present that Royal Martyr to the Readers view in the Posture which was most familiar to Him and then set down those Verses in which the mighty sense and the great Piety will be found to be beyond all the finest sublimities of Poetry which yet are not wanting here An. 1648. Rom. VIII more than Conquerour Bona agere mala pati Regium est Alij diutius Imperium tenuerunt nemo tam fortiter reliquit Tacit. Histor. Lib. 2 c.47 p417 MAJESTY in MISERY OR An Imploration to the KING of Kings Written by His late Majesty King CHARLES the First during His Captivity at Carisbrook Castle Anno Dom. 1648. GREAT Monarch of the World from whose Power Springs The Potency and Power of Kings Record the Royal Woe my Suffering sings And teach my tongue that ever did confine Its faculties in Truths Seraphick Line To track the Treasons of thy foes and mine Nature and Law by thy Divine Decree The only Root of Righteous Royaltie With this dim Diadem invested me With it the sacred Scepter Purple Robe The Holy Vnction and the Royal Globe Yet am I levell'd with the life of Job The fiercest Furies that do daily tread Vpon my Grief my Gray Dis-crowned Head Are those that owe my Bounty for their Bread They raise a War and Christen it The Cause Whil'st sacrilegious hands have best applause Plunder and Murder are the Kingdoms Laws Tyranny bears the Title of Taxation Revenge and Robbery are Reformation Oppression gains the name of Sequestration An. 1649. My Loyal Subjects who in this bad season Attend me by the Law of God and Reason They dare impeach and punish for High Treason Next at the Clergy do their Furies frown Pious Episcopacy must go down They will destroy the Crosier and the Crown Church-men are chain'd and Schismaticks are free'd Mechanicks preach and Holy Fathers bleed The Crown is crucified with the Creed The Church of England doth all Faction foster The Pulpit is usurpt by each Impostor Ex tempore excludes the Pater noster The Presbyter and Independent Seed Springs with broad blades to make Religion bleed Herod and Pontius Pilate are agreed The Corner-stone's misplac'd by every Pavier With such a bloody method and behaviour Their Ancestors did crucifie our Saviour My Royal Consort from whose fruitful Womb So many Princes legally have come Is forc'd in Pilgrimage to seek a Tomb. Great Britain's Heir is forced into France Whilst on his Father's head his foes advance Poor Child He weeps out his Inheritance With my own Power my Majesty they wound In the King's Name the King himself 's uncrown'd So doth the Dust destroy the Diamond With Propositions daily they enchant My Peoples ears such as do Reason daunt And the Almighty will not let me grant They promise to erect my Royal Stem To make Me great t' advance my Diadem If I will first fall down and worship them But for refusal they devour my Thrones Distress my Children and destroy my bones I fear they 'l force me to make bread of stones My Life they prize at such a slender rate That in my absence they draw Bills of hate To prove the King a Traytor to the State Felons obtain more priviledge than I They are allow'd to answer e're they die 'T is death for me to ask the reason Why. But Sacred Saviour with thy words I woo Thee to forgive and not be bitter to Such as thou know'st do not know what they do For since they from their Lord are so disjointed As to contemn those Edicts he appointed How can they prize the Power of his Anointed Augment my Patience nullifie my Hate Preserve my Issue and inspire my Mate Yet though We perish bless this Church and State Vota dabunt quae bella
their Act which constituted this Court for his Trial declared him a Traytor it was not to be disputed what the Parliament had Power to do but no Parliament had ever done the like before and the meaning of the Act must be that he should be tried whether guilty of Treason or not since if the Parliament have already declared him a Traytor further Trial was needless And it was clear the Parliament by their Act in Iuly last which declared all the Scots who entred England Enemies considered not the distinction of Post-nati nor judged that inferred Treason since most of them all were Post-nati That many of the Officers of that Army who had been taken Prisoners though clearly Post-nati were ransomed others banished others still in Prison why then should the imputation of Treason be fastned on the Duke when the rest were used only as Enemies And for the Articles they made it appear they were the Publick Faith of the Kingdom when given by persons publickly Authorized upon the observing of which inviolably depended the whole Intercourse of all Nations and their mutual Confidence which is founded on all States being bound by the Acts of their Publick Ministers That this was not a pure Rendition but a Paction concluded upon Deliberation wherein the Parliament lost nothing but on the contrary were Gainers That the Parliament had ratified this upon the matter by Voting a hundred thousand pound Sterling Fine to be the price of the Dukes Liberty That the secret sence the Treaters pretended was not to be considered since all Compacts are to be understood according to the clear meaning of the Words the universal sense of Mankind who look on Articles wherein Life is granted as a sufficient Security not only from the Souldiers but from the Civil Powers and that these Treaters when the Articles were agreed should have made known their secret meaning otherwise it was not to be regarded and it was a most dangerous Precedent to admit of collateral Averments of secret meanings against express words much more in a Case of Life and yet much more in Military Agreements wherein the Concernments of Armies and Nations were included and which concerned the Honour and Security of all Souldiers and for this divers Precedents were cited The Argument ended thus That as the Court consisted of Gentlemen Lawyers and of Martial men so the Plea consisting of three Branches was the more proper for their cognizance a part of it being drawn from the Law of England another part from the Civil Law and a Third part from the Martial Law and if the Plea in any of the three Branches was made good and they doubted not but it would be found so in them all the Court would be satisfied there was Reason Justice for preserving the Dukes life The Tenth Appearance The Court adjourned till Friday the second of March and the Duke being again brought to the Bar the Counsel for the People pleaded but so poorly that all who heard them were asham'd But they had one advantage that neither the Duke nor his Counsel were allowed to speak after them nor to discover their impertinent Allegations which made the Dukes Counsel obviate all they could imagine they might say though they said a great deal so far out of the way of Reason that none could have thought of it and yet it was so weak that it needed neither be obviated nor replied to Yet at the end of every Branch of their Pleading I shall add the Answers against them as they are set down in some Notes taken by the Dukes Counsel The Counsel for the People plead against the Duke They begun with Alienage and studied to make it appear that though he was a Scotchman born yet he was no Alien having enjoyed all the Priviledges an Englishman was capable of as being a Peer a Privy-Councellour possessing Lands and Inheritances and Marrying in England But Naturalization cannot be but by Act of Parliament and not by the Kings single Deed much less by those Priviledges of which any Stranger might participate Next they urged his Fathers Naturalization and since his Name was not in that Act as was in other Acts of Naturalization that proved him to be no Alien otherwise his Name had been put in From that it rather appeared he was an Alien since others found it necessary to insert their Childrens Names which his Father not doing proves the Son an Alien still They also urged his being Post-natus which must be held true since he brought no Evidence to the contrary and it being so his Tie of subjection was as great in England as in Scotland That Allegeance was only due to the King and not to the Kingdom That there was a King when he entred into England and that though he was secluded from the Government yet all Writs were issued in his Name so that this Expedition was a breach of the Allegeance he owed the King This was the oddest part of all their Plea since his Charge was that he assisted the King against the Kingdom and now they did plead he owed no Allegeance to the Kingdom but to the King whom they had so lately murdered the Dukes coming with his Army being only to relieve him from the Barbarous Vsage he had met with They also urged at large That an Englishman's Children in what place of the World soever they were born were Denizens of England and cited many Precedents But the Mis-application of them was gross and palpable those being of Persons who were Englishmen before their Children were born whereas the Duke's Father was naturalized after he was born so that he could not communicate that Priviledge to him which he did indeed transmit to his Children born after his Naturalization Next they pleaded that the Parliament of Scotland had no power to commissionate him to enter into England and that if some of them were there they ought likewise to suffer for it and it was fit he suffered for his Masters who employed him That it was pitty the King had not suffered sooner They also produced many Precedents of Strangers being condemned as guilty of Treason for Treasons committed in England as the Queen of Scots Lopez Perkin Warbeck the Lord Harris Shirley the Frenchman and the Spanish Ambassadour All this was obviated in the former Argument where distinction was made betwixt secret Practices and an open Invasion with a forreign Force They added That Scotland belonged to the Crown of England and so was to be look't on as some of the Counties of England But Scotland had no subjection to the Crown but only to the King of England whom they had murdered and so they had no Power to judge any Scotchman As for the Articles they pleaded it was not in the Power of the Army to absolve any from the Justice of the Parliament which being above them was not tied to their Articles and therefore though they confessed the words ought to have been less
general Stories If all his Friends were not at all times so fixed to their Duty as they ought to have been that left no Blame upon him for no man can be lyable for his Friends nor charged with the faults of other men but when any of them strayed from their Duty his Friendship made him not the less but the more severe to them and many of them being yet alive have witnessed with what honest zeal he always studied to engage them to a Cordial adherence to the Kings Service But to sum up all those who after they see how in his last Speech delivered at his Death he begs Pardon and Mercy from God as he hath been a faithful Servant to his Master and do still retain their Jealousies are beyond the cure of any Perswasion for none but a desperate Atheist could have adventured so far with a defiled Conscience Neither can it be alledged here that all in those times pretended to be for the King for perhaps many thought the methods they took vvere the best for securing and settling his Throne But had the Duke been faulty as the World accused him it must not have been a Mistake in his thoughts but a Crookedness of his Heart a betraying of his Trust and a falsifying of his Engagements and who can suppose that the Parties who were prevalent both in England and Scotland at the time of his Death and pursued him and his Memory with all the excesses of Malice would not have discovered such Treachery to load him with the greater Infamy if there had been any grounds for it since they were the persons who musâ— have known it best As for that ridiculous and Devilish Forgery of his pretending to the Crown of Scotland never any were alledged to have heard a hint of it from himself no not in raillery and câ—â—tainly if so great a Design had ever been discovered to any person it must have been to his Friends and he must have taken pains to have made some Party sure for it but for this nothing was ever whispered but Surmises and those hanging so ill together that they retained not so much as the shadow of Probability For his Country His love to his Country as he had as great Interest in it as any Subject so his Affection yielded to none And it is certain that if his Counsels to the King seem at any time to fall short of the higher ways of Authority nothing but his Affection for his Country gave him the byass for he confessed the thing in the World at which he had the greatest horror was the engaging in a Civil War with his Country-men He was far from any Designs of engrossing either Power or Places of advantage to himself or his Friends nor was he ever the occasion of any Burden to the Country for the Assignments he had on some Taxations were only for payment of the Debts he had contracted by his Majesties Command for his Expedition to Germany And so little fond was he of being the Kings Commissioner in Scotland that in divers of his Letters he proposed others to his Majesty for that Trust protesting it was a Place which of all other he hated most and when he saw Jealousies taken at his being so long in that Trust as if the King had been to govern Scotland by a Commissioner he pressed his Majesty to change him so careful was he to avoid every thing which might be a Grievance to his Country and retard the Kings Service He was the great Patron of all Scotishmen in the Court which drew on several occasions a large share of Malice upon him as appear'd particularly in the Case of one Colonel Lesley whom Colonel Sanderson's Friends were pursuing in the Court alledging that Lesley had killed that Colonel unworthily in Muscovia The Crime was not committed in the Kings Dominions and Lesley was Legally acquitted from it in Russia who upon a National account being a Scotishman laid claim to the Dukes Protection but this irritated Colonel Sanderson's Brother who pretends to have written the History of King Charles the First into so much Rage against him that forgetting the Laws of History he breaks out on all occasions into the most passionate Railings that his spiteful but blunt and impotent Malice could devise And the best of all is he bewrays his Ignorance as well as his Passion in all the Account he gives of the Scotish Affairs so that it is hard to say whether his Folly in attempting to write a History on such slender Informations or his Impudence in forging or venting Lies with such Confidence deserves the severer Censure And since I mention this Lesley I shall only add that though Sanderson tells a formal Story of the signal Judgments of God on him in his Death he was alive many years after that Book was published which can be well proved by many who knew him His Temperance The Duke was very sumptuous and magnificent in his way of Living but abhorred that debauched custom of Entertainments by Drinking and was an example of Temperance which cost him dear in Denmark where he refusing the ordinary Entertainments of that Court in drinking was not only ill used but made pay a great Sum under the pretence of Passage-dues Temperance was particularly recommended to him by his Majesty when he went to Germany and his returning from that Court without once transgressing these Laws was such an evidence of his observing them that afterwards few would tempt him to those Excesses His Ingenuity Of all Vertues he esteemed Ingenuity and Candor most as that which was the Ground of all Confidence and the only Security among men and therefore recommended it chiefly to others and studied to observe it most himself I confess when I consider his whole method of framing and carrying on his Designs how streight and candid they were if I oft admire his Invention I do much more esteem the Ingenuity of his proceedings for I never find him vailing Truth with a Lye nor carrying on business with a Cheat and to speak freely the greatest departing from these Rules appeared in the Declaration emitted in April 1648 where among other things the Parliament declared they would not admit His Majesty to the exercise of His Royal Authority till He by Oath obliged Himself to swear and ratifie the Covenant The Duke stuck long ere he would give way to this at length finding the violent Party that crossed the Engagement implacable and being desirous to withdraw from them all colours or pretences for opposing that Design he yielded to it and at that time said to a Friend of his that the Preservation of the King went so near his Heart that he could refuse nothing which might make way for that But it was far from his thoughts to seclude the King from the exercise of his Royal Power and therefore it was excused at the same time both by the Letters his Brother wrote to the King and in the
returned into Scotland the Duke of Castle-herald had again great advantages if any such desire of Power had governed him for the Reformation had then prevailed in Scotland and he and all his Family except his youngest Son Lord Claud from whom descended the Earls of Abercorn were Protestants so that to have put himself at the head of that was the likeliest way to have advanced his own Designs but it appeared that he and his Sons embraced the Religion not for Faction but out of Conscience for he continued true and faithful to the Queen to the last of which She was so sensible that beside many Publick Testimonies of Her confidence in them such as the naming the Duke of Castle-herald her Adopted Father and calling him still by that Name and the referring Her whole Concerns when She was a Prisoner in England to his Care when that severe and unparalelled sentence of Death was to be executed on Her She took a Ring off Her finger and gave it to one of Her Servants and ordered him to carry it to Her Cousin Lord John Hamilton who then represented his Father that was dead his elder Brother being sick of a Frenzy and tell him that that was all She then had to witness her great sense of his and his Families constant Fidelity to Her and of their suffering for Her Interests and desired that it might be still kept in the Family as a lasting Evidence of Her kindness to it which is preserved to this day Nor was tâ—eir Duty to the Crown at that time easie or cheap to them for the contrary Faction designed to root them out of Scotland and therefore in one of their Mock-Parliaments their Blood was attainted and their Estates and Honours were afterwards given to other Persons and they were forced to seek shelter in England and France till King James came to Govern by his own Counsâ—ls then being also pressed to it by the Intercession of Queen Elizabeth He restored them to their Honours and Estates and created Lord John Hamilton Marquis of Hamilton who was Grand-Father to tâ—e two Dukes whose MEMOIRES I now publish King James did also treat him with the same respect that the Queen his Mother had done the Duke of Castle-herald and called him always Father and wrote to him often with the greatest Freedom and Familiarity that was possible and when that King went to Denmark to bring home His Queen He named him Lord Lieutenant of the South of Scotland and left for him a Letter yet extant full of great Esteem and Kindness to which He added this Postscript with his own Hand MY LORD if my constant Trust had not been in you of your great Love towards me I had not thus employed you upon such an occasion therefore I assure my self you will not frustrate my Expectation He also called him to Christen one of his Children and continued to the last to put great Confidence in him That Lord did indeed deserve to be so used by him for as he had with an invincible Patience and Loyalty submitted to the hard Vsage â—e met with during that King's Childhood and for some years after so he made no Stirs nor Disturbance but that little that was at Sterlin An. 1585. so that when he was admitted to the King's presence the King said to him My Lord I did never see you before and must confess that of all this Company you have been most wronged you were a faithful Servant to the Queen my Mother in my Minority and wâ—en I understood not as I do the estate of things hardly used And though he was frequently invited by the Violent Church-party to head them in their Mutinous Courses yet he would never engage in it And when that old Lord was dying as he was giving his Blessing to his Son and reckoning up the most signal Favours of God to him he named three more particularly The first was That during all his Troubles and notwithstanding the great Offers were made him in France by the House of Guise if he would change his Religion yet God had never left him to do so base a thing though he lost his Interest in that Court by refusing it The other was that he had never oppressed any of his Vassals and Tenants And the third was that he had never entertained one thought contrary to the Duty he owed the Crown and that no hard Vsage â—e met with had ever prevailed on him to any such Design and therefore charged his Son on his Blessing to continue in the same Courses All this I thought needful to be said for the Honour of that Family because Buchanan studied with much Art and Industry to cast an eternal Disgrace upon it For as he from being a great Flatterer of Mary Queen of Scotland which may be seen in his Dedication of his Incomparable Paraphrase of the Psalmes to Her became Her mortal Enemy and partly by Lies partly by his cruel aggravating of some unjustifiable things has written the History of Her Reign with so much Malice that his Work stands condemned as a base Libel by an Act of Parliament in Scotland so being provoked by an Injury which a Servant of the Duke of Castle-herald's youngest Son did him of which he thought he got not sufficient Reparation and carrying a spite to them because they adhered to the Queen's Interests he wrote of that Family with the most impudent and virulent Malice that was possible And his admirable stile of Latine in which he is inferiour to none that wrote since the days of Augustus has made all Forreigners take their Informations wholly from him and the Collectors of the General History of that Age do for the most part draw all the Account they give of Scotish Affairs out of him by which that Family hath suffered much in the opinions of Forreign Nations so dangerous it is to provoke one that has much Malice and can write â— History so that it shall take with the World But that Writer contradicts himself so often in what he says of that Family that small regard is to be had to it And Lesly Bishop of Ross Privy-Counsellour to Mary Queen of Scotland who wrote the History of that time and bore no great good will to the Duke of Castle-herald and his Children for being such Promoters of the Reformation speaks always of them with a great deal of Honour and Iustice. For the Father of those Dukes he was as Archbishop Spotswood truly calls him a Nobleman of rare gifts and fitted for the greatest Affairs and was most Vniversally beloved by all his Countrymen he was a very Graceful and Gallant Person and of a most agreeable Conversation and â—ery obliging and so did recommend himself to all sorts of Persons King James finding him excellently qualified brougâ—t him to Court where he made a great Figure the rest of his Life All these things concurred to make me very desirous to see whether the late Dukes had continued in those