premeditated Parricide removed the King the designed Sacrifice to their hellish Ambition hurried from one Prison to another was brought to Windsor where the usual Ceremonies of the Knee and other Marks of Honour were laid aside Col. Harrison a Butcher's Son had the Impudence to sit with his Majesty in the Coach with his Hat on leading this most innocent and pious Prince like a Lamb to the Slaughter There were yet some amongst these Barbarians Who could not judge the King obnoxious to Law and seeing they had vanquished him by Arms they did not at all esteem him considerable or to be feared But the furious Novellists pronounce with much bitterness That they will have him forthwith removed Nor durst they who had other Sentiments mutter against them for fear of being expelled Yet these States had a mind to delegate this worst of Employments as being unheard of and beyond all Precedents to be perpetrated by these worst of Men the Souldiery This being perceived the Chief Officers however unnaturally desperate yet decline it thinking it might suffice if they remitted the performance of so villainous an Act to those who sate by their Favour and Permission The Commons therefore of the Lower House being scarce the eight Part of the whole whereof many also were Commanders in the Army so that nâ—thing remained of a Parliament but the Name arrogating the Supream Power to themselves that they might seem to avoid the Infamy of Perjury absolved themselves by an Ordinance from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy The Commons assume the Supreme Power which they had so often taken to the King thinking perhaps to evade what they had done separately by this conjunct Abjuration This done they Vote That it is Treason by the Fundamental Laws of the Realm in the King of England to levy War against the Parliament And send up the same to the Peers by the Lord Gray of Grooby who rejected it with Indignation as inconsistent with Reason and the Laws of the Land This enraged the Commons who slighting the Assent and Power of the Lords unanimously decree That 1. The People under God are the Original of all just Power 2. That the Commons of England in Parliament Assembled have the Supream Power of the Nation 3. That whatever is enacted or declared for Law by the House of Commons in Parliament hath the force of Law Constitute a High Court of Justice This Foundation being laid they constitute a High Court of Justice without any consideration of the Lords or those Thousands who desired to preserve the King from the Destruction he was threatned with and the Nation from the Guilt of his most Innocent Blood The Scots by their Commissioners protested highly against this pretended Tryal The Dutch deprecated it as of most pernicious consequence to the Reformed Religion Some of the Chief Nobility as the Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Hartford and the Earls of Southampton and Linsey endeavoured his Conservation by Prayers and Proffers Offering themselves as being the Chief Ministers of his Will as Hostages for him and by a generous Example of magnanimity in case the Kings pretended Crimes could not be expiated without Blood presented their own to be shed in lieu of his Prince Charles piously endeavoured by all manner of ways to deliver his Father from the impending danger For besides the Dutch Embasladors which his Highness had procured to be sent over to mediate for him he and the Prince of Orange enquired after and sent for such Officers or others in that Country who were of Kindred or related to Cromwell Ireton or any other of the Conspirators and sent them into England with full Power to offer present promise and yield to every thing mingling Thrâ—ats with their Entreaties that might divert them from their designed Parricide or at least retard it The Queen was no less active on her side to save her Royal Consort Endeavors to preserve the King who also writ to Lenthall the Speaker in terms capable to mollify every thing except these Hyrconian Monsters which Letters were also delivered by the French Embassador but laid by without being opened Nor could there any thing in those days be expected from France labouring then with the same Frenzy of Rebellion Amongst others the Presbyterian Preachers who had betrayed the King into these Streights pierced with the Infamy of their Treasons and perhaps apprehending their own turns in case the Independants should persist very earnestly besought and conjured them by monitory Letters Petitions and Remonstrances as also admonished and exhorted them out of their Pulpits to desist from their designed enterpize Lest they should defile the English Nation with so horrid a Guilt as that of Regicide For that execrable fact could not be perpetrated without violating the Obligation of so many Oaths as they had taken without breaking the Publick Faith exhibited by so many Protestations and Declarations without transgressing the Law of Nature and Nations and finally without prostituting the Dictates of the Scripture and our Religion But all this was to no purpose as also the Princes sending of them White Paper to write their own Conditions For nothing seemed enough to them who had swallowed all the Hopes of Empire and were ready to ascend into the Throne They therefore name One Hundred and Fifty of the most Petulant of the Faction and the most adverse to Monarchy to judge the King Some of the Nobility whom they had pitcht upon as also the Judges however raised to that Dignity by them for daring to declare That it was not lawful to bring the King of England to Tryal were expunged out of that black Catalogue others being introduced in their places A suborned Prophetess produced to encourage their Villainy But to encourage the doubtings of the less Perswaded and entitle their Actions to Providence these divine Jugglers produced an Impostor a Virgin they called her out of Hertfordshire who told the Officers of the Army That she had a Message from Heaven to them and being admitted affirmed That God did approve of their Designs Which did exceedingly encourage the most wavering The Contemptibleness of the Judges did in some sort aggravate their Crimes many Petty-foggers Brewers Carr-men Goldsmiths Coblers and other Mechanicks being of the Number who thirsting after the King's Revenues as well as his Blood were forward to perpetrate any mischief how tremendous soever At this Tribunal the King was impleaded baited and condemned unheard unconvict as Guilty of those Crimes of Treason Tyranny and Murther which those incarnate Divels his Judges had committed I had purposed to omit the Particulars of this Black Tragedy as being exactly described already by better Pens But lest these Commentaries might prove imperfect it was thought requisite to present the Curious if this empty Narrative can render any such with an Abridgment of the same Quamquam animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit The pretended Court of High Justice having spent some days in settling
hardship to renounce his Honour or depart from his Judgment Not that he would peremptorily deny what was fit to be granted but lest he might yield to that which both Reason and Religion commanded to deny As soon as he was come to Newcastle Leven commanded by Proclamation That no Papists or Delinquents that is any who was Loyal or Faithful to the King should be permitted to approach him And it was moreover cautioned That no Soldiers or Officers should contract any commerce of Friendship or Civility with Malignants that is such as were addicted to his Majesty But the Independant Grandees did fret and fume that the King was detained by the Seots their Mercenaries and Hirelings as they termed them as being nourish'd by their Pay Affirming further Contests betwixt the Independents and Scots That the Kingdom of Scotland had no right or joint Interest in disposing of the Person of the King in the Kingdom of England Hence they come to Threats and Vote That they have no more Occasion for their Assistance the Kingdom being no longer able to bear them Yea they took care to publish to the World by Declaration their Rapines Extortions Cruelties and Errors The Scots on the other side pretending the Laws of Nature of Nations and Hospitality affirm That it is in no Kind permitted them to deliver up the King and especially their own King to any whosoever against his Will His Majesty having refuged himself under their Power of his own Accord But lest they might altogether displease their Dear Brethren they force the King to send Orders to his Governours to deliver such Places as they had yet in their Power to the Parliament to the Marquess of Ormond not to conclude any Treaty with the Irish and to Montross to disband all his Forces in Scotland These things being extorted from the King they also would wrest his Assent to the Parliament's Imperious Propositions which they sent to Newcastle to him viz. That he should ratifie the Solemn League and Covenant abolish Episcopacy deliver the Power of the Sword into the Hands of his Enemies and exclude the Peers made by him with several others of his chief Friends from Pardon c. They had themselves not as yet corrupted with English Gold condemned many of these Propositions which they advance now with Menaces lest both Kingdoms should agree he refusing to settle Peace and Religion without him to his and his Posterity's irrecoverable Loss Nor did they thus terrifie this magnanimous Prince who chose rather to expose his Crowns and Scepters than his Honour and his Religion and to see himself and Posterity divested of the Imperial Dignity of Kings Montross disbands by the King's Command by the violence of others than his own Act by a tame Subscription to the unjust demands of his Enemies The Scots had deputed Duke Hamilton the Earl of Crawford and others to the King altho ' their Parliament had Voted That he should not come into Scotland declaring it to be contrary to their agreement with the English and the Treaty to perswade exhort warn and urge his Assent to the Covenant And that he would be pleased also to approve and enact the English Propositions These were followed by Delegates from their Synod denouncing in case he were refractary The Scots barbarous usage of the King the Wrath of God against him and the hate of his Subjects Some of these were appointed to remove his Scruples and clear his doubts whereof one being admitted to Preach before him after several bitter Invectives in the Pulpit his Sermon being finished he commanded the fifty second Psalm to be sung Why dost thou Tyrant boast c. But the King perceiving his malicious Reflection unexpectedly stood up and ordered the fifty sixth Psalm Have Mercy Lord on me I pray to be sung Which the People neglecting the Parson unanimously did Nor were the Fortunes of David and Charles much unlike the one being detained by the Philistines at Gath and the other by the Scots at Newcastle when this Psalm was composed by the Royal Prophet and sung by the Royal Sufferer But now the main Controversie amongst the Rebels was about the disposal of the King's Person Until the Scots moved by Contumelies and the Sarcasms of the Cromwellists and perceiving the Parliament although they had conquered England did not disband were more inclined to agree with them and perhaps softned by the Parliament's offers after some previous formal disceptations to heighten the Price of their Treachery they at length resolved to deliver him up And he was delivered to the English Rebels by his native unnatural Subjects of Scotland to whom he had fled for Security with all the circumstances of Irreligion of Impiety of Perjury of Treason and of detestable Avarice being sold for Two hundred Thousand Pounds They sell him Which they having received and evacuated their Garrisons in England they returned with this Reward of their Iniquity into their own Country But with a Curse also for it is observable That after that time they did never thrive nor nothing they undertook prosper There had indeed been some attempts made for the King's escape But they were all prevented by the vigilancy of his cruel Keepers Leven assuring the Parliament That he would according to their desire take care that his Majesty depart not away And he was as good as his word for his Majesty having changed his Keepers being as he had truly said Bought and Sold and now in the hands of his bloodiest Enemies He is imprisoned in Holmby and cruelly used was carried to Holmby-House not far from Naesby where he had so unfortunately fought that he might be perpetually tormented with the sight of that odious Companion Nor was he less perplex'd within doors not being permitted to enjoy a freedom in his Solitude His Friends and his Chaplains which a common Civility would not refuse to the most Criminal being inhumanly kept from him whilst some of their own unknowing Factious Levites are obtruded upon him These mistaken Creatures had neither Modesty to cohabit nor Learning to dispute with this Royal Divine who being equally capable of the Mitre as well as Scepter of the Sacerdotal as well as Kingly Office was truly inimitable in both How good a Divine he was appears by his Controversies with the Marquess of Worcester a Person no less Eminent for Learning than Nobility of the Roman Catholick Religion and with the Parliament Ministers especially by his Writings to Henderson a Scots Presbyterian and Champion of the Party who being vanquished by the strength of his Arguments testified his Conviction by his Repentance and died for Grief as is credibly reported that he had offended so good and so pious a Prince not as the Enemy affirm because he could not perswade his Majesty to sign the Propositions a reconciled Son to the Church of England Whilst the King is afflicted in his noisom Prison at Holmby it will not be from the purpose to
BEATAM AETERNAM CLARIOR E TENEBRIS CELI SPECTO ASPERAM AT LEVEM CHRISTI TRACTO In verbo tuo Spes mea MUNDI CALCO SPLENDIDAM AT GRAVEM Alij diutius Imperium tenuerunt nemo tam fortiter reliquit Tacit. Histor Liâ—â— 2. c. 47. p. 417 THE HISTORY OF THE Rebellions IN England Scotland and Ireland WHEREIN The most Material Passages Sieges Battles Policies and Stratagems of WAR are impartially Related on both Sides FROM The YEAR 1640. To the Beheading of the Duke of Monmouth in 1685. In Three Parts By Sir ROGER MANLEY Kt. late Governour of Land-Guard-Fort Quaeque ipse Miserima vidi LONDON Printed for L. Meredith at the Angel in Amen-Corner and T. Newborough at the Golden Ball in St. Paul's Church Yard MDCXCI THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER IN regard the Reputation of Histories is generally raised on the Worth of their Authors I thought it convenient to acquaint the World That the Compiler of This was a Gentleman of known Integrity bred in the Church of England for whose Cause joined with that of the Royal Family he was a valiant and zealous Champion having been Personally engaged in the most considerable Battles which his Royal Master King Charles I. fought against his Rebellious Subjects You are not therefore here to expect the Reversion of other Mens Labors no borrow'd Fragments or Scraps of Records no patch'd or imperfect Collections but an entire uniform History with great Impartiality and for the most Part of his own certain Knowledge Yet to free him from Suspicion of any Mistake in these Memoirs it is sufficient to observe That he collected them in those Troublesome Times whose Iniquity would not admit the Publication of them which he reserv'd till there was a clear Stage for Truth to appear on And having surviv'd this Great Rebellion for many Years he has added to the History of that an Account of all the Remarkable Transactions with the Conspiracies Insurrections and Tumults that happ'ned in the Reign of King Charles II. And concludes with the Invasion and Overthrow of the Duke of Monmouth in the West I shall say no more but that this Gentleman dying soon after he had finished these Commentaries the Publication of them was entrusted with me Which I did very readily undertake since I had the Honour to know the Author so well that his very Name was a sufficient Recommendation of the Work And all honest Men that knew Sir Roger Manley were very desirous of a History from his Hand whose Pen was aâ—â—oyal and Just as his Sword Reader honour the Memory of this brave Man and think not ill of the Publisher who like a faithful Executor presents thee with this his last Legacy And if thou take my Pains in good part 't is all the Acknowledgment I expect from thee Adieu THE CONTENTS PART I. BOOK I. THE Vnion of the Kingdoms of Great Britain The State of Affairs in England The Scots Tumults and their Causes They Rebel and Arm. The King Marches against them but concludes a Peace They break it and enter England with an Army The Little Parliament call'd and dissolved The Treaty at Rippon referred to the Parliament which met in November 1640. The Preludes to their ensuing Rebellion Strafford Impeach'd and Beheaded The Fatal Act of Continuance The Scots dismissed The King follows them into Scotland The Irish Rebellion breaks out The King upon his Return is pompously received by the Londoners The King enters the House of Commons The Bishops accused of High Treason The King forced by Tumults retreats Northward Contests about the Militia His Majesty is repulsed at Hull p. 1. BOOK II. The King attempts Hull in vain Propositions sent to his Majesty to York Most of the Lords and many of the Commons repair to his Majesty He erects his Standard at Nottingham and raises an Army Essex the Rebels General at Worcester at Keynton The famous Battle of Edge-hill Fight at Branford The King fortifies Oxford Some Actions in other Provinces The Queen lands at Burlington Goes to Oxford The Battle of Lansdowne Of Rownday Downe The Siege and Relief of Glocester The great Battle of Newbury The Parliament invite the Scots to their Succour They enter England The Siege of York The fatal Battle of Marston Moor. The Fights at Brandon Heath and Copedry-bridge Essex defeated in the West The second Battle of Newbury Alexander Carew and the Two Hothams beheaded Mac-Mahon and Macquier executed The Archbishop of Canterbury martyr'd The Treaty at Uxbridge Essex discarded and Sir Thomas Fairfax made General in his Place 38. BOOK III. The Continuation of the Irish Rebellion The Lords of the Pale side with the Rebels Their Model of Government The Cruelty of the English in Ireland Ormond makes first a Cessation then a Peace with the Irish Delivers Dublin to the English The King vindicated from any Correspondence with the Irish Rebels Fairfax marches Westward recalled besieges Oxford The King relieves Chester Takes Leicester The Fatal Battel of Naesby described The King's Cabinet taken and published Fairfax relieves Taunton The Fight at Langport He takes Bridgwater Sherburne and Bristol The King's Travels and Labours The Scots besiege Hereford They quit it The Fight at Rowton-Heath Digby and Langdale defeated in the North. Barclay-Castle the Devizes and Tiverton taken Cromwell takes Winchester and Basing-House by Assault The Fight at Torrington The Prince passes into France The Lord Hopton disbands his Army Distructions at Newark The King returns to Oxford The Lord Ashley defeated 84. BOOK IV. The King leaves Oxford and goes to the Scots Army Hereford is surprized and Chester surrender'd Oxford besieged and taken The other Royal Garrisons follow Massey's Forces disbanded Contests with the Scots Their barbarous Vsage of the King They sell him He is imprisoned in Holmbey-House The History of the Scots Rebellion and valorous Actions of Montross Independency triumphant The Army mutinies and seize upon the King at Holmbey They court him but deal treacherously with him He flies to the Isle of Wight 122. BOOK V. The King in the Isle of Wight His Message for Peace The Four Dethroning Bills The Votes of Non-address Cap. Burleigh attempts the King's Delivery Rolfe his Life The King appeals to the People They rise in several Parts of the Kingdom Are suppressed Pembroke taken The Scots defeated and Hamilton a Prisoner Colchester surrendered The Treaty in the Isle of Wight broken by the Army They seize upon the King Garble the Parliament The perjur'd Remains of the Commons assume the Supream Power Constitute a pretended Court of High Justice Arraign Condemn and Murther their King His End and Elogy 169. PART II. BOOK I. The Regicides prohibit the proclaiming of the Prince of Wales They abolish the House of Lords and the Government by Kings Choose a Councel of State Displace and Fine the Lord Mayor for refusing to publish the Act for abolishing of Monarchy Declare they will maintain the Fundamental Laws Erect a High Court of Justice Hamilton Holland and
Capell condemned by it and murthered Several Acts of State The Scots proclaim Charles II. Some Actions of the Levellers The King leaves Holland and goes by Brussels into France The Duke of Gloucester banished Continuance of the History of Ireland The King at Jersey Prince Rupert Sails from Kinsale to Portugal Loseth his Brother Prince Maurice by a Hurrycane The King at Breda Treats and Concludes with the Scots Montrosse's unfortunate End Fairfax routed and Cromwell General His Actions in Scotland The Scots barbarous Vsage of the King They are defeated at Dunbar The King crowned at Schone He enters England The Battle of Worcester The King 's miraculous Escape 109 110. BOOK II. Cromwell enters London Triumphantly Continuation of the Irish Affairs Ormond leaves Ireland and Clanrickard his Deputy there Ireton dyes of the Plague Monk takes Sterling Dundee and Subjugates Scotland The Isles of Scilly Barbadoes Garnsey Jersey and that of Man surrendered to the Regicides Their Greatness They are courted by the Neighbouring Kings and States They send a solemn Embassy into Holland Cromwell Cabals Turns out the Mock-Parliament Chooses another Is chosen Protector The Wars with the United Provinces The various Sea-Fights betwixt the Two States Cromwell makes a Peace with them and a League with France The Expedition of San Domingo and Jamaica Blake's success at Tunis and Santa Cruz. Dunkirk taken The Death of Oliver Cromwell His Character 249. BOOK III. Richard succeeds his Father in the Protectorate He is deposed by the Army The Rump restored Lambert defeats Sir George Booth Montague returns with the Fleet out of Denmark Lambert turns out the Rump Monk dissents and declares for the Rump Lambert marches against him Being deluded by Treaties he is deserted by his Army The Committee of Safety routed and the Rump yet again restored Monk marches to London Readmits the Secluded Members The Parliament dissolv'd by its own Act. An Abstract of the King's Actions and Motions abroad He is proclaimed by the Parliament Returns into England His glorious Reception The End of our Troubles 278. PART III. BOOK I. The REBELLION breaks into new Flames Some Millenaries secur'd Venner's Insurrection and End The Presbyterians stickle for new Elections Several Seditious Tumults detected and punished The Plague consumes the People The Conflagration of the City Tumults in Scotland Oate's Plot. The Parliament insist upon removing the Duke from the King's Presence and Councils It is dissolved Another Parliament call'd The Duke retires from Court A new Council chosen The Parliament refuse the King Money and insist upon the Bill of Exclusion It is also dissolved another being Summon'd A new Rebellion in Scotland The Arch-bishop of St. Andrew's inhumanly butchered The Rebels are defeated at Bothwel-Bridge The King sick He recovers The Duke returns to Court Monmouth Cabals and is outed of his Employments The Lord Stafford beheaded The Parliament dissolv'd and succeeded by another at Oxford which is likewise dismiss'd College is hang'd and Shaftsbury try'd The strange Encrease of the Fanaticks Their Insolence and Power in the City They form a Conspiracy The Council of Six The Plot to Murther the King and Duke The Providential Fire at New-Market Keeling discovers the Conspiracy Russel and Sidney are executed Monmouth absconds but upon his Submission is pardoned He again transgresses and is banished The King dyes of an Apoplexy The Duke succeeds 312. BOOK II. The Rebellion breaks out in Scotland under Argile in England under Monmouth Both are vanquished taken and executed The Final Ruin and End of the Rebellion 336. COMMENTARIES ON THE REBELLION OF England Scotland and Ireland PART I. BOOK I. The Vnion of the Kingdoms of Great Britain The State of Affairs in England The Scots Tumults and their Causes They Rebel and Arm. The King Marches against them but concludes a Peace They break it and enter England with an Army The Little Parliament call'd and dissolved The Treaty at Rippon referred to the Parliament which met in November 1640. The Preludes to their ensuing Rebellion Strafford Impeach'd and Beheaded The Fatal Act of Continuance The Scots dismissed The King follows them into Scotland The Irish Rebellion breaks out The King upon his Return is pompously received by the Londoners The King enters the House of Commons The Bishops accused of High Treason The King forced by Tumults retreats Northward Contests about the Militia His Majesty is repulsed at Hull THE Kingdoms of Great Britain being United under the Dominion of one Prince and the Animosities and Emulations which usually disorder Neighbour-Nations thereby removed gave a sudden Rise to a very great and formidable Power which could not be destroyed but by it self The Moderator of this vast Empire was JAMES VI. King of Scotland and First Monarch of Great Britain undoubted Heir to both as well by Right of Succession from Margaret the only Daughter of Edgar Atheling the last of the Saxon Princes as by that of Force derived to him from the Norman Conqueror This Wise and Learned Prince Charles I. succeeds to the Crown being gathered to his Fathers the loss which his Dominions suffered by it however great was abundantly repaired by the Succession of his Son CHARLES who being truly Heir to his Father's Greatness and Vertues as well as Scepters did excel all his Predecessors in the more severe Disquisition of what was Fit and Just so that our Tragedies will scarce find Credit with Posterity whilst the Ages to come mistrusting the Reports of such enormous Villainies will look upon our unheard-of Vicissitudes but as the Fancies of Poetry and the Decoration of Theatres For how is it possible to believe that the Best of Princes should meet with the Worst of Subjects on whom he had conferred more Graces than the whole Series of his Ancestors and that he who valued his Kingdoms and Life at a lower Rate than the Happiness of his People should by a Judicial Parricide be sacrificed to the ambitious Violence of a prevailing Faction in their Representative and that under the pretence of Usurpation and Tyranny But these things happened an everlasting Reproach to the Nation and not to be atoned for by any Resentment or Hecatombs of Victims King James left a flourishing Kingdom behind him but an empty Treasury and his Successor engaged in a War with Spain and what was worse the Parliament that oblig'd the Father to Arm abandoned the Son when they had exposed him Nor were the succeeding Parliaments more Obsequious or forward in supplying his Necessities how great soever either in recovering the Palatinate or rescuing the French Protestants though undertaken in Defence of the Reformed Religion 'T is true his Third Parliament voted him Five Subsidies but we must own also The Petition of Right that the Petition of Right being a Condescension even to Supererogation deserv'd their best Acknowledgements for raised with that Grant they that very Session questioned the Tribute of Tonnage and Poundage though perpetually enjoyed by his Predecessors Kings of England affirming
mean time the King tells them in the House of Lords the Commons present What had intervened in the War and what else He judged necessary to be done and presses them to supply Means whereby the Rebels might speedily be driven Home again whereunto He also would contribute His Endeavours assuring them further That that being done they should find him most ready to remove all their Grievances But they did not in any kind comply with the King's Desires but seeming displeased with his calling the Scots Rebels resolved not to send them Home with whom they had long since conspired before they had acquired every thing that they judged necessary for the Support of their designed Usurpation With this assurance the Commons purge their House of such as they thought might oppose their Designs and to shew themselves good Patriots entertained such Petitions Preludes to the ensuing Rebellion as they themselves had for the most part framed inveighing against Grievances from several Parts of the Kingdom and omitting entirely what they were assembled for imputed all the Misfortunes and Errors of the Government obliquely to the King through the Sides of his Counsellors and Servants And yet they will seemingly flatter him under pretence of inspecting his Revenue which they pretended much to desire promising not only to augment and settle it but to make his Majesty one of the Richest Princes in Christendom In the mean time to try his Patience and their own Power with the People they ordered Pryn Burton and Bastwick to be released out of Prison Who in defiance of Justice and the King's Authority made a pompous Entry into London attended with many Thousands of pretended Zealots And now they encourage and receive Petitions against the Hierarchy of the Church resolving indeed to change both the Government thereof and also of the State by drawing the Supreme Power by little and little into their own Hands Daring in order to it not only to slight but to question the Lawfulness of the Royal Authority it self But the King's Friends and such who were addicted to Monarchy were to be removed out of both Houses which they endeavour by Threats by Tumults and by affixing their Names upon Posts and in time effected For several of the Nobles and many of the Lower House since they could not Vote with Liberty absented thence altogether whilst they who stay'd being either enslaved to the Faction or unequal to them in Numbers durst say nothing The Lord Keeper and Secretary Windebank with divers others withdrew themselves into Holland and France The Bishops were Imprisoned and Ejected against Magna Charta and the immemorial Custom of past Ages which allowed them a Legislative Power before Parliaments were Instituted The Judges also who had Voted Ship-Money to be Legal were themselves voted Guilty of Treason whilst the weight of their Indignation fell upon the Earl of Strafford who by the Instigation of the Scots was to be taken away The Earl was then in the North having been advertised by his Friends in the House as also by his own Reason of the Danger and therefore advised not to appear in Parliament as knowing the Hatred and Envy both That and the Scots bare against him Who if he kept himself out of their Sight and Reach might perhaps be forgot or at least being less prosecuted make a secure retreat into Ireland which was at his Devotion or beyond Sea till better Times But he relying upon his own Innocence and unwilling to seem Guilty by a Retreat and the King being unwilling to Part with a Person whose Counsel he should want in his most abstruse Affairs came up to London Yet so armed that he had himself designed to Impeach some of his Chief Enemies being sufficiently provided with Matter for an Accusation But they were too nimble for him The Tryal of the E. of Strafford for he had scarce taken his Seat in the House of Lords but he was accused by the Commons of High-Treason And yet there were some Motions made in order to his Preservation in Case the King would consent to advance some of the Grandees of the Faction to the great Offices of the Crown But That being delayed or denied did so incense the Disappointed that joining with the Scots they became more implacable against him The Articles against this Great Man were Twenty-eight in Number whereof the chief were That he had Subverted the Fundamental Laws of the Land Introduced a Despotick Power into the Kingdom and endeavoured to destroy the Ancient Privileges of Parliament To these Sir Henry Vane's Memorials were produced wherein the Opinions of Strafford and some others given in Private to the King were set down which as they added Weight to the Accusation so they added Infamy and Infidelity to the Secretary which he could not clear himself of by pretending his Son had stollen his Notes out of his Closet But nothing of these were lawfully proved although they had invited Witnesses and Accusers out of Ireland too prone of their own accord to destroy this Great Man that he being removed they might attempt that Rebellion which they had long designed For refuting the Arguments produced against him the Faction began to conceive that if they did not destroy him they should hazard their own Reputation especially seeing the King had declared in an Excellent Speech to the Two Houses That he could not apprehend him Guilty and that it was very probable that the Lords would also acquit him Being therefore incensed against him they resolved to destroy him Voting him by a Special Bill of Attainder Guilty of High-Treason for that he had endeavoured to infringe the Laws and had by accumulative Crimes rend'red himself more than sufficiently obnoxious thereby making themselves his Accusers and Judges And thus he was Condemned by a New Law made since his Transgressions For Crimes not yet perpetrated Not for the Ill he had already committed but that he had enabled himself to do what he pleased But they wisely cautioned that this should not be made a President whereby they might secure themselves against that Retribution of Injustice which they had used towards him By this they plainly acknowledged the Injuriousness of their Sentence for had it been otherwise He is Condemned what harm could there have been in the Example Whilst they were thus employed the Tumults without fomented by the Chief of the Conspiracy raged horribly especially against their Dissenting Colleagues whereof Fifty-nine had their Names posted up for Straffordians that is Publick Enemies that thereby they might be exposed to the Madness of the Rabble Though in truth they deserved to have their Names inserted in Gold for daring so generously to assert oppressed Innocence Of these the Lord Digby was one who had been as severe as any in the Prosecution of the Earl till convinced of his Error by the Lustre of the others Vertue he generously recanted whereby he lost himself in the Opinion of the Faction particularly by that
Command of Essex pretending Danger from I know not what Ambushes and Conspiracies But the King though he shewed the Vanity of these imaginary Terrors and offered his own Person Bayl for their Security was not heard Nay he offered them Two Hundred of the City Militia under the Command of the Lord Chamberlain whose Province it was to take care of the Parliament which they rejected ordering Two Companies under Skippon a Slave to the Faction to attend them whilst an infinite Number of the enraged Rabble as it were assaulting Whitehall and Westminster crying No Bishop Down with Antichrist c. forced the King's Friends who would have entered the House to retire And these Fellows being for the most part such whose Domestick Affairs were either inconsiderable or desperate and consequently as usual most busie and most concerned for the Publick exclude and force away the Bishops knowing them to be immoveable in their Loyalty and Obedience to the King and Government Twelve Bishops committed to the Tower And when this Sacred Order had protested against this Violence the Houses enraged at it sent Twelve of them whom they had voted Guilty of High-Treason to the Tower whereby they secured themselves from their Votes destroying afterwards as much as in them lay their very Function Nor did these Miscreants forbear to vomit their Gall against the Sacred Person of the King himself by villainous and licentious Speeches some of them crying out That he was the Traytor others That the Young Prince would govern better and a prime Leader yell'd out That the King was not fit to live Insomuch that his Majesty perceiving their unbridled Rage which was cherished by those Sons of Violence in the Houses and having though in vain attempted all ways to appease their Fury he removed with his Queen and Children to Hampton-Court After some Stay there his Majesty and the Queen went to Dover with the Princess Mary married some Time since to the Prince of Orange from whence the Queen passed into Holland The Queen goes to Holland under Pretext of conveying her Daughter to her Husband but truly to secure her Person which was not meanly threatned upon Account of her Religion and Conjugal Affection At Canterbury being every where importuned by Messages from the Parliament he was perswaded though much against his Will to Sign a Bill for taking away the Bishops Votes in Parliament But no Concession could satisfie Unreasonable Men insomuch that his Majesty being returned to Greenwich he went thence with the Prince and Duke of York to Theobalds and so Northwards This Conduct as it happened proved Fatal to the King And some prudent Men did then wonder that his Majesty would leave the City the Seat of his Kingdom which had been also that of his Predecessors filled with Multitudes of his Friends abounding in Riches and all Military Provisions and the only proper place both for Peace and War The King leaves Whitehall and withdraw himself into the Country where all these Advantages were wanting But the Terrors wherewith his Followers and particularly the Royal Family were agitated and the Apprehensions his Majesty had entertained upon their Account as also the Hopes that these Animosities and Heats in the Lower House might cool in Time seem to excuse his Retreat Nor was the King so abandoned by his People but that many honest and brave Men as well of their own Accord as very many more by Gurney the Lord Mayor's Procurement mingled themselves with the Rabble with design to defend the King 's Sacred Person from the Insults and Violence of the Crowd if they should presume to attempt any thing against him Nay the whole Society of Grays-Inn which shewed That the Law as well as Reason was for him coming to Whitehall in order offered themselves to guard his Majesty which seasonable profession of Duty drew from the King both his Acknowledgements and Thanks though he otherwise waved the offer supposing those popular Heats and Insurrections might be best allayed by removing and yielding and lest also he might be thought to meditate a War But the Parliament to add Credit at least Colour to the Terrors they had imbued the People with gave Power to the Sheriffs and Justices of Peace in the Counties to suppress all seditious and suspected Assemblies and seize upon all Arms and Instruments of War and secure the same Amongst other terrible Triflings it was affirmed That the Lord Digby and Colonel Lunsford had appeared in Arms at Kingstone with great Numbers though their Cavalry amounted but to a hired Coach with Six Horses which they ordered to be suppressed and the Colonel was taken and sent to the Tower After this they follow the King to Royston with an insolent Petition and goes Northward wherein they demanded the Tower the Fortresses and Militia of the Kingdom to be delivered to them But these being inseparable Flowers of the Crown were not to be parted with to any and his Majesty being again pressed to it continued immoveable telling them in short That their Fears and Doubts and Jealousies which he looked upon as wild and irregular were such as he would take time to satisfie the World of but that his own were not trivial occasioned by the many scandalous Pamphlets seditious Sermons sundry publick Tumults hitherto uninquired into and unpunished But the Faction seeing the Constancy of the King formed a Declaration wherein after a nauseous Enumeration of Grievances Fears and Jealousies they again peremptorily demand the disposal of the Militia and being again refused resolved to extort it from their King with all their Force Nor was it absurd in them for being conscious of their Crimes and Deserts they could not imagine how to secure themselves from the Punishment due to their Guilt but by asserting the Power of the Sword in their own Hands They therefore passed their Ordinance for the Militia though with solemn protesting That they had not the least Intention or Purpose of any War with the King but how falsly which made it swallowed the easier They then seized upon the Fleet The Parliament arm and the King is excluded at Hull appointing the Earl of Warwick their Admiral and possessed themselves of Hull lest the King should secure the Magazine there by whose Governour his Majesty when he would have entered the Town was shut out by an unheard-of Insolence and manifest Disobedience And this is that Hotham the unhappy Monument of improsperous Infidelity who falling from one Inconstancy to another suffered at length Punishment together with his Eldest Son who to aggravate his Misery was executed before him due to so flagitious a Crime being beheaded by those for whose Sake he had so desperately rebelled The Dye of War being thus cast at Hull the Parties flew out into open Action but lest they should not pretend Justice the Cause was defended on both Sides with Declarations Apologies and other publick Writings which because they are extant I will only add That
as the King had the better Cause so it was also asserted with a better Pen however otherwise unfortunate BOOK II. The King attempts Hull in vain Propositions sent to his Majesty to York Most of the Lords and many of the Commons repair to his Majesty He erects his Standard at Nottingham and raises an Army Essex the Rebels General at Worcester at Keynton The famous Battel of Edge-hill Fight at Branford The King fortifies Oxford Some Actions in other Provinces The Queen lands at Burlington Goes to Oxford The Battel of Lansdowne Of Rownday Downe The Siege and Relief of Glocester The great Battel of Newbury The Parliament invite the Scots to their Succour They enter England The Siege of York The fatal Battel of Marston-Moor The Fights at Brandon Heath and Copredy-bridge Essex defeated in the West The second Battel of Newbury Alexander Carew and the Two Hothams beheaded Mac-Mahon and Macquier executed The Archbishop of Canterbury martyr'd The Treaty at Uxbridge Essex discarded and Sir Thomas Fairfax made General in his Place Hotham proclaimed Traytor HIS Majesty upon Hotham's insolent Refusal caused him instantly to be proclaimed Traytor On the other side the Parliament declare they will defend him and complain highly of the Breach of their Privileges therein as if the King had violated his Subjects Immunities by pretending to the Possession of his own Town and the Magazine he had purchased with his own Money They further sent some of their Members to disturb the King's Preparations at York which they did so effectually that he lost the Opportunity of raising an Army in that County Perceiving then the Danger his Person was in by the Enemies forwardness he demanded a Guard of the Gentry and Free-holders of York-shire which was easily assented to Whereupon the Parliament declared That the King seduced by evil Counsellours did design to make War upon his Parliament forgetting that they had done the same being exagitated with their fictitious Terrors Eight Months before The King with his said Guard and the feeble Assistance of the Trained Bands attempted Hull but The King attempts Hull in vain finding it an Enterprise of much Difficulty would not spend that Time which was so precious in so hazardous an Undertaking But the Parliament confident now in their Numbers and Power for the City of London and the neighbouring Counties were at their Devotion sent a Remonstrance with Nineteen Propositions to the King by which they demand in Effect Nineteen Propositions sent to his Majesty that he should surrender all his Regal Power into their Hands tho they disguised as much as they could their Intentions with a Mixture of some Things really to be approved of by every honest man others specious and popular and some already granted by his Majesty All which as the King well observed in his Answer were cunningly twisted and mixed with other Things of their main Design of Ambition and private Interest But the Propositions the Parliament made to the People were of another Nature for they invited them by an Order to bring in Plate and Money to Guild-hall for the Restitution whereof they should have the publick Faith and all under pretence of rescuing the King out of the hands of Papists and Malignants for the preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Privileges of Parliament And never any Contributions were granted with more earnest and mistaken Zeal than those that were thrown into their Corban by the London and Neighbouring Puritans under the pretext of Godliness but to their own Ruine as it happened The Richer Citizens gave their Money and Plate with Joy and the Women offered their Jewels and Ear-Rings to this Calf of Presbytery Nay the Poorer both married and Maidens gave their Wedding Rings their Bodkins and their Thimbles to promote this Holy War They were all hurried into this mad Humour by the fantastick Ardour of their Levites These being the Boutefeus of Rebellion and Tumult who bellowing in their Assemblies that Religion would be overwhelmed with Popery and their Liberties supplanted by the Approaches of Tyranny declared that there was no Deliverance to be expected but from the Parliament With these Arts and Moneys from the City that Nursery of Rebellion The Parliament raise an Army under the Command of Essex a great Army was raised under the Command of the Earl of Essex and sent forth to destroy the Malignants for so they called such who by the Principles of Honour and Duty adher'd to their Prince and to rescue the King as they gloried out of the Hands of his wicked Counsellours The Title of King was as yet held in great Veneration by the People It pleased them therefore to entitle their War to the King and Parliament though nothing more contrary to both They had not as yet separated Kingship from the Person which shortly after happened for distinguishing betwixt the Politick and Private Capacity of the Chief Magistrate they dared impudently to affirm That the King was Virtually in the Parliament though Personally absent at York Nay they went further as there is still a plus ultra in villainous Rebellion contesting That the supreme Power is primarily in the People and in Kings but by a delegate and fiduciary Commission and therefore as being inferiour to the Whole though superiour to every particular to be reclaimed by Force if they should transgress against Religion and Liberty But to omit these seditious Impertinences sufficiently refuted in the repeating of them the King understanding the Progress and Preparations of the Adversaries and how they had seized his Navy Fortresses and Magazines being himself destitute of all Help except such as those Generous and Loyal Lords and Gentlemen who followed his Fortune Essex and his Adherents proclaimed Traytors The King sets up his Standard at Nottingham did contribute he declared Essex and his Adherents to be Traytors and Rebels and appointing the Marquiss of Hartford General of his Forces erected his Royal Standard at Nottingham inviting thereby all his loving Subjects to his Assistance It was observed that a Gust of Wind did at the same Time blow down the Colours which though looked upon as Inauspicious by some did not yet hinder but that several Thousands repaired to them And his Majesty having received Money and Arms from the Queen grew by these Supplies and the Accession of his Friends most of the Lords and very many of the Lower House repairing to him formidable Insomuch that this great Defection of the Members amongst whom was the Lord Keeper with the Great Seal as they added Life and Reputation to the King's Affairs being for the most part Persons of whole Estates and great Abilities so they did a little raise Apprehensions in them that remained which appeared by their Vote and Impeachment of the Fifteenth of June The Queen proclaimed Traytor The Queen in the beginning of the Troubles retired with her own and the Crown-Jewels some whereof she had pawned for these Supplies into
Holland under pretence of conducting as is already observed her Daughter the Lady Mary to the Prince of Orange her Husband for which pious and just Fact tho they formerly looked upon it as a Scandal when it was rumoured that they had a Design to accuse her she was proclaimed Traytor by these barbarous and worst of Rebels Some were of Opinion that the Faction was not ignorant of the Conveyance of this Treasure but connived at it upon a Supposition that the King upon the Confidence of it might be more refractary to their Demands and consequently engage in a War against them which they mainly desired as the plausiblest way to ruine him His Majesty notwithstanding the Accession of his Friends and Power desired the Ways of Peace not War Earl of Southampton Earl of Dorset But all his Messages and gracious Offers though sent to them by the Principal Nobles about him were rejected with Scorn and Insolence For the impetuous Faction in the House having a great Army on Foot and abundance of Treasure would hearken to no Accommodation This obliged his Majesty to intend his Safety the more so that levying Soldiers in the Counties he passed he daily increased even beyond Expectation For having made a solemn Protestation at the head of his Men at Wellington The King 's solemn Protestation viz. That he would defend the Protestant Religion as by Law established The Laws of the Land and the Liberty and Property of the Subject his Numbers visibly augmented Passing through Chester into Wales having made a Pathetick Speech to the Inhabitants thereof and gained entirely upon their Affections naturally inclined to serve their Prince he went thence to Shrewsbury where the Country being assembled by his Order he at the Head of them made this following Oration which for its Excellency and that it contains the Ground and the Truth of the Quarrel I thought fit to insert here Gentlemen and Speech to the Gentry and Inhabitants near Shrews-bury IT is some Benefit to me from the Insolence and Misfortunes which have driven me about that they have brought me to so good a part of my Kingdom and to so faithful a part of my People I hope neither you nor I shall repent in coming hither I will do my part that you may not and of you I was confident before I came The Residence of an Army is not usually pleasant to any Place and mine may carry more Fear with it since it may be thought robb'd and spoiled of all my own and such Terror used to fright and keep all men from supplying of me I must only live upon the Aid and Relief of my People But be not afraid I would to God my poor Subjects suffered no more by the Insolence and Violence of that Army raised against me though they have made themselves wanton even with Plenty than you shall do by mine and yet I fear I cannot prevent all Disorders I will do my best and this I promise you no man shall be a loser by me if I can help it I have sent hither for a Mint I will melt down all my own Plate and expose all my Lands to Sale or Mortgage that if it be possible I may not bring the least pressure upon you In the mean time I have summoned you hither to do that for me and your selves for the Maintenance of your Religion and the Laws of the Land by which you enjoy all that you have which other men do against us Do not suffer so good a Cause to be lost for want of supplying me with that which will be taken from you by those who pursue me with this violence And whilst these ill men sacrifice their Money Plate and utmost Industry to destroy the Commonwealth be you no less liberal to preserve it Assure your selves if it please God to bless me with Success I shall remember the Assistance that every particular man here gives me to his Advantage However it will hereafter how furiously soever the minds of men are now possest be Honour and Comfort to you that with some Charge and Trouble to your selves you did your part to support the King and preserve the Kingdom With this Speech and the Majesty and Reverence of his Person the People as it were inspired listed themselves by Troops in this Sacred Warfare so that the King being in a little time become Master of considerable and formidable Forces dared to provoke that Enemy whom he had hitherto avoided Essex goes to his Army Essex was waited upon in great State by the Parliament-Members out of Town and with quick Marches hastens to Northampton the Rendezvous of his Army consisting of Fourteen Thousand Men high and confident seeing they were to combat fresh and for the most part undisciplined Soldiers Amongst other Instructions Essex had received a Petition from his Masters to be presented to the King wherein they desire That his Majesty would desert his Followers who were REBELS and TRAYTORS and suffer them to be suppressed by the Earl of Essex But his Majesty abominating so sinful a Thought The King marches towards London leaving Shrewsbury marched with Six Thousand Foot Three Thousand brave Horse and Two Thousand Dragoons towards London This unexpected Motion of the King perplexed the City and Senate not a little before disordered with the Success of Prince Rupert who had broke and destroyed a Wing of their Horse near Worcester and kill'd Sands the Colonel Both Houses therefore to obviate the Danger from the King's Army and lest he should attempt the City where it was supposed the Parliament might easiest be suppress'd exhort the City-Militia to stand upon their Guard to watch to raise such Fortifications as could suddenly be made to make Batteries for their Cannon dig Trenches and set up Courts of Guard for the Souldiers omitting nothing for their Defence against the King's feared Approach They also sent Ten Companies to secure Windsor whilst they Imprison such of their Citizens as were suspected to Favour the King's Party Essex in the mean Time came to Worcester quitted by the Royallists where he continued whilst the King passed by without giving his Majesty any Interruption But the Rebels followed close in his Rear which he perceiving turned short upon them lest he should be enclosed betwixt the Rebels and the Rebellious City of London This occasioned that memorable Battel the first of these Unhappy Wars which was fought in the Vale of Red-Horse not absurdly called so considering the streams of Blood which were spill'd there that Day The Parties fought with equal Courage and Fortune though both pretended to the Victory which had been infallibly the King 's and the Rebellion stifled in its Infancy if the Right Wing of our Horse had not pursued the Enemy farther than they ought to have done But God who was not pleased that our Sins should be expiated at a Common Rate determined otherwise The Battel of Edge-Hill Oct. 23. 1642. The Royallists
but fell unlamented by Reason of their Inconstancy Of the Hothams I have made some mention already And of Carew I will add this not unworthy to be noted which happened at the Tryal of the Earl of Strafford Sir Bevil Greenville a Person never to be mentioned but with Honour at the passing the Bill of Attainder said to Sir Alexander sitting then next him and both serving for Cornwall Sir pray let it not be said That any Member of our County should have a Hand in this Ominous Affair and therefore pray vote against this Bill But the other instantly replied If I were sure to be the next Man that should suffer upon the same Scaffold and with the same Axe I would give my Consent to the passing of it And wee have seen how truly and how circumstantially exact he foretold his own Fate Archbishop Laud murthered January 10. William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury followed next more truly lamented of all good Men. They had abolished the Book of Common-Prayer and the Liturgy as Preludes to his Fate and Function But not daring to hazard his Tryal by a Common-Jury for no Law could condemn him nor by the Peers as equally dubious he then was voted Guilty in the Commons House the Lords by an inauspicious Compliance sitting with them The Scots had formerly declared him an Incendiary and a publick Enemy upon which Accompt he had been thus long kept in Prison And now they demand his Life as a grateful Retribution for their Assistance which was also sacrificed to their Ambition and Fears Thus the Covenant betwixt both Nations was to be cemented with Episcopal Blood This Great Pillar of our Church as he had been eminent in his Life for Vertue was no less remarkable at his Death for his Piety He preached his own Funeral Sermon upon the Scaffold and that with a Countenance no less serene than his Mind which he was going to offer up to his Creator and far from that seeming Weakness as he then Prophesied which appeared in him when the Illustrious Strafford going that same way called to him for his Benediction Generous Spirits being no less affected for their Friends Sufferings and sometimes more than their own And thus fell this Good Man and Good Bishop by the nefarious Ambition of Pretended-Reformed Christians We must acknowledge that the Bishops fell by the Envy of the Presbyterians who stirr'd up the People against them as too seemingly imperious Not that they would have their Power abrogated for That they pretended to themselves being resolved to assert that of Archbishops in their National and that of Bishops in their Provincial Synods whilst every Individual Presbyter should exercise more than Prelatick Jurisdiction in his own Classis The publick Severity requiring more Blood the Lord Macquire and Macmahon Two Irish Noblemen Chief Contrivers in the Bloody Conspiracy in Ireland deservedly suffered the Gallows though not proportionable to their abominable Contrivance And yet these especially Macquire had been tampered with to accuse the King as an Abettor in this nefarious Rebellion which he yet generously enough disowned upon his Death Fortune as yet or rather Providence had not decided the Quarrel The War was unhappily prolonged and there appeared some Hopes of composing our Troubles by Treaty and particularly in that of Vxbridge The Treaty of Uxbridge The King as is already mentioned after his routing of Waller at Copredy-bridge and defeating of Essex at Lestithiel had sent Messages to the Parliament with offers of Peace which he now again renews from Oxford no less graciously than affectionately inviting them to comply with him in restoring these harassed Kingdoms to their former Tranquillity But it proved fruitless and all the King's Concessions how indulgent soever could effect nothing For the Demands of the Faction were so high and their Propositions so unreasonable that the King could not assent to them without ruining his Conscience as a Christian and his Majesty as a Prince For these modest Men did require The Extirpation of Hierarchy by the Abolition of Episcopacy and the Liturgy and the Introduction of Presbyters and the Directory in their stead They would divest the King of all his Power both Military and Civil And did press That the Nobles and such as had been true to their Duty should be delivered over to their Justice that is to Death to Imprisonment and Exile Which appeared so Inhumane and Tyrannical that it is abhorring to Sense and Reason whilst these nefarious Conspirators do not think that the King hath done enough in pardoning his Enemies unless he also betray his Friends By this it appeared how inclinable they were to Peace As also by their sudden breaking of the Treaty contrary to the King and his Commissioners Desires they did demonstrate that they were resolved to permit the Decision of the Cause to the Sword and to perpetuate themselves thereby in their Usurped Tyranny Shrewsbury surprized About this Time Major General Mitton surprized Shrewsbury betrayed to him being of very great Detriment to the King Scarborough and Weymouth were also taken which happening presently after the Treaty the Houses ordered a Day of publick Thanksgiving for these great Victories as being Evidences from Heaven of their Sincerity Sir Thomas Middleton had formerly beaten Colonel Marrow from the Siege of Oswestry Nor was he less fortunate at Montgomery He had surprized the Castle by Intelligence which by reason of the Consequence of its Situation being an Entry into North-Wales was again Besieged by the Lord Byron General of those Countries But Middleton with the Assistance of Brereton Meldrum and Sir William Fairfax with their conjoined Forces relieved the Place and after a sharp Fight The Fight at Montgomery routed the Cavaliers Fortune seemed at first to favour the juster Side by forcing away the Enemies Horse but changing the Rebels carried the Day The slain of the Royallists were at least Three Hundred and no fewer wounded though the Enemy scarce lost a Hundred except Fairfax and Symons And now Essex a no less Victory to the Independents as also the Earls of Denbigh Manchester and Warwick and the rest of the Chief Officers lay down their Arms resting Inglorious and only not neglected especially Essex who denied to give Peace to the Kingdom Essex discarded though invited to it by the King himself when it was in his Power And now retiring from Business he languished away the Residue of his Days in Discontent and an irksome Retreat BOOK III. The Continuation of the Irish Rebellion The Lords of the. Pale side with the Rebels Their Model of Government The Cruelty of the English in Ireland Ormond makes first a Cessation then a Peace with the Irish Delivers Dublin to the English The King vindicated from any Correspondence with the Irish Rebels Fairfax marches Westward recalled besieges Oxford The King relieves Chester Takes Leicester The Fatal Battel of Naesby described The King's Cabinet taken and published Fairfax relieves Taunton The
Fight at Langport He takes Bridgwater Sherburne and Bristol The King's Travels and Labours The Scots besiege Hereford They quit it The Fight at Rowton-Heath Digby and Langdale defeated in the North. Barclay-Castle the Devizes and Tiverton taken Cromwell takes Winchester and Basing-House by Assault The Fight at Torrington The Prince passes into France The Lord Hopton disbands his Army Distractions at Newark The King returns to Oxford The Lord Ashley defeated Continuation of the Rebellion in Ireland IT is now time to return to the Irish History we have hitherto discontinued with design not to interrupt the English And shall now take the same Liberty to represent this to the Rendition of Dublin to the English in one continued Relation The King had committed the Government of Ireland to the Earl of Leicester a Favourite of the Faction upon a Supposition that that Kingdom would be the better provided for But he observing the backwardness of the Parliament however pressed by frequent Addresses from the Council there and by reiterated Messages from his Majesty nearer had no mind tho' invited to it and entrusted with it to stir or engage himself in so hazardous an Enterprise He therefore lest he might seem wholly to neglect his Province commissioned the Earl of Ormond a Person made up of Honour and Loyalty to be his Lieutenant General in that Kingdom which was likewise approved of by his Sacred Majesty the best Judge of Men and Abilities and who afterwards Honoured his Merit with the Chief Government of the whole Which he performed with so much Courage Constancy and Prudence as will raise him a Trophy of Honour in the Annals of Time Upon his Arrival at Dublin with a Troop of a Hundred Horse well armed having been summoned thither by the Lords-Justices he revived by his Presence the desponding Courage of the City He also immediately proposed in Council the raising of a small Army which might in the Infancy of the Rebellion have suppress'd or else stopt its Progress but they being either not able or not willing and the Reader may believe both as will too visibly appear hereafter the Business was laid aside The Conspirators especially in Vlster where they were most predominant having with the Extremity of Rage and Cruelty drowned slain spoiled stripp'd and ejected infinite Numbers of the poor Protestants made Sir Phelim O Neal their General He was of the House of Tyrone but bred up in Lincoln's-Inn and a Protestant till of late though indeed of no famed Conduct or Courage However he took Dundalk which was surrendred to him and besieged Tredah by Sea and Land Tichburne the Governour doubtful of the Event had demanded and obtained the Grant of Succours from Dublin Six Hundred Foot were sent to him under the Command of Major Roper with a Convoy of Fifty Horse for their Security But they were surprized in a Mist by the Irish and defeated scarce one Hundred of the Foot escaping to Tredah with the Major though the Horse with Weems their Commander brake through and returned back to Dublin It is not conceivable what Courage this Success then great infused into the wavering Irish Those who were content to look on before became hereupon Actors in this Tragedy Nay The Lords of the Pale join with the Rebels the Lords of the Pale who had hitherto stood upon their Guard now upon the uncontrouled Progress of the Rebels and the no Appearance of any considerable Forces from England the Breach there betwixt the King and Parliament daily wid'ning to oppose them they also contrary to the sacred Vows of Duty and Allegiance forfeited both by joining with their Countrymen Nay all the Provinces in the Kingdom broke out into a detestable Rebellion being instigated thereunto by their Priests and Confessors with the Appearance nay Assurance of Liberty and Heaven Besides they had understood that their Country was to be enslaved and their Estates to be divided amongst the English Adventurers to each proportionable to the Money raised by them for the Use of the War Nay further that they not only designed to suppress the Rebellion but the very Religion of the Rebels They therefore now declare That they fight for their Altars for their Subsistance and for their Lives seeing their Countrymen were denied Quarter in England So that their taking up Arms was no Rebellion their extream Peril unavoidably obliging them to it These and the like Arguments obliged all to run to their Natural Defence so that there was no Corner exempt from this dismal Infection And yet it was not so universal but that some of the principal of the Nobility continued to their great Honour unshaken in their Fidelity to the King nor so bloody but that some Marks of Humanity appeared in the very Actors in this Tragedy who sheltered cloathed fed and delivered very many from the Barbarities of their Associates Which ought not to be silenced without Injustice and Ingratitude The Rebels settle a Form of Government And now the Rebels finding their Strength and Numbers considerable institute a Form of a Common-wealth and choosing amongst themselves a Council of the most eminent Persons of the Party gave it the Title of The Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland and framing an Oath of Association by which all were bound to obey them assumed the Form of a Regular Government This Senate consisted of Five and Twenty Six out of each Province the Twenty Fifth being Castle-Haven newly escaped from Dublin where he had continued a Prisoner a great while They also made them a Great Seal coined and raised Money erected several Courts of Judicature appointed several Officers of State and amongst other Points of Regality constituted Four Generals of the Four Provinces Preston for Lemster Barry Munster Owen Roe O Neal Vlster Burk Their Four Generals Conaught They had cleared most of the Inland Countries of the English and did really bear all before them until those few English sent over joining with the Protestants at Dublin put a stop to their Carier In the mean Time they put out their Remonstrance where amongst other things they declare That they had taken up Arms for Defence of the Roman-Catholick-Religion their own Rights and Privileges and the King's Prerogative c. exactly copied afterwards by the Rebel-Parliament in England The Irish had hitherto lived in Amity with the Scots apprehending the Neighbourhood of Scotland and lest they should buckle with Two Enemies at once but finding their Power grow they also fell upon their Quarters using them with no less infamous Barbarities than they had done the English But the Siege of Tredah went but slowly on for tho' they practise all the Arts of Force and Intelligence in the assaulting of it They raise the Siege of Tredah yet upon the Arrival of Sir Simon Harcourt with a strong Regiment out of England despairing of carrying it they quitted it notwithout considerable Loss For the Governour falling in his Rear
as well-nigh always in the open Field Passing thence by Taodan he marched to Esk where he met with the old Earls of Arley with his Sons and a brave train of Friends and Attendants Here he had intelligence that the Lord Burgley was at Aberdene of Aberdene with design to draw the Northern Parts by Money or Force to join with him Which Montross understanding having passed the River Dee he found the Enemy drawn up in Battel Array near the City Burgley had two thousand Foot and five hundred Horse which he placed in the Wings and having chosen his Ground and planted his Cannon at the head of his Army expected the onset Montross had but fifteen hundred Foot for the Lord of Kilpont's Men were gone home to convoy the Body of their Lord who had been murther'd by one of his own Servants and very many of the Atholians were also returned loaden with Plunder after the Victory of Perth and not yet come up to the Army He also placed his Horse which were but four and forty in the Wings Adding some of his Foot to them who for their Agility and Strength were equal to Horses enjoyning them to have a care lest the Enemies Troops surrounded them Which they also valiantly performed for the Charge being given the Enemy was defeated slaughtered routed The Horse escaped for the most part but the Foot having no place to retreat to but the City fled thither But being closely pursued by the Conquerours entring Pell-mell with them the Streets were strowed with their slain Bodies Two days being allowed the Soldiers to refresh in Montross was informed that Argile was advancing with far greater Forces than formerly being also accompanied with the Earl of Lothan with Fifteen Hundred Horse He therefore left Aberdeen and marched to Kintor from whence he determined to lead his Forces to the Mountains and Places of most difficult access In order to this he buried his Cannon in the Earth and disburthened himself of his heaviest Baggage But the Enemy pressing on all sides he marched to Badenoth that he might be out of the danger of their Cavalry those Quarters being scarce passable for Horse The Enemy having left pursuing him he was surprized by a fit of Sickness which extreamly harassed him for some days but being recovered he marched again into Angus hoping either to force Argile tired with tedious Marches into Winter Quarters or to leave him far behind him Having traversed Angus and passed over the Grampian Mountain he came to Strath-bogy to invite the Gordons with his Presence to a Conjunction of Arms with him But in vain being opposed by the Marquess of Huntley who though he did not hate the King envied the glories of Montross too much to contribute to their greatness He went thence to the Castle of Favia which he took but being sharply attacked there by Argile and Lothan had much to do to resist their Power which he yet did by his own Vertue and the rare Valour of his Men. Many days being thus spent at Favia Argile got nothing with so great an Army but Infamy from his Friends and Contempt from his Enemy Montross baffles Argile who flies to Perth Sometime after Montross understanding Argile to be at Deucalidon without his Horse resolved to attempt him which coming to his knowledge Montross being as yet sixteen Miles off he commanded his Men to shift for themselves whilst he secured himself by his flight to Perth Montross being of opinion that an Enemy could be no where so advantageously assaulted as in his own Country flew with incredible speed and industry into Argile where having forced the Marquess to save himself again in a Boat he destroyed and filled the Province with Blood Slaughter Rapine and Fire Nor were the other Neighbouring Countries as Lorn and the rest that acknowledged the Dominion of Argile better used The Royallists having quitted these Quarters they at length met with Argile at Innerlock but charged him with such Fury that they broke their Ranks and pursuing with a great shout defeated them with a great slaughter killing above Fifteen Hundred upon the place Whilst Argile himself placed in a Boat and put off from Shore saw the ruine of his Men at a distance and without any share of the danger After this the Citizens of Elgin surrender'd their Town of their own accord at which time the Lord Gourdon The noble Lord Gourdon joins with Montross and eldest Son to the Marquess of Huntley a Person above all Commendation for the eminency of his Vertues left his Uncle Argile and came over to the King's Party with a very choice Squadron of Friends and Dependants Montross heightened with this accession forced Hurrey Commander of the Rebels Horse refusing to fight upon his Invitation to a Retreat and offered Bayly sent for purposely out of England to whom Hurrey was also joined by a Trumpeter the liberty of Battel But he replied That when he was disposed to Engage it should be by his own not anothers choice The Royallists marched forward to Deucalidon and designing to pass the Tai were upon the point of being ruined by a very mischievous accident which they could not forsee Lodowick Gordon who had born Arms at Aberdeen on the Rebels side had by the mediation of his Noble Brother his Brother Lodowick deserts the army which greatly distresses Montross been reconciled to the King's Party But now whether upon real or pretended Letters from his Father having privately seduced most of the Gordons to a defection carried them away exposing thereby his Brother and Montross to very imminent danger And truly it may be a question whether of these excellent Persons most hated this Perfidy Montross highly troubled with this defection thought how to secure the rest and immediately sent the weakest of them away with all his Baggage with Command to meet him at Brechin This done he with an Hundred and Fifty Horse which was all he had and Six Hundred nimble Footmen marched with incredible Speed to Taodun which he assaulted took and plundered He himself stood upon a Hill which overlook'd the Town when sudden news was brought him that Bayly and Hurrey were with Three Thousand Foot Montross's noble retreat from Taodun and Eight Hundred Horse within a Mile of the Place By that time he had got his Men out of the City which was not done without extream difficulty being scarce to be withdrawn from their Plundering the Enemy was come up within Musket-shot of him His Retreat was admirable wherein he shewed himself no less a worthy Commander than he had done in his former Victories Some advised the General to reserve himself for better times and secure himself by flight with his Horse and others under these desperate Circumstances were of opinion they should not perish unrevenged But he complying with neither instantly sent Four Hundred Foot before and commanding the other Two Hundred to follow he himself closed the Rear with his Horse
were upon dividing the Inheritance Nay had gratified several of their Grandees with splendid Donatives when dissenting amongst themselves they by their own Discords opened a passage to their deserved ruine The difference and emulation which did arise betwixt the very Conquerors The Presbyterians and Independents jarr who tho' they had ended the War were yet far from Peace troubled all those Twins of Presbytery and Independency which the same Womb lately enclosed striving for Predominancy which was as also the Blessing extorted by the Younger Brother The Presbyterians to comply with their Scots Brethren had abolished the Liturgy and to keep Episcopacy from reviving had confiscated all its Revenues But the Severity of this rigid Discipline was not equally pleasing to all especially to those who pretended New Light These blaming all Tyranical Impositions in Holy Things hold forth a Christian Liberty which permits every one Independent from another to serve God after his own manner This Doctrine was very pleasing to the Common People especially the Souldiery seeing it indulged them with Licentiousness which not only the Vulgar but their Officers did likewise embrace So that the Fold of Presbytery being thrown down the strayed Sheep were gathered under other Shepherds forming thereby the several Sects of Quakers Anabaptists Millenaries and the rest And these were they who under pretence of the Self-denying Ordinance removed Essex and his Chief Officers from the Command of the Army imposing Fairfax who though a Presbyterian was flexile in his Room To this Man being of a melancholy and affected Godliness Cromwell by a particular Dispensation was adjoined who by a feigned Sanctimony should lead him at Pleasure The Colonels and Captains were likewise all Schismaticks or such who were not averse to them These also caused Massey and Cooke to be disbanded as also Poyntz's Forces for Mutinies which they themselves by detaining their Pay had occasioned These and such like Feats being not perceived or neglected by the Presbyterians who were far more numerous in the House had passed But the Faction increasing and growing potent by the Accession of other Sectaries they at length resolved to observe them more narrowly The Enemy now most formidable was the Army fierce and high with their Victories These they fear and therefore desire to dissolve them which they not daring to attempt at once they bethink themselves how to diminish their Power and Pride And a very plausible Occasion presented it self supplies being to be sent into Ireland Eleven Thousand were instantly voted for that Service and another Decree passed for easing of the Common-wealth The Presbyterians endeavour to disband the Army that most of the Army should be disbanded the standing-Forces to consist of Five Thousand Horse a Thousand Curiassiers and Six Thousand Foot under the Command of Fairfax though that last Clause did not pass without much disputing which was wonder'd at by many These Votes however violent were carried by Cromwell's Skill and Arts who ceased not to assure them of the Souldiers Obedience and Submission Not that he desired the Army dissolved the thing in the World he apprehended most but that by that means the Presbyterians as Chief Authors of those odious Decrees might be render'd more hateful to the Souldiers Which happen'd accordingly for the News was no sooner come to the Camp but they began to mutiny especially being made believe they were to be cashier'd without their Arrears They therefore take a Resolution not to stir and to try every Extremity rather than go into Ireland so far distant to be destroyed with Sickness and Hunger or indeed to return to their Trades again In this heat they fly yet higher and choose Agitators The Army mutinies Two private Souldiers out of every Regiment of Foot and Two out of every Troop of Horse who were authorized by their Comrades to consider and determine what was to be done for the publick Utility of them all By these a Declaration was emitted in the Name of the whole Army that the Souldiery would neither be disbanded nor go into Ireland until they had received all their Pay due to so many Victories until the People had their Liberties and just Powers restored to them and until Peace was secured to the Kingdom and Indemnity to the Souldiers This Declaration with a Petition was presented to the Lower House by the Colonels Hammond Rich and Ireton which extreamly offended the Presbyterians whom they will dare to offend yet higher For this impetuous Faction being sure of the Army resolve to get the King likewise into their Power especially being informed That the Parliament had unless prevented the same design This quickened them for laying all delay aside his Majesty was seized upon at Holmbey where his Captivity was Surprizethe King at Holmbey by one Joyce a Cornet sometimes a Godly Taylor and now a Tumultuous Agitator with a Party of a Thousand Horse and carried away against his Will as he sent the Parliament Word by the Earl of Dumferling to the Camp his Character rendring him very considerable to the Party he was with however a Prisoner The Surprisal of the King being known at Westminster the Members there hurried betwixt the Passions of Rage and Terror were ready to despond until raised by Cromwell who seeming to detest the Insolencies of the Souldiers no less than his Colleagues added That if they thought fit to let him go to the Army he promised with much Asseveration that he would not only reduce the Regiments to their Duty but would oblige the Souldiers to lay down their Arms at the Door of the Parliament-House The Fathers revived with these flourishes greatly extol their Author And there were amongst them who proclaiming the Actions which he had gloriously performed for the Parliament judged him worthy a Statue of Gold if he should compose the seditious Disturbances of the Army By this Artifice he got leave to go though others were of another Opinion and not obscurely advised his Seisure whilst he smiles at their Credulity He immediately taking Horse flew with no ordinary Speed to the Camp where he not only approved what the Souldiers had done but chearfully subscribed their Declarations Petitions and Remonstrances And to shew of what Consequence he esteemed steemed the King's Arrivalat the Army he did not blush to bragg That he now had the Parliament in his Pocket The King was not uncivilly received by Fairfax but was entertained by Cromwell with all the Testimonies of Duty and Loyalty We is seemingly civilly received in the Camp who pathetically expressing his Sorrow for his Misfortunes did not cease to profess That the Army doubtful of his Safety had rescued him out of the Captivity of the Parliament and that he would never lay down Arms until his Majesty was restored to his Scepters and his Friends to more equal Conditions And indeed all as well Officers as Soldiers did seem to deplore the Injustice and Extremity of his Fate and particularly that he had
things interpreting their own Promises in a contrary Sence In the mean time the Parliament Vote That the King should be convoyed to Richmond under the Guard of Colonel Rosseter which was also consented to by Fairfax until the Army required That the King should come no nearer London than the Houses would suffer their Camp to be Cromwell who had obtained his End having the Parliament in his Pocket began now to neglect the King whom he had seemingly adored and courted with the charming Promises of his Restitution He did not wait upon him as usual and nauseating his Conversation wished him gone He had formerly deliberated with his Cabal how to destroy him and had once design'd to have him murthered in the Scotch Camp to satisfie his Revenge and at once to throw the odium of the Fact upon them he equally hated But it now seems sufficient to terrifie him with apparent dangers Designs upon the King's Life reserving his final ruine till they gained more Authority by rendring him more odious to the People as averse from Peace Which having obtained his fall would seem less pitied being also perpetrated by a Parliamentary Judicial Act as most plausible Nor was the King ignorant of these rebellious Scelerates designed Villainies having been not obscurely informed of Cromwell's perfidious dealings with him by some whom the Eminence of his Vertues had gained amongst these black Conspirators Neither were his Friends wanting in their wishes and endeavours for his safety Amongst whom we with gratitude applaud the offers of the Scots Commissioners for the Earls of Lauderdale and Lannerick meeting his Majesty as he was Hunting near Nonsuch and but slenderly guarded they having at that time Fifty Horse of their Train with them told his Majesty That they were come thither on design to deliver him out of his Captivity And therefore humbly desired That he would be pleased not to omit this opportunity to save himself out of their too visible perfidious Hands But His Majesty answered That he had passed his Royal Word not to leave the Army without acquainting the Chief Officers and therefore would not violate his Promise to save his Life Some time after he told the said Commissioners That he was now discharged from his Word and after many Propositions about his retreat he seemed much pleased with that of Barwick as then ungarrisoned and in the Confines of both Kingdoms But that was also waved by reason of the violent motion of the Agitators a rumour being also at the same time spread at Court that they had conspired against his Life which was not only conveyed to him by his Friends as believing it but also by Colonel Whaley his Guardian who told him That moved with duty and affection he could not forbear to beseech his Majesty to save himself by a timely Retreat affirming That this also was the Sense of the Chief Officers of the Army who were very imwilling to be Spectators of what they could not at present help His Majesty withdraws from Hampton-Court With these Artifices this best of Princes being circumvented privately withdrew himself from Hampton-Court which by the removing of the Centinels was not difficult Having passed the River in a Boat he found Ashburnham Legge and Barclay on the other side with Horses He had designed to go to London where he also had a Lodging provided for him but upon a Consideration that the Citizens being obnoxious to the Soldiery were not to be trusted and that Ashburnham perswaded the contrary leaving the City they after much Toil and the Errors incident to travelling in a dark and tempestuous Night came to the Sea-side near Southhampton Where not finding a Ship as they expected to transport them to Jersey the King asked Whither they purposed to carry him Ashburnham replied To the Isle of Wight for he had great confidence in Colonel Hammond the Governour Brother to Doctor Hammond the King's Chaplain The King replied That he would not enter into the Island unless he first had assurance from the Governour both of his Liberty and Security from danger Ashburnham therefore and Barclay were sent to propose these Conditions To whom Hammond dear to Cromwell and sent as is supposed to command the Island for that purpose answered That he would provide for the King's Security from danger but could not dispose of his Liberty but with the Army and Parliaments Knowledge Our Delegates having advanced beyond a Retreat were necessitated through fear to accept of the Condition and so brought Hammond with them to the Countess of Southhampton's House near Tichfield where the King privately lay He was no sooner come and His Majesty acquainted with the Terms but clapping his Hand upon his Heart he said too Prophetically alass I am now undone Whereupon his Attendants bursting out into Tears and Expressions of Violence would instantly have kill'd Hammond But His Majesty absolutely forbad it who would not purchase his own Safety at the clandestine Destruction of a most bitter Enemy And so he delivered himself into his Custody and those Toils which the nefarious Cunning of his Adversaries had long since laid for him BOOK V. The King in the Isle of Wight His Message for Peace The four Dethroning Bills The Votes of Non-address Cap. Burleigh attempts the King's Delivery Rolfe his Life The King appeals to the People They rise in several Parts of the Kingdom Are suppressed Pembroke taken The Scots defeated and Hamilton a Prisoner Colchester surrendered The Treaty in the Isle of Wight broken by the Army They seize upon the King Garble the Parliament The perjur'd Remains of the Commons assume the Supream Power Constitute a pretended Court of High Justice Arraign Condemn and Murther their King His End and Elogy THE King upon his Departure from Hampton-Court had left upon his Table amongst other things a Letter to the Parliament The Contents thereof were That Liberty being desired by all Men and no less necessary for King's than others and that he had long suffered the irkesomness of a Prison under hopes of Peace He now finding the contrary and the inconstancy of the Army had withdrawn himself And yet wherever he should be he would use all his Power for the procuring of it and hinder further effusion of Blood Finally if it should be permitted him to be heard with Honour Liberty and Freedom he would quickly break through this Cloud of Retirement and demonstrate himself truly to be the Father of his Country Being arrived in the Island The King's Message for Peace he again earnestly presses the Parliament for what he had so often desired Peace and having sent them Concessions beyond their Hopes and Desires he yet invites them to a Treaty though with the same Success And yet lest these pious Patriots might seem too averse from that they had pretended to the Peace of the Nation they send the old Propositions to him but accompanied with four preliminary Articles Which how unjust soever they require him to assent
requiring That the Treaty with the King might be renewed and the Army paid off and disbanded But their reception was very rude being beaten and plundered and slain by their Guards Insomuch that the Kentish-men having likewise framed a Petition for Peace upon the like usage by a Party of Horse and being threatned to have two harged out of each Parish that were Promoters of it and the rest sequestered they threw away their Paper and betook them to their Arms. The first appearance of an Insurrection broke out in the City of London being accidental not upon the King's Accompt The Parliament had piously voted down Holy-days abrogating all the Festivals of the Church having appointed one Day in every Month in lieu of them for Publik Recreations The Apprentices as usually had met in some Numbers in Moor-Fields on the 9th of April to play and divert themselves But this being Sunday moved the Zeal of some precize Schismatical Officers of the Trained-Bands who with their Guards would force them away but were themselves routed by the Boys with Stones and Clubs who also took their Colours from them and in a Childish Bravery marching into the Streets frighted Warner the then Mayor into his House and taking away a Drake from his Door Planted it at Lud-Gate nearest the Foe the Army then about White-Hall But Fairfax on the Morrow following ent'ring with some Regiments of Horse and Foot at Alders-Gate easily dispersed them though then numerous no Person of Quality undertaking their Conduct The Fame of this tumultuous Insurrection or rather Riot was quickly noised throughout the Kingdom which although strangled in its Infancy seemed to animate the oppressed populace to follow the Example whereby they might redeem themselves and Liberties from their impending slavery The Welch were the first that took up Arms under the Conduct of Major General Laughorn The Welch in Armes and the Collonels Poyer and Powell all Three formerly stiff Assertors of the Parliaments Jurisdiction But now being to be disbanded by Orders of the Council of War of the Army they refuse to obey And the better to secure themselves declare for the King acting by Commission and Powers from the then Prince of Wales Laughorn grew suddenly by the accession of Major General Stradling and others of the King's Party to a considerable Army esteemed Eight Thousand strong which rendered him Master of the Town and Castles of Pembroke and Tenby Sir Nicholas Kemish at the same time surprized Chepstow Castle and Sir John Owen another eminent Cavalier in North wales defeated and took the High-Sheriff of Caernarvan So that all Wales seemed at once to shake off that cruel Yoak they laboured under Nor were the preparatives for a War of the Kentish-men less considerable For As also the Kentishmen Rendezvouzing near Rochester they chose the Earl of Norwich then upon the place to be their General Very many Apprentices and reformed Officers and Souldiers flocked from London daily to them Insomuch that the Juncto terrified with the apprehension of what might happen restored to the City their Militia which they feared otherwise might be extorted from them hoping by this Confidence to render them more addicted to their interest Which also happened not upon sentiments of generosity but to manifest their aversness to oppressed Monarchy even then when it was in their Power to restore it Skippon being also readmitted to the Command of their Forces the Communication with Kent was interrupted by placing Guards upon the Passages of the River But the Clouds that threatned the fiercest storm gathered in the North where Sir Marmaduke Langdale Sir Charles Lucas and others having surprized the strong Town of Berwick Berwick and Carlile surprized and Sir Phillip Musgrave and Sir Thomas Glenham that of Carlile and raised considerable Forces to joyn with the Scots now ready to enter England seemed no less able than willing to effect what they pretended the King's Restitution Though it be true that the Scots-Declaration had so many untoward Restrictions in it that nothing but the Frank Loyalty of the Royallists could joyn with them Upon the first noise of the Scots arming many English repaired into Scotland which obliged them at Westminster by their Deputies to require the delivery of the chief of them as Incendiaries They named particularly Wogan who carried a Troop thither with Sir Thomas Glenham and others But the Scots refused it seeing it was not stipulated in the Treaties betwixt both Nations They not judging those to be Incendiaries between the Two Kingdoms but only between the King and England These Revolts and Preparations for a new War did strangely disquiet the pretended Parliament who thereupon reviving their Votes of 1642. declare That it appears that the King seduced by wicked Counsel though then a close Prisoner intends to make War against the Parliament Cromwell being dispatcht against the Welch with great Forces the Kentish Expedition was not thought unworthy Fairfax's Conduct He therefore marches with Six Thousand Foot and Two Thousand Horse against the Cavaliers who being fatally divided whilst they Fight singly by Parties they are all overcome Fifteen Hundred stout Men were sent to Maidstone Fairfax defeats the Kentish-men to oppose their Enemies Passage there who fought with so much Valour that after they had been beaten from the Avenues and Hedges they kept that Town firing from the Houses and Leads about the space of Six Hours with great slaughter of the Enemy So that it is believed if the Earl of Norwich had come up with the rest of the Army to their Assistance the Rebels might have been defeated that Day But he dividing his Forces sent half of them to Dover and himself marched with the rest to Black-heath and being denied a Passage through the City which had been promised him he Ferries and Swims his small Army over to the Isle of Doggs From thence he moved to Mild-end-Green But seeing none come out of London to his relief as he expected he himself with only Five Hundred the rest being upon the obstinacy of the Citizens slipt from him joyned with the Essexians at Bow under the Command of Sir Charles Lucas They all stay'd here some time to favour any Loyal Attempt that might be made at London until warned by the approach of Fairfax who having dispatcht Rich and Barkstead with their Regiments to reduce those Castles which the Kentish had taken towards the Downs had passed the Thames at Graves-End they were also forced to dislodge And marching further into the Country seized store of Arms and Ammunition in the Earl of Warwick's House at Lees and having surprized the Parliament-Committee at Chelmsford went thence to Colchester where the brave Lord Capell joyned them with some Horse And all of them received the Van of Fairfax's Army with such Gallantry at the Towns-end that they forced them to retire to their main Body with considerable Loss They had designed to march further if they had not been so
not be cleansed of it but continues still a Monument of this horrid Impiety with this Inscription engraved Hic jacent Car. Lucas Geor. Lisle a Fairfaxio mactati Capell was reserved for the Scaffold who afterwards suffered with no less Constancy and Greatness of Mind than his illustrious Colleagues now did as we shall see in the Sequel of this History Nor was it on Land only that the Sword did rage the Sea also had its Scenes of Blood and Horror for a great part of the Navy detesting the Tyranny of their Old Masters deserted them and revolted to the Prince of Wales The Revolt of the Fleet. Batten one of their prime Leaders having been dismissed by them returned to his Duty and joined his Highness with some more Ships The Sea-men had exposed Rainsborough their Admiral and a Turbulent Leveller by putting him on shore who was afterwards slain in his Quarters by a Party from Pomfret and now embracing the King's Party with universal Consent seemed resolved to expiate their former Rebellion by a Return of Duty and to merit their Pardon by the Eminency of their Services Prince Charles with the Duke of York his Brother who lately escaped from St. James's in Womans Cloaths Prince Rupert the Earl of Brandford the Lords Hopton Willmot Willoughby Culpeper and others of Name and Quality sailed from Holland with this brave Fleet consisting of Twenty Ships of War and came into Yarmouth-Road with design to attempt every thing that was possible for the Relief of Colchester But finding the distance from that City too great and the Shore and Passages possessed by the numerous Enemy his Highness sailed to the Mouth of the Thames carrying Terror and Force with him to awe the City of London But his stay there was not long the Castles of Deal Walmer and Sandwich requiring his Assistance which he attempted by landing Five Hundred Men who though they fought with extream Gallantry were yet forced back with great loss to their Ships again The Castles after this Defeat were immediately surrendered By this time the Earl of Warwick lately made Admiral again had equipt another Fleet in the River and having joyned that of Portsmouth resolved to fight the Prince which he yet delays for the present not only terrified with the Revolt of others but in some doubt of the Fidelity of his own Men. The Prince perceiving this courted the Earl with magnificent Offers to the Return of his Duty But he perfidiously constant persisted in his Rebellion and in recompense of his Services shall see himself disgracefully outed of all Trust and his only Brother the Earl of Holland beheaded for his late Return to his Obedience Some were of Opinion that the Royallists omitted an opportunity of fighting the Sea men being high in Heart and seemingly very Loyal and the Enemy supposed to waver tho the Event afterwards proved the contrary In the mean time the Prince seeing his Land-Forces every where defeated and the adverse Fleet growing daily stronger returned into Holland giving the Command of the Fleet to Prince Rupert But many of the Ships out of an innate levity of their Sailors leaving the Prince returned to their old slavery under Warwick whilst the rest continuing in their Duty stuck close to their New Admiral whose Actions and Adventures shall be hereafter related Some other Fortresses besides those already mentioned declared for the King as N. B. Tinmouth-Castle seized upon by Major Lilburn Scarborough by the Return of Sir Matthew Boynton the Governour to his Allegiance and Pomfret possessed upon the same score by Major Morrice Tinmouth indeed was retaken by Assault the Governour losing his Life with the Place Boynton got Terms not unworthy the Defence he had made and Morrice and being lost bravely exposed himself to save his Garrison Who tho he broke thro the Camp which was the Conditions he had articled for yet was afterwards taken and murthered under colour of Justice in cold Blood The Visitation of Oxford But before we proceed further in these Occurrences it may not be impertinent to take a Review of some Transactions in the entrance of this Black Year 1648. seeing they seem to tend to those monstrous Catastrophes it ended in The first thing our pious Reformers undertook was visiting the Vniversity of Oxford They had long since garbell'd Cambridge to their Interest and will now as much as in them lyes extinguish this other Luminary by removing its Candlesticks and ejecting all the Members thereof that were any ways notable for Learning Loyalty Piety or Obedience to the Church or State as established by Law The Earl of Pembrook being made Chancellor together with several Delegates of the Factious Clergy and some of the Laiety as good Divines as himself were appointed for this Service Which was performed with all the Rigor of an Inquisition none being spared from the Reverend Heads of Colleges to the hopeful Striplings of Sixteen And yet the entrance of this Year had thus much extraordinary in it in that it contributed to the Deliverance of the Duke of York out of the Hands of those worst of Rebels The Duke of York escapes into Holland being conveyed away in a Virgin-disguise and carried into Holland by Col. Bamfeild who afterwards aspersed the Honour of this Service by undutiful Intelligences But to return whence we digressed the Army with Cromwell being absent and in Scotland several Petitions from the Country the Captains Masters and Sailers as also from the City of London were presented to the Men at Westminister requiring with more than ordinary earnestness a personal Treaty with the King This did so far work upon the Presbyterian Faction in the House very jealous and apprehensive of the Power of the Independants that they resolved for their own preservation to make a Peace with the King And The Treaty in the Isle of Wight in order thereunto forthwith recalled their Votes of Non-Address and sent Commissioners with Propositions not much unlike the former with Power to make Peace allowing Forty Days for the time of treating They indeed permitted his Majesty the attendance of several Lords of his Council and Bed-Chamber many of his Servants some of his Chaplains some Lawyers and others But they refused the Assistance of any but himself in treating Nor was it truly necessary for it presently appeared that as he was a Prince of prodigious Parts so he seemed more than humanly inspired who could singly manage so weighty an Affair against Fifteen Commissioners Persons prejudiced and of great Subtilty and with that success that he made Converts of some of his bitterest Enemies and however unwilling forced their very Reason But they having no liberty to recede or any way to remit of the Rigor of their Propositions His Majesty out of his affection to Peace granted many things above their Desires being content to divest himself of most of his Regalities for his time and trust those insatiable Men with the exercise thereof
as appears by his Concessions And now the Hopes of Peace and a Happy Accommodation seemed at â—and which had also been effected if the Parliament had not wretchedly lost too much time in frivolous disputations of no weight Whereby it appeared as formerly at Vxbridge that they never designed that this Treaty should take any effect nor that they would be satisfied with Part who had already devoured the Whole in their thoughts The Army who seemed to acquiesce in the Pleasure of their Superiors whilst engaged in War did dare now the Royallists being every where supprest changing their Principles with their Success plainly to dissent And to declare openly to the whole World That nothing would satisfy but the Destruction of the King and the Subversion of Monarchy In order hereunto a fierce Petition was presented from the City against the Treaty which was also seconded from Oxfordshire New-Castle York c. and in particular Ireton's Regiment insisted upon the same demanding That the same fault may have the same punishment in the Person of King or Lord as in the Person of the meanest Commoner A Prelude to the designed Regicide They had formerly designed the Murther of the King by the Ministry of that Villain Rolfe as is already mentioned but now fierce with their Victories they will themselves destroy him To this purpose they emit a Remonstrance The Armies Remonstrance execrable as it's Authors Cromwell and Ireton which was presented to the Commons House by Col. Eure and Seven other Scelerates like himself In this they furiously declaim against the Restitution of the King or any Accomodation with him requiring That he as the Capital Enemy should be brought to judgment That the Prince and Duke of York should be summoned in by a day That the Parliament should constitute a Government for the future and fixing a Period to their own Session should take care for Annual or Biennial Parliaments and the like stuff which they offered in their own Names and as the Agreement of the People They were grown now to that insolence that their modest General writ to the Committee of the Army for Money or he should be forced to receive that is take it out of the Collectors and the Receivers hands where he could find it if speedy course be not taken to supply him Which however high it appeared or unbeseeming in the General was connived at And now again the Army declare That they can see in the Majority of those trusted with the Affairs of the Kingdom nothing less than a treacherous or corrupt Neglect of and Apostacy from the publick Trust reposed in them and therefore they appeal from them to God and the People In order to this the Army marches towards the City and in contempt of the Parliament's Order who commanded their stay advance sending a Declaration before them wherein They accuse the Members of Folly of Infidelity and Inconstancy threatning They would come to Westminster where they would further act as God should inspire them And thus the Parliament after successes above their desires are agitated and tormented with the Mutinies of their own Army They had indeed declared the seditious and mutinying Souldiers Enemies but now by a desponding Compliance they Vote them their Pay and the Officers their Arrears and also that the Declaration against the Army be rased out of the Journal of the House They further as also the Citizens of London and the Counties began to make all their â—pplications to the General especially Cromwell â—nd the Army The Parliament seemed now â—eglected whilst the Army triumph and all Men are affraid of doing any thing that may â—isplease them The King hurried to Hurst Castle During these traverses and the Treaty at Newport not yet finished the King by command from Fairfax was by Col. Eure hurried to Hurst-Castle a place Infamous for Cold and the Insalubrity of the Air. At parting from the Isle the Parliament-Commissioners coming to take their leave of him he gave them his Answer unsealed and having acquainted them with the Condition of the Times he told them He had parted with All how dear soever to him except wherein his Conscience was dissatisfied And finally added That he had reason to believe that this would be the last time of their enterview But that blessed be God he had made his Peace with him and should without fear undergo what he should be pleased to suffer Men to do unto him As for them they could not but know that in his fall and ruin they saw their own and that also near to them He prayed God to send them better friends than he had found He was fully informed of the whole Plot and Carriage against him and his But that nothing so much afflicted him as the sense and feeling he had of the Sufferings of his Subjects and the Miseries that hung over his Three Kingdoms drawn upon them by those who upon pretences of good violently pursue their own Interests and Ends. Fairfax by so much the more wicked in that he witlesly acted for others brought the Army equally Rebels to the Parliament now as they had been to the King before to London and in Contempt of the Treaty impudently took up his Quarters at White Hall And yet the pretended Parliament that had hitherto rejected as well the King's Concessions as his Demands in contemplation of the Armies Insolence The Parliament Vote his Concessions satisfactory voted His Majesty's Answer to the Propositions of both Houses to be Satisfactory But this was too late for theâ—e double Rebels were so furiously enraged thereat that they immediately demanded by writing from the Parliament That the late accused Members and such other who favoured the Scots the King or the Personal Treaty should be excluded the Houses Nor were they pleased to stay for an Answer but besetting the Senate they seize upon One and Forty of them whom they imprison and seclude a Hundred and Sixty more leaving none to sit but such who were mancipated to Cromwell and the Faction The Common-Council was purged with the same Ingredients from the Army the vacancies being supplied with Plebeian fanaticks whereof any Forty should be a Quorum and Superior to the Mayor These petitioning with the same fury against the King as the Agitators had done involved the City in the Guilt of the Regicide as well as the Rebellion The Government being thus changed from one Tyranny to another the Supream Power which the Presbyterians had so long hunted for was surprized by the Independants Who to shew their Authority dissannul whatever the Presbyterians had voted concerning the Treaty or their secluded Colleagues And some time after divers of the Lords how degenerate did so far compliment Fairfax upon his Proceedings that they let him know They would wave their Titles and Priviledges in case they should be judged burthen-some to the Common-wealth or the Peoples Liberties Things being thus disposed and the Obstacles that might hinder their
the Method and Formalities of their Proceedings rejected the Opinions of such who would have the King first deposed and then put to Death as dangerous by its delay and savouring of Popery But those who gaped after the Government the Democratick would have the King tryed as King that by the Effusion of his Blood as such they might extinguish Majesty and destroy Monarchy it self For several of them confessed That Charles his only Crime was his being King and that the Eminency of his Vertues together with his Right of Succession rendered him uncapable of being a Private Man They therefore having first by their Serjeant at Arms with sound of Trumpets cited such profligate Witnesses as they could get the stress of whose Depositions was That they had seen the King in Arms at several Battles and Encounters Having also the same Day voted the making of a New Great Seal because of the incongruity of using the King 's against himself those Sanguinary Judges met in Weminster-Hall at the End whereof they caused a Theater to be erected on which they acted the ensuing Tragedy of Horror and Blood John Bradshaw the Shame of the Long Robe and only known by this horrid Fact the impudent President of this execrable Court commanded the King to be brought before them where he was accused of all the Blood-shed in the late Wars The King is arraigned with the injurious Terms of Tyrant Traytor and Murtherer and required to give his Answer to the Charge The King with an inimitable presence of Mind and a Fortitude truly Royal slighting what he had heard instead of an Answer demands of these Novel Judges By what Authority he was brought thither Adding he knew very well that there were many unlawful Authorities as those of Thieves and Robbers He bid them remember he was their King and would know by what lawful Authority he was seated there and he would answer In the mean time he would not betray his Trust derived to him from God by old and lawful Descent The President replied That he was brought thither by Authority of the People of England by whom he was elected King His Majesty denied this affirming the Kingdom of England never to have been Elective but Hereditary for near a Thousand Years He stood more for the Liberties of his People than any there and therefore desired to know by what lawful Authority he was brought thither and he would answer otherwise not But the President often interrupting the King and chattering the same Tune of the Peoples Authority His Majesty said That no body did more esteem a House of Commons rightly constituted than himself He saw no House of Lords that might with the King constitute a Parliament Was this the bringing of the King to his Parliament Is this the bringing an End to the Treaty in the Publick Faith of the World Let him see a Legal Anthority warranted by the Word of God the Scriptures or Constitutions of the Kingdom and he would instantly answer But the President urging that unless he would answer the Court would consider how to proceed His Majesty replied That unless they would satisfie God and the Country concerning the Premises he would not betray his Trust and the Peoples Liberty For he did avow That it was as great a Sin to withstand lawful Authority as it was to submit to a Tyrannical or any other ways unlawful Authority He was not afraid of their Bill And this was the Sum of the first Days Convention Two Days after the King the Best of Princes was again brought before these Worst of Rebels his Judges Where the President upon the Solicitor's Motion requires his Positive Answer again or else the Charge may be taken pro Confesso He added That this Court was fully satisfied with their Authority which he also ought to acquiesce in and therefore they yet again required his particular Answer by confessing or denying it If the later Witnesses were at hand in behalf of the Nation to make good the Charge against him To this the King said If it were his own particular Case he would have satisfied himself with the Protestation he had made against the Legality of the Court and by demonstrating that the King of England cannot be tryed by any Superiour Jurisdiction upon Earth But it not being his Case alone but the Freedom and Property of the People he must stand for their Liberties For if an illegitimate Power might make and break the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom at Pleasure no Man could be secure of his Life or Goods He did expect Reasons to know by what Law what Authority they did proceed against him but hearing none he would produce his with as much brevity as he could But he was interrupted here the President telling him They must suffer no arguing concerning the Authority of the Court nor hear any Reasoning against it The Votes of the Commons in Parliament were the Reason of the Kingdom not to be questioned by any to which also he and his Predecessors were always obnoxions and responsible This being denyed by the King he further denyed That the Commons of England were ever a Court of Judicature Which vext the President to that Degree that he told him That he was not to be permitted to go on in that Speech and those Discourses and if he would not Answer he should be recorded as contumacious Hereupon the King desired That his Reasons at least might be heard but was answered That his Reasons were not to be heard against the highest Jurisdiction Whereunto the King returned That they should shew that Jurisdiction that would not hear Reason To which the President replied That they shewed it him there and that the next time he should know more of their Pleasure perhaps their final Determination Commanding withal That they should take the Prisoner away Who bid them remember That the King was not suffered to give his Reasons for the Liberty and Freedom of the People The next Day the King being brought now the Third time before this nefarious Tribunal continued with the same Constancy as at first to deny the Authority of the same And being insulted upon by the President was required at length to submit and that with Threats That although he would not understand it he should find that he was before a Court of Justice which knew no respect of Persons But the King replied As for the Charge he did not value it a Rush it was the Liberty of the People he stood for and therefore he neither would nor could being a King acknowledge a new and unheard of Court against their Priviledges and the Fundamental Laws of the Land The Prefident hereupon subjoyned That the King had now denied the Authority of the Court Three times contemning the Dignity thereof Adding That his Actions Writ in bloody Characters throughout the Kingdom did sufficiently demonstrate how far he had preserved the Priviledges of the People The King had designed to deliver his Reasons
and threw Pieces of Pipes as he walked along at his Feet And lest he might not be like his Saviour in his Sufferings he was mocked and had his Reverend Countenance defiled with Spittle which he wiped off with no other Reproaches than That Christ had suffered more for his sake He spent the Rest of his Time in preparing himself for his Last Hour however disturbed with the Questions Cavils Scoffings and Petulancy of the Enthusiastick Souldiers All which he either repressed by Arguments or eluded by neglecting them Nor did he say any thing however provoked by Arrogancies unusual to Princes or unworthy his former Magnanimity Dr. Juxton the Reverend Bishop of London was at length admitted to wait upon the King to whom by reason of his Holiness of Life and the Consolation he brought him he was exceedingly welcome But coming later than he was expected the King said to him That you are not come sooner is I know none of your Fault and now seeing these Rogues will shed my Blood you and I must consider how I may best part with it The Faction had offered some of their own Fanatick Levites whom the King had rejected as miserable Comforters He would not pray with them who had always pray'd against him but they might pray for him if they pleased Having then the Benefit of his own Chaplain he prepared himself for Death so well that he overcame the Terrors of it before it appeared Amongst these Preludes of Death some of the Prime Officers of the Army came to the King offering him certain Propositions with Promise of Life and some Shadow of Royalty if he would sign them Of these one was That the Army consisting of Forty Thousand Men should be perpetuated under the Present General and Officers and that the Council of War should be impow'red to supply Vacancies from time to time He rejects the Souldiers impious Propositions tho' to save his Life as occasion should happen and settle Taxes for the Pay of the Army to be levied by the Souldiers c. But the King having read some of these Tyrannous Proposals threw them away with much Indignation saying That he would rather become a Sacrifice for his People than thus betray their Laws Liberties Lives and Estates with the Church the Common wealth and Honour of the Crown to so intolerable a Bondage of an Armed Faction Preferring with his usual Greatness of Mind a Glorious Cross before an ignominious Life Nor did he only prefer the Public Good before his own Particular but would not expose private Friends to inevitable Danger to save himself Which abundantly appeared at his being at Bagshot where when the Lord Newburg and his Noble Lady had demonstrated to His Majesty Means whereby he might elude his bloody Keepers who led him to the Slaughter His Children come to him His instructions to thâ—m he waved their Proposals saying If I should escape they would cut you to Pieces It was some Solace to the King in his Streights that his Children were permitted to see him The Lady Elizabeth and the Duke of Gloucester very Young were only left in the Power of the Faction the Duke of York having as is already mentioned escaped their Bloody Hands To these Princes of rare Endowments and Hopes the King gave in Charge That they should consider Charles not as their Brother but as their King That they should forgive their Enemies Love one another and all of them be Obedient to their Mother He told them also what * Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. Bish Andr. Sermons Laud against Fisher Books they should read to confirm them in their Religion and giving them his Blessing dismissed them in a Deluge of Tears The Prince Elector and the Duke of Richmond had also obtained Permission to visit the King though His Majesty now intent only upon his Meditations would not admit them how dear soever to him And now the Fatal Day the 30th of January being come the King being guarded from St. James's through the Park on Foot he spake to the Souldiers to go faster saving That he now went before them to strive for a Heavenly Crown with less solicitude The King prepares for his End than he had often encouraged his Souldiers to Fight for an Earthly Diadem Being come to White-Hall he spent most of his time there in his Devotions And having received the Blessed Communion he was much raised by the reading of the History of the Passion of our Saviour described by the Evangelist St. Mathew and more particularly when he knew it was not done upon Design but prescribed by the Rubrick for the Service of the Day Being brought through the Banquetting-House to the Stage covered with Black the Block the Axe and the masqued Executioners presented themselves to his Sight Which did not so much dismay his Heart fortified with Innocence and Piety but that his Care for the Living seemed no less than his Solicitude for Dying He therefore lest he might seem to submit to the Guilt as well as the Punishment in Vindication of his Innocency demonstrated That it was not He but the Two-Houses that began the War He acknowledges God 's Justice in punishing one Unjust Sentence with another He not only forgiveth his most bitter Enemies but prayes also that God will Pardon them Being solicitous for Peace he warns them not to seek it by Conquest but to give God the King and People their due God by setling the Church the King according to Law and the People by such a Government whereby their Lives and Goods might be most their own Finally he told them He dyed the Peoples Martyr and a Christian according to the Profession of the Church of England After some short Prayers he submitted his Head to the Axe an unheard of and surprizing Example of Human Fragility It is wonderful with how much Constancy and Christian Fortitude He his Murthered he laid down his Head used to wear Crowns and with what Meekness who by all Laws Divine and Human was exempt from the Penalties of any Perhaps insulting in that he was to change this Earthly Crown however splendid yet heavy for that of Immortal Glory As he seemed to intimate in that prophetick Anagram composed by himself the Day preceding his Martyrdom CAROLUS REX Cras ero Lux. And truly as there was never any Parricide except that of our Saviour so detestable as this so never any Man was equally lamented as this best of Princes No Sex nor Age nor Order of Men was found that did not mourn this universal Loss Children how little soever sensible of the Public dissolved in Tears could hardly be appeased Those who were more advanced in Years could scarce bear their Sorrow Whilst the Weaker not able to support their Grief as Thunder-struck sunk under it And Breeding-Women laboured with Untimely Births and like her who when the Glory was departed from Israel would admit of no Consolation And truly not only his own Subjects but
Strangers presuming that being annexed to the Kingdom of England they might by that means be one Day together with it restored to the Crown again He therefore upon very honourable Conditions surrenders that Post he could not preserve longer having the King's Permission for it and will in the close of this History grow eminently illustrious for his Services in the Restauration of his Sacred Majesty About that Time the Island of Barbadoes the Richest of our Western Plantations was surrendered to Sir George Ayscue He had for some Months hovered with a Fleet about those Coasts until the Inhabitants destracted with their Intestine Dissensions obliged the Lord Willoughby the Governour to deliver it up which he did upon very good Terms for himself and the Islanders being also followed by the Subjection of the rest of our Occidental Colonies The Rebels had long since been Masters of Garnsey except the Castle situate in the Sea and defended for several Years being relieved by shipping from France and the Neighbouring Isles by Roger Burges the Governour which at length all being lost he likewise quitted stipulating some Months Pay for his Garrison and Permission to depart Col. Haynes a Principal Tribune amongst the Rebels with Two Regiments of Foot and Four Troops of Horse having slain ..... a brave Man at his landing the rest upon the fall of their Leader running away left him the Possession of Jersey There were Two Castles in it almost impregnable but that nothing is so where fear is predominant Mont Orgueil made no Resistance And Castle Elizabeth surrounded with Rocks and the Ocean and consequently inaccessible tho it held out some considerable Time followed the Fate of the Island Sir George Cartaret the Governour having obtained Conditions for himself to pass into France and Impunity for the Islanders that returned to their Houses Finally the Isle of Man hitherto kept by the Noble Countess of Derby who had so bravely defended Lathome House against the Insults of the Rebels closed this Fatal Roll by so much the more illustrious as being the last who fell in Defence of her King and Country After so many Victorious and uninterrupted Successes the Common-wealth grew eminently high enjoying Peace and the quiet Fruition of their Usurped Tyranny The Regicides were not only feared at Home but formidable to their Neighbours And yet one thing seemed still necessary to establish their Government which was to reconcile the King's Party to them But this being not only difficult but impossible with such who preferred their Loyalty and Honour before all things and particularly so sordid a Compliance the Enemy upon consideration of it had several bloody Consults about their Extirpation and Massacre The business was long debated in a Council of War and carried in the Negative as too Cruel but by Two Voices And now what they cannot effect by Severity they will endeavour to compass by fair Means An Amnesty or Act of Oblivion tho with many intricate Exceptions is published which gave hopes to such who lived quietly and peaceably of being in time admitted to Publick Employments in the Common-wealth Nor was it absurd in them to pretend to a continuance of their Usurpation by allaying the Heats and Hate of all Parties But this precaution proved fruitless for an unexpected Adversary of their own hatching starting up amongst themselves did as suddenly suppress them In the mean Time the New Common-wealth as they were great at Home so they were formidable Abroad being acknowledged by all courted by some and looked upon as very considerable by such who affected them least The Spaniard French Portugal Suedes Vnited Provinces and others saluted this Rising State with Embassies being also resaluted in form especially by the Dutch by reason of their Parallel Beginnings and manner of Government St. Johns and Strickland were deputed with great Pomp not only to offer them Peace but to invite them to a Coalition or Incorporating of the Two Nations in One But these Embassadors not having been received with such Warmness as they expected by the States but also used with all manner of Indignities by the Royollists and such who favoured the King they returned home without effecting what they came for fraught with rage and scorn against their Rival-Sister Which afterwards broke out into a most cruel and lasting War as we shall see hereafter Cromwel after the Victory at Worcester as if endued with another Spirit seemed to arrogate the Supreme Power to himself which appeared by his offering to knight Lambert and Fleetwood in the Field of Battle which he had also done if he had not been disswaded by some of his Confidents The War being now ended and he at leisure he reassumed his Thoughts which he had always indulged of his future Greatness He had for as much as in him lay rendered the Parliament odious to the People as the Authors of Bloodshed in Time of Peace and the only Authors of all their Grievances And as he had incited the Agitators to Murther the King he now again stirs them up with the Charms of Promises to persecute this hated Juncto They therefore accuse the Members of it with Covetousness Tyranny and a Design of perpetuating themselves in their Empire They tell how they had arrogated to themselves their Friends and Dependants all the Honours Commands and Lucrative Employments of the Kingdom They therefore whose Arms were not Mercenary but taken up in Defence of their Common Liberty and who would not lay them down till they had obtained the ends they strove for did how ever threatned require That the Parliament should at length put a Period to their Session and let another more equal Representative be chosen in their Place The Commanders hoped perhaps to be elected in their Rooms And some undoubtedly had a regard to Liberty that the People might not still be subjected to the same Masters The Senators were not a little perplexed with these Novelties the Army especially mutinying to that Height that some of the Common Souldiers did impudently dare to draw their Swords upon their Lords with Threats and Insultings Nay the Citizens of London sometimes their best Friends who had so often promised and protested to live and dye with them actuated with the same Spirit of Sedition do now question their Integrity blame their Conduct and disown their Proceedings Things being at this pass Cromwel having convened the Chief Officers of the Army and several of the pretended Members of the Juncto in the Speaker's House declaimed highly against the present State of Affairs demonstrating that there was no Good to be hoped or expected from a Parliament so constituted as being corrupt and designing to perpetuate it self He added somewhat of a mixt and well tempered Monarchy which how ever magnified by the Lawyers who were present as most consonant to the Laws and Genius of the Nation was highly opposed by the Officers who were more than Monarchs in their Commands and Governments Some had proposed to elect
changed his Battery and will now try to gain them by Civilities and a more gentle Usage But that taking no effect with Men immoveable in their Loyalty and whom nothing could oblige to abandon that Cause they had so religiously maintained he thought of other ways to be rid of these Men so averse to his Tyranny Upon this accompt he permits Foreign Ministers in League with him to make Levies of them for their Wars the Prisons having often times been emptied for that purpose The Colonies in the West Indies consumed many of them by Slavery and others allured into the unfortunate expedition of San Domingo perished in it His Domestick Enemies being thus removed or oppress'd the Vsurper became also formidable to Strangers And now it seemed seasonable for him to think of transmitting his Tyranny to his Posterity As he had usurp'd the Power of a King so he ambition'd the Title which a Parliament he had convened for his Purpose endeavoured to invest him with But he was opposed by the Chiefs of the Army who expected and hoped after his Fate to have their Turns in the Supremacy However he managed his Design so well that he was created Sovereign Protector with Power to name his Successor which was in effect what he desired in rendring his Tyranny Hereditary The Spaniards to repay one War with another seized and confiscated all the English Merchants Goods and Shipping in his Dominions and by a Publick Edict declared War against the Nation But Cromwell acting more Effectually sent Blake and Montague with a Fleet to shut up the Haven of Cadiz where the Rich Ships from the Indies usually arrived Stayner with his Squadron of Seven Frigats 1656. Sep. 1. fell upon Eight of them in the Absence of their Admiral whereof he took Two burnt One with the Marquess of Badaiox the Vice-Roy of Peru and his Lady in it sunk Another forced Two on Shore and the other Two escaped into Port. This was a great Victory wherein they took above Two Millions of Pieces of Eight But that which Blake won at Teneriffe the Year following surpassed all other in Nobleness of Action and Resolution of the Undertakers The West India Fleet consisting of Sixteen Rich Ships 1657. Apr. 20. having Intelligence that the English were cruising upon the Atlantick Ocean put into the Haven of Santa Cruz where by the Advantage of their strong Castle at the Entry and Seven Forts round the Bay they thought themselves secure But Blake perceiving their Order sending Stayner a brave Commander with some nimble Frigats before followed himself with the rest of his Fleet. And plying the Castle and Forts with his great Ships beat the Spaniards from their Guns and after a sharp Fight took the Fleet abandoned by the Sea-men who ran on Shore but not being able to carry it away with them they set in on fire consuming both it and the immense Riches it was fraughted with A Thanksgiving-Day being appointed in England for this so eminent a Victory Blake was honoured by the Parliament with a Present of Five Hundred Pounds But this so famous Admiral did not long survive so many Victories expiring at his Entrance into Plymouth Road by the Malignity of the Dropsy and Scurvy Thus ended this brave and fortunate Warriour worthily to be celebrated if he had not so audaciously resisted his own Prince Nor was it at Sea only that Cromwell plagued the Spaniard for he sent Six Thousand Men under the Command of Collonel Reynolds into Flanders who much facilitated the Successes of the French Montmedy and St. Venant were taken by their Asstance and some time after Mardike which was delivered to the English and by them so strongly fortified that it firmly withstood the Assaults of the Brittish Regiments in the Service of Spain Hereupon Dunkirk was Besieged by the Confederates But Don Juan of Austria Governour of those Low-Countries Solicitous for the conserving of so considerable a Sea-port and to prevent the Excursions of the French into Flanders on that side having drawn his Army together and strengthened it with Veterane Souldiers taken out of their Garrisons and being joyned by the Duke of York with four Batalions of English and Irish then under his Command he marched to the Relief of the Besieged and suddenly possessing the Height of the Sand-Hills opposite to Turin's Camp pitcht his there Marshal Turin having left Guards to Defend Forts and Posts against the Sallies of the Besieged drew the rest of his Army out of his Trenches The English were in the Van who notwithstanding the Showers of shot powered upon them ascended the Hill and after a sharp encounter at push of Pike and Butt-end of Musket forced the Enemy from their Ground This being done the French Horse charged the opposite Cavalry which being long sustained by the Valour and Vertue of the Duke of York and his Brother Gloucester was at last the English advancing upon them obliged to leave the Field There were above a Thousand slain and more then Two Thousand taken Prisoners The Cannon and Spoil of the Field were the present Reward of the Victors and some time after Dunkirk it self Which by the Death of the Governour the Marquess of Lede was surtendered upon Conditions and put into the Possession of the English by Contract Cromwell however heightned by this Victory did not long survive it being oppressed with a Melancholy which he had contracted upon the Death of his beloved Daughter Cleypoole Which accompanied with a Fever and Faintings snatcht him hence deprecating his immature Destiny in vain to that Tribunal where he was to give an Accompt of his Rebellions Sacriledge Perjury Parricide and Tyranny He died indeed like other Men in his Bed but not without some extraordinary Commotions of Spirit Nay the whole Frame of Nature suffer'd violent Concussions by a dreadful Tempest at the Exit of this Impostor which threatn'd by Tumult and Noises loud as his Sins to reduce the World into its pristine Chaos again We cannot with Justice deny this great Artist in Dissimulation and Imposture Courage and Vastness of Mind since he raised himself up from a Private Condition and a simple Gentleman to the Supream Height of Empire not altogether unworthy the Degree he attained to if he had not acquired it by ill Means BOOK III. Richard succeeds his Father in the Protectorate He is deposed by the Army The Rump restored Lambert defeats Sir George Booth Montague returns with the Fleet out of Denmark Lambert turns out the Rump Monk dissents and declares for the Rump Lambert marches against him Being deluded by Treaties he is deserted by his Army The Committee of Safety routed and the Rump yet again restored Monk marches to London Readmits the Secluded Members The Parliament dissolv'd by its own Act. An Abstract of the King's Actions and Motions abroad He is proclaimed by the Parliament Returns into England His glorious Reception The End of our Troubles OLiver having during his Sickness been vainly
confident of his Recovery which he also had been deluded into an Assurance of by his Chaplains and Flatterers had neglected the Nominating of a Successor as he was authorized to do by the Petition and Advice 'T was thought he ballanced in his Choice betwixt his Son and Son-in-law Fleetwood which his Council finding and perceiving his Spirits and Senses to fail demanded of him If he did not appoint his Son Richard to Succeed him To which he answering as is supposed in the Affirmative Richard as soon as he expired was saluted and proclaimed Protector in his Fathers Room But very unlike him in Fortitude and the Arts of Government as will appear by his being disturbed from the quiet Possession of Three Kingdoms by those he neither had Wit nor Courage to suppress or oppose He was in the mean time as well as his Father acknowledged and saluted by the Army the City the Provinces and Foreign Ministers and Embassadors The Beginning of his Reign was serene and his first Care the Funeral of his Father Which was performed with a more than Royal Magnificence there having been Sixty Thousand Pounds expended in it this Treasure as it had been extorted by Tyranny being consumed in Luxury His Corps however wrapt up in a Sixfold Cerecloth a Lead and a Wooden Coffin fermenting in this restraint burst out of it and filling all with a most noisom Odour was privately deposited in Henry Vll 's Chappel amongst the Ashes of King's but by the just Judgment of God to be transferred and buried under the Gallows as we have since seen The Officers of the Army after all their Addresses to Richard grew weary of him as soon as they had well owned him and unmindful now of their Duty and Promises to him by the Insinuations of Lambert formerly cashier'd by his Father and the Concurrence of the Democraticks having also drawn Fleetwood his Brother-in-law and Desbourough who had married his Aunt into the Cabal consult how to abolish the Protectorate and restore themselves to their former Freedom Nor was Richard ignorant of their Designs but wanted Resolution to suppress them and indeed courage to countenance the Undertakings of others who offered their Service for the scizure or killing of these Mutineers He had called a Parliament by whose Authority he supposed these Heats might be allayed and they endeavoured it But this Puny Prince affrighted with the Threats and Noises of the adverse Party was perswaded to dissolve that Convention however addicted to him Hereupon he is likewise laid aside The Rump composed of those Antimonarchists which his Father had formerly ejected being introduced and seated in the Government again His Brother Henry Vice-Roy of Ireland quitted also that Kingdom and the Army there by command of this restored Senate with the like Pusillanimity Whereby it appears how sordidly these Fellows degenerated from their Father in Audaciousness though they resembled him well enough in Wickedness Monk who commanded in Scotland did likewise submit but kept his Employment thinking he had done enough in congratulating their Restauration by Addresses and Messages The odious Oligarchy being restored under the Title of a Common-wealth and acknowledged by the Army and their Partisans in the Provinces drive more furiously than before endeavouring to remove all Obstacles and Impediments to their designed Tyranny In order to this they exact a spontaneous Abdication of the Protectorate from Richard which he tamely granted promising further To behave himself peaceably under the Government from which he expected Protection And thus this Mushrom-Prince the untimely Birth of a short Relgn turned out of White Hall vanished and will be no more heard of but with Obloquy and Infamy And yet if he had had either Honour or Honesty in him he might have had one Game more to play no less probable than glorious which was the restoring of the King several Overtures having been made to him by the Royal Party to that Purpose The which with his Interest in the Army and Two Houses before their Dissolution might have been effected without a Miracle The Rump was no sooner seated but they began to divide the Inheritance amongst themselves and whatever the Cromwellian storm of Hail had left these rapacious Locusts did consume and devour But the Universality of the Nation trembled at these Preludes of Tyranny and Slavery and being resolved to suffer any thing rather than the known Domination of the Regicides took up Arms in divers Counties Nor were the Parriciaes ignorant of these Designs They therefore to prevent them fill the Prisons with the most suspected and command all those who had served the King to leave the City and not to return without Permission The swift Motion of their Horse hindred the Risings in Kent and Surrey and some other Counties And yet they got together in Cheshire under the Command of Sir George Booth to a considerable Body being assisted by Sir Thomas Middleton Randal Egerton Major General and Colonel Worden with others Asserters of Liberty and a Free Parliament Having possessed themselves of Chester Manchester and Warrington they became formidable The growing Power of these Royallists for such they were esteemed extremely terrified the Rebels at Westminster and therefore Lambert was ordered with Seven Regiments of Foot and Two of Horse to march with all speed against these new Adversaries and suppress them Which he also did with no great Difficulty their raw unexperienced Militia not being able to stand the shock of an Army flusht with so many Successes So that attacking them at Norwich-Bridge where Morgan a brave Youth was slain they forced it routing and defeating the whole Party Chester and the other Fortresses were all retaken and Booth himself being fled was afterwards discovered in Womans Cloths at Newport and was cast into the Tower The Men at Westminster swoln with this Victory having thereby reduced the Kingdom to their Obedience resolve to call the Authors of this Late War to a very severe Accompt thirsting no less after their Estates and Possessions than their Blood In the mean time Montague who had been sent in Richard's Protectorate into Denmark with a great Fleet invited by the King unto whom he was reconciled and commanded by him sailed towards England with his Naval Power to help to free his Native Country from Oppression and Slavery But hearing by the Way of the Defeat of the Royallists the Secret was not discovered tho he returned with the Fleet and was commanded by the Rump who suspected his Faith to his House till they should be at leisure to take an Accompt of his Voyage and Actions The Enemy being subdued these Blood-Canibals judging of the Justice of their Cause by the Success and thinking nothing bad but what was improsperous looked upon themselves as owned by Heaven But yet their joy was but short-liv'd for whilst they go on securely they were yet again by the Just Judgment of God disturbed by their own Servants Lambert after his Victory aiming at greater Things
them as St. Johns and others were for imposing Conditions upon the King for they no more doubted of his Restitution that might restrain him from acting beyond their pleasure But His Majesty's Rights and Prerogatives were inviolablely restored to him by the Prudence and noble Endeavours of Monk This enraged the Regicides to that height that they began now to condemn their own Precipitation and Folly accusing themselves of Madness in that that they did persecute Lambert so rashly and unseasonably to their own Destruction They now call to mind how ridiculously they had rejected the King's Gracious Letters presented them by Nevil who had accidentally received them wherein they were assured of Indignity for all their monstrous Crimes and Treasons if they yet at length would return to their Duty They therefore like Men in Despair agitated by the Flagitiousness of their Guilt resolved to vindicate their Crimes by attempting greater and to try the Matter once more by the Sword Nor was it long before an occasion presented it self Lambert who had been imprisoned in the Tower because he had refused to give bail for his good Behaviour had escaped thence and appear'd armed about Northampton Some Sectaries and several disbanded Souldiers repaired to him all the Fanaticks of the Army being upon the Wing till stay'd with the News of his Defeat This Sedition was extinguish'd in its Birth And Lambert being taken by Ingolsby without a Blow hâ—s Party was easily dispersed whilst he was returned into a more safe Custody in the Tower During this Interval of Parliaments the Council of State administer'd Affairs with much Prudence and Courage and putting out a Proclomation against all Disturbers of the Peace easily restrained the Seditious Minds of the most dissenting Monk also purging his Army by the Casheering of Fanaticks and living more familiarly with his Officers than usual reconciled the most fierce amongst them to an Acquiescence in the Resolves of the future Parliament The Disturbers of our Peace being thus suppressed or quieted the Loyal Party as if indued with new Spirits put on more chearful Countenances and shaking off their Fears with their Shackles appeared more eminently conspicuous But being traduced by their Adversaries as thirsting after Revenge and Blood they abundantly demonstrated by their Declaration their own Innocence and the Enemies Malice restifying That they would leave Vengeance to God and Justice to the Disposal of Parliament And now the City of London did also publish a Declaration whereby they endeavoured to clear themselves from the Guilt of the Regicide and Vsurpation as being actuated and oppressed by the Counsels of Despair and Violence Nor will we deny but that they contributed by the like Tumults to the Restitution as they had formerly fomented the War We have hitherto made but little mention of the Particular Actions of our King for we would not intermingle the History of the Best of Princes with that of the most Scelerate of Subjects We shall therefore deliver the Series of his Actions by themselves wherein notwithstanding will appear as Extreams do best shine by Contraries not only the Eminency of his Vertues but the Errors Impieties Rebellions Treasons Slaughters Sacriledges Pride Rapine and Infamy of his Enemies For what Mischief did they not commit and were guilty of After the King 's miraculous Escape from Worcester through a thousand Hazards he at length got safe into France being received at Paris as if sent from Heaven A pregnant Example of the Care of Providence for the Persons of Kings That Monarchy was actuated then with well-nigh the same Spirit of Division which had so lately distracted England the Parisians inveighing against the Errors of the Government and Evil Counsellors pointing particularly at Mazarin with the same Rage and Passion as the Londoners did against Strafford The Princes were grieved that a Stranger should be First Minister of State and would have him therefore removed In order to which they raised an Army obtaining Assistance from Spain that Nation being very officious in helping their Neighbours upon such like Accompts Nor did they find King Lewis unprovided but resolved to oppose them with all his Power King Charles perswaded Lewis and the Princes by his own example to peace but could not prevail tho he carried himself with that Equality that both sides were Jealous of his Conduct For the Princes refused to lay down Arms unless the Cardinal were removed And the King with the Queen-Regent his Mother would not have Laws prescribed to them by their Subjects The Princes had called the Duke of Lorrain to their Aid who also entered France with an Army but returned upon the Interposition of King Charles who had discoursed with him about his undertaking the Protection of Ireland This enraged the Princes against Charles who blamed him much and the Parisians did dare to calumniate and affront him to that Height that he was forced to retire to St. Germains Where he also for the most part continued until a League being made betwixt Cromwell and that Crown which he had opposed in vain he was compelled again to go into Exile out of his very Banishment The Duke of York had thus long served in the Armies of France with such Bravery and Fortitude particularly in the Battle of Estampes that he attracted the Eyes of all Men upon him And his behaviour in General in Court and Camp were so signal that the Duke of Longville would have bestowed his Daughter upon him the greatest Fortune in France And Marshal Turene being very Sick recommended him to his King as the fittest Person in that Great Monarchy to command his Armies But he would not stay in France after the King his Brother though he was offered to be Liuetenant-General of their Forces in Italy but leaving that inhospitable Land accepted the Invitation of Don John the Governour of the Spanish Low-Countries where he largely asserted the Glories of his former Actions The King in his passage to Germany was received at Leige with all imaginable Honour and going thence to the Spaw met his Sister the Princoss of Orange there Very many Persons of Quality as is usual at the Season but in unusal Numbers upon this Occasion were come thither out of the Neighbouring Nations as well to see this Royal Congress as to take the Waters And all of them paid His Majesty as much Reverence and Honour as if he had been their own Natural Prince or would have vyed with us who had the Happiness then to attend him in Duty and Obedience and Veneration for him He was afterwards received at Colen by the Magistrates there which the same Testimonies of good-will and Esteem Where he resolved to fix his Court for some Time as a place delectable and convenient for his Designs A while after he accompanied his Sister in her Return to Holland as far as Dusseldorp where he was magnificently received by the Duke of Newburgh and treated during his Stay with Hunting and other Royal Divertisements Being
returned to Cologn he found his Brother the Duke of Gloucester there lately arrived from France The King had been informed now he had been thrust out of England by the Regicides which they had done to save the Expence of his Maintenance and to Ship-wrack his Religion Besides it was supposed that Cromwell had designed his Removal for that some in his Council had moved his Assumption to the Crown as no ways obnoxious or prejudiced by reason of his Youth as is already mentioned 'T is scarce imaginable with what Constancy he defended his Religion however very young In so much that armed with Instructions from the Lord Hatton and Doctor Cousens he eluded the Assaults of Abbot Montague and the Marquess of Plessis the one employed by the Queen-Regent of France and the other by the Queen of England Neither the charming Pleasures of the French Court nor the Purple Dignities of the Church of Rome nor yet the extream Severities of the Queen his Mother who did not only refuse him his ordinary Sustenance but denied him the Solace of her Benediction were of strength to shake his Faith Which they yet would endeavour to force by shutting him up in the Jesuits Colledge if the King his Brother displeased with these Novelties had not sent the Marquess of Ormond to his Rescue and to bring him to Cologn to him which he did though not without Difficulty But nothing was impossible for this Great Man After this the King went to Franckfort famous for its Marts And in his Progress saluted the Queen Christina of Sweden at Koningsteyn Where after a Reception worthy Two such great Princes and some private Discourses the Duke of Gloucester and his Royal Sister did the same The Marquess of Ormond Earl of Norwich Lord Newburgh and others of His Majesty's Train being also admitted paid that great Princess the Respects due to her Highness The Queen continued her Journey to Insprug where after a splendid Reception from the Arch-Duke she made Public Profession of the Roman Religion The King leaving Franckfort with the universal Acclamations of the People and thundring of their Cannon went to Ments whither he had been invited by that Elector where his Reception was truly Royal. And after three Days Treat parting with the same Magnificence returned to Cologn Nor did his Majesty spend the Time idly whilst the Regicides triumphed in England He had already sent Embassies to all the Princes of Europe to desire their Assistance against his Rebels But with little success though the Cause were Common The French flourishing in Promises made a League with the Regicides The Spaniards though they seemed to grieve at the Murther of the King were yet the first that acknowledged and owned this rising Common-wealth The Grand Seignior corrupted with English Gold delivered Sir Henry Hyde the King's Embassadour at that Court against the Law of Nations into the Hands of the Parricides who Murthered him by cutting off his Head before the Exchange Swedeland was then in an unsetled Condition Portugal unable being attacked both by the Spaniard and Dutch in the Indies Poland was worried with her own Domestick Distractions Denmark was exhausted with the Treasure formerly lent to Charles I. Others indeed restified their good-wills by their Contributions as the Great Duke of Muscovy the Count of Oldenburg the Electors of Mentz and Brandenburg and some other Princes of Germany by the Earl of Rochester's negoriating at Ratisbone But what could this import to make a new and great War Whereas it scarce sufficed to defray the Charges of the Embassies The King then seeing no Hopes of his Restauration from abroad wisely sought a Remedy where the Wound was received from the Benevolence and Loyalty of his Subjects which the Eminence of his Vertues could not in Justice refuse him Neither was he any way wanting to himself but most intent upon all Occasions leaving nothing unattempted whereby he might raise his sinking Affairs He kept constant Correspondence with his Friends in England Caus'd great Disturbances to the Rebels on every side and exposing himself to the Danger did more than once incite the People to arm against the Usurpers He now kept his Court at Bruges in Flanders nearer hand having been invited by the Spaniards repenting their too early Compliments to the Regicides and supplied with 9000 l. per annum which Money was punctually repaid upon His Majesty's Restitution The Duke in the mean Time having recalled all the Kings Subjects in the French Service joyning them with those in the Spanish Low-Countries composed a considerable Body which he commanded with no less Honour than he had done in France although they were well nigh destroyed by the fatal Valour of the English Rebels at Mardike and the Battle of Dunkirk The Duke more illustrious by Misfortunes did not only for some time resist but retard the Progress of the Victors until oppressed by multitudes as is already said he was necessitated to comply with the Fate of the vanquished Cromwell dying soon after however a way seemed thereby to be opened to the Kings Restauration his Majesty received the News of it with remarkable Constancy and Calmness of Mind in no ways insulting though he saw his most Mortal Enemy extinguished in the Person of this Vsurper Cardinal Mazarin however averse to King Charles did at the same time congratulate the Queen his Mother upon the Hopes of her Sons Restauration since he was by the Death of that Tyrant delivered from his most implacable and successful Enemy The sudden Change in England followed by the Deposing of Richard and the Resurrection of the Rump and the other Innovations already mentioned which followed as they augmented the Hopes of the King at Home so they varied the Counsels of Princes abroad Which his Majesty applyed in as much as was possible to his own Use by Negotiations and Embassies But there being now a Treaty in Agitation betwixt France and Spain he would himself be present at it For if a Peace were concluded which was more than probable betwixt these great Princes it was but reasonable to suppose that they might spare some of their numerous Forces to assist an injured King their Ally by Blood and Common Interest And yet the King would rather reduce his Rebel-Subjects to Obedience by the Appearance of his Power than by the Use of his Forces In the mean time accompanied with the Duke of York his Brother and the Marquess of Ormond he hasted Incognito through France having saluted the Queen his Mother at Paris in his way to St. John De Luz where the Great Ministers of the Two Crowns were then in Treaty Don Louis de Haro upon Notice of the Kings Approach went to met and receive him Which he did alighting from his Horse and Embracing and kissing his Knees with as much Honour and Splendour as if he had been his Master the King of Spain The next Day his Majesty was visited by Cardinal Mazarin the other great Plenipotentiary who was
Servants had thrown himself upon his Knees to adore this best of Masters But the King not forgetful of what he owed him took him up embraced him and kist him Other Noble Men and Persons of Quality there present were likewise admitted to the Honour of his Majesty's Hand Which done the King with his Two Royal Brothers the General and the Duke of Buckingham took Coach amongst the charming Congratulations and Shouts of a pleased People and went that Night to Canterbury The next Day Monk was install'd Knight of the Garter the Ensigns of that Honour being put upon him by the Two Royal Brothers He went hence towards London accompanied with the whole Nobility of the Nation and a numberless Multitude of the Commons flocking together to see their Restorer He viewed the Ships at Chatham by the Way and the Army drawn up upon Black-Heath On the 29th of May it being his Majesty's Birth-Day he entered London in Triumph he himself the greatest and goodliest part of it Where he was received by the Universality of the People sensible of the End of their Miseries and the smothering of a most cursed Rebellion with joy not to be expressed scarcely conceived PART III. BOOK I. The REBELLION breaks into new Flames Some Millenaries secur'd Venner's Insurrection and End The Presbyterians stickle for new Elections Several Seditious Tumults detected and punished The Plague consumes the People The Conflagration of the City Tumults in Scotland Oates's Plot. The Parliament insist upon removing the Duke from the King's Presence and Councils It is dissolved Another Parliament call'd The Duke retires from Court A new Council chosen The Parliament refuse the King Money and insist upon the Bill of Exclusion It is also dissolved another being Summon'd A new Rebellion in Scotland The Arch-bishop of St. Andrew's inhumanly butchered The Rebels are defeated at Bothwel-Bridge The King sick He recovers The Duke returns to Court Monmouth Cabals and is outed of his Employments The Lord Strafford beheaded The Parliament dissolv'd and succeeded by another at Oxford which is likewise dismiss'd College is hang'd and Shaftsbury try'd The strange Encrease of the Eanaticks Their Insolence and Power in the City They form a Conspiracy The Council of Six The Plot to Murther the King and Duke The Providential Fire at New-Market Keeling discovers the Conspiracy Russel and Sidney are executed Monmouth absconds but upon his Submission is pardoned He again transgresses and is banished The King dyes of an Apoplexy The Duke succeeds KING Charles II. being restored to the Greatness and Glories due to his Birth and Vertues was not yet Crowned when the Faction hardened in Wickedness did dare to disturb his and the Publick Quiet of the Nation The Acts of Grace and Oblivion Decreed in Favour of these worst of Rebels could not hinder them to conspire against the King by whose immense Bounty they enjoyed not only Impunity for their Crimes but Rewards in the undisturb'd Possession of their Rapines and unjust Acquisitions But no Indulgence of the Prince could acquire him the Good Will of this perverse Generation Some therefore whose Clandestine Councils were penetrated into were secured as Overton sometimes a Major-General in the Rebles Army Day Courtney and others Millenaries or Fifth Monarchy Men. Nor did the Detention of these hinder the Rest of the Party to attempt their designed Insurrection which they did with such impetuous Madness that it exceeds all Belief and may justly lay an Imputation upon the Credit of History in the Relation of it For how is it possible to imagine that a handful of Men not exceeding Fifty in Number should undertake and that in Cold Blood and by Day-light to assault so great a City as London with Confidence of Success By this unheard of Enterprise it is visible how far the outragious Liberty of the Enthusiasticks may oblige them to dare On the Sixth of January 1660. having armed themselves in their Conventicle with Weapons they had conveyed thither for the King had indulged to all Opinions a Liberty of serving God their own Way they came about Twy-light to St. Paul's Church-yard Where drawing up their small Army they placed Sentinels in all the Avenues that led to it One of these kill'd a Man that passed by for that being asked Who he was for he had answered for God and King Charles This Noise raising the Neighbouring Train'd Bands they were repell'd by the Rebels who marched thence thro Bishops-Gate and wheeling about entred again by Cripple Gate And finally forcing their Passage by affrighting the Guard at Aldersgate they declared They took up Arms for King Jesus Continuing their March thence they shot a Constable dead in Beech-Lane who would have opposed them and retreated thence into Cane-Wood Where they absconded for some time with Design to raise greater Tumults in the City which they might probably have done if they had not been prevented by a Party of Horse and Foot sent to disperse them Nor were they thus appeased For having publisht an abominable Libel against the Royal Family they returned to London with more wild Confidence than before The King was then at Portsmouth whither he had accompanied the Queen his Mother and the Princess Henrietta his Sister in their Way to France These Wretches would not omit so fair an Opportunity as seem'd to present it self by his Absence but take Arms again under the Conduct of one Venner a Wine-Cooper This Fellow by his Preaching had strangely incensed the furious Zeal of these Mad-men pronouncing to them with Confidence That no Weapon framed against them should prosper nor a Hair of their Heads perish They should look upon the Example of Gideon It was the same thing to God whether he saved by a few or a great Multitude These Discourses together with the Impunity of their first Attempt precipitated these desperate Enthusiasticks to the Disturbance of the Publick Peace and their own Destruction Their first Appearance was in Thread-Needle-street behind the Exchange where they beat back a Party sent from the Guard there But upon the Advance of more Forces they retreated to Bishops Gate street where after a smart Encounter Two of each side being slain slipping here and there away they disappear'd A while after like the Flashing of Clouds they were seen again at College-Hill from whence crossing Cheap-side they pass'd into Wood-street Here after a Cruel Fight wherein they shew'd Skill as well as Valour having ruffled some Train'd-Bands and repell'd the Horse Guards that came to assist them they were not overcome until Venner being knockt down and sorely wounded and Tuffney and Cragg Two of their fiercest as well Preachers as Combatants were slain These being killed the rest fled and being for the most part taken Eleven of them were drawn hanged and quartered some others tho convicted being repriev'd by the King's Clemency There sell of the Royallists Two and Twenty and as many of the Rebels Those who were executed expired with Execrations in their Mouths