two Armies and kept up the Bohemians till the King 's coming to Prague were not only neglected but the Prince of Anhalt whom the King brought with him was made not only Generalissimo of the Army the King brought but of the Armies raised by de la Tour and Mansfield besides the King tho he had got a vast Treasure was niggardly in paying the Souldiers which necessitated them to take free Quarters upon the Bohemians In this disgusted State with the Bohemians the King having withdâ—awn so great Forces out of the Palatinate left it exposed to the Ravages of the Spaniards who under the Command of Ambrose Count Spinola General of the Spanish Army under the Arch-Duke Albert whom the King in the Treaty of the 2d Year of his Reign calls His renowned and dear Brother made terrible Wars in the Palatinate Here you may see how unhappy King James was in the Peace or Truce he procured the King of Spain and the Arch-Dukes to make with the Dutch in 1609 for twelve Years for in this Interval the Dutch did not only retrieve their Cautionary Towns out of the King's Possession but the Truce still continuing the Arch-Duke had not only an Opportunity to assist the Emperor but to send Spinola with an Army to invade the Palatinate and the Emperor by an imperial Ban had proscribed the King's Son-in-law a Traitor and Rebel to the Empire and thereupon forfeited his Electoral Dignity and Estate which he gave to Maximilian Duke of Bavaria and committed the Execution of it to the Arch-Duke Albert the Elector of Saxony and Duke of Bavaria King James was startled at this Return to his Proposition at Vienna that his Son-in-law shall possess the Crown of Bohemia and now complains that his Childrens Patrimony would be lost and that he would not sit still and take no further Care in it and therefore sent another Ambassadour to the Arch-Duke at Brussels to expostulate the matter and this was the utmost he was able to do and was forced to strain his Credit for it but lest this should not do tho sore against his Will he resolved to call another Parliament and try their Good Will towards it But that we may take all things before us as they stood at the Meeting of this Parliament the King notwithstanding the Attempt of Sir Walter Raleigh upon the Spanish West-Indies had still by Sir John Digby continued the Treaty of Marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Infanta Maria of Spain with the same Confidence of Success as if the King of Spain had not been concerned in Sir Walter 's Expedition But the Court of Spain to check the King 's forward Desires demand high Privileges for the Romanists which amounted to little less than a Toleration and that the Pope must be satisfied in his Conscience before he could grant a Dispensation for the Infanta to marry with an Heretick Prince both which the King and Prince agreed to and were signed by them both though afterwards But however the Agreement between the Pope King and Prince was not much known the Liberty granted to the Roman Catholicks was generally taken notice of and beside the Generality of the Nation notwithstanding the Benefits received by the Spanish Trade still retained an Aversion to the Spaniards which made the Spanish Match hated and feared by them and how much more they hated and feared the Spaniards so much more zealous were they for the King's Assistance of his Son-in-law in his Title to the Kingdom of Bohemia as well as in the Preservation of the Palatinate now invaded by the Emperor and King of Spain Thus things stood when the King's Necessities forced him to the unwilling Resolution of calling another Parliament but they did not stay here for upon the 9th of November happened the fatal Battel at Prague fought by above 60000 Combatants wherein tho the Bohemians were superior in Number the Imperialists were in Discipline and Valour and tho the King was the principal Object of the War yet he thought not fit to engage in the Battel but stood at a distance out of Harm's way to observe the Event of it After two hours Fight the Bohemians were utterly overthrown and routed 6000 being killed and more taken Prisoners with all their Colours Baggage Guns and Ammunition and scarce 300 of the Imperialists killed the Prince of Anhalt was the first who gave the King notice of his Overthrow with Advice to provide for his Safety which the King thought to do by flying back into Prague but found no Safety there For the Duke of Bavaria General of the Imperialists followed him close and summons him to surrender the City and quit his Claim to the Kingdom The King demands 24 Hours respite to answer but Bavaria only grants him 8 to which without any Reply next Morning the King with the Queen big with Child and their Children fly out of Prague and by unfrequent Ways by almost a Miracle escape to Vratislavia leaving the Heads of his Party in Prague to be Victims after an horrible Sacrifice to their enraged and bloody Enemies and all that inestimable Wealth which he had got together and was so niggardly of to his Souldiers to be a Prey to his Enemies also In this disasterous State Frederick driven out of Bohemia the Palatinate invaded and overrun by Spinola and having lost all his Wealth as well as Kingdom and Country retires with his Wife and Children into Holland more supported by the Dutch Prince of Orange and some of the English Nobility and Arch-Bishop Abbot than by the King whose Bounty lay another way and since he could not obtain Aids from his Father-in-law for the Preservation of his Country yet he became a Suitor to the King to solicite the Imperial Court for the Conservation of the Palatinate which the King did but did him no good and further the King would not go but vainly promised to himself he could do it by the Marriage of his Son to the Infanta of Spain and get two Millions of Money for her Portion to boot Though the English Nobility patiently truckled under the Ambition and Covetousness of Buckingham yet the same Genius was not found in the French Princes of the Blood and Nobility under the prodigious Pride and exorbitant Promotions of Luynes to restrain them or it may be to force Luynes from the King's Favour the Queen-Mother made a League with the Count of Soissons a Prince of the Blood the Count Vendosm and Grand Prior of France both natural Sons of Henry the 4th of France against him and the Dukes of Longuevil Main and Espernoon joined with them so did those of the reformed Religion under the Duke of Rohan and his Brother Sobiez Princes of the Blood of the Line of Navarr But these Commotions being sudden and ungrounded were soon supprest and the King was reconciled to the Queen and Popish Nobility and the greatest Loss fell upon those of the Reformed Religion who lost St. John de
7. would have justified all his Subjects who fought for him But the Members would not submit to this being to divest themselves of the Power they thought they had in their hands nor the Scots because their Solemn League and Covenant was enacted by no Law in England nor least of all would it please the Army who nourished Designs against the King Members and Scots To such a deplorable state is this poor King and Kingdom fall'n past all humane Relief yet it 's admirable to consider how Divine Justice pursued the Causers of it even in the Series by which they were promoted The King who would not have the Laws and Constitutions of the Nation to be the Rules of his Subjects Obedience but his Prerogative and Absolute Will and Pleasure cannot now by it command one Servant He who before against Law committed so many of his best Subjects close Prisoners whereof several died in Prison for asserting his Subjects Rights without any Benefit of Law is now by his Subjects made close Prisoner against Law and without any Benefit of it He who before dissolved four Parliaments because they in all dutiful Ways would have addressed unto him to be reconciled to his Subjects is now denied under Penalty of High Treason to have any Address made to him by any of his Subjects He who before had so many Forests for his Pleasure yet not contented with what the Law and his Ancestors had left but would break the Bounds of them that his Subjects Inheritance might become a Prey to wild Beasts has not now a Horse Hound or Beast to take Pleasure in But these things will not stay here for it is the unhappy Fate of Princes rarely in their declining state to stay till they fall to the bottom And here we end the Year 1647 and hereafter shall observe the Divine Justice overtaking the other Promoters of the Miseries both in England Scotland and Ireland And if I shall ill perform it yet it may be a Ground-work for another to do it better In this Confusion the Nation began to forget the times under the King's Government now they saw no end of these And tho the Essex-Men who had the Bounds of their Forests broke down and were the first who petition'd the Parliament to redress Grievances and bring Delinquents to condign Punishment yet they are now the first who petition the Commons for a Personal Treaty with the King and then the Surrey-Men but were differently received and some of the Surrey-Men kill'd This was in May 1648. The Scots too offended that they and their Solemn League and Covenant were not taken notice of in the Preliminary Treaty with the King call a Parliament and order the Raising an Army to deliver the King out of Prison The rude Entertainment of the Essex and Surrey-Men was so far from quelling them that they rise in Arms in Essex Kent Suffolk Norfolk Wales and the North and declare for the King and People Sir William Batton too who was Vice-Admiral of the English Fleet goes over to Prince Charles with 17 Men of War and declare for the King having set Rainsborough made Admiral by the Army on Shore This was in May and June and soon after viz. in June the Surrey-Men rise being headed by the Duke of Buckingham and his Brother the Lord Francis with the Earl of Holland But it was decreed that this Prince who for 15 Years had violated the Laws and Constitutions of this Nation and without any Law or just Reason had so often imprisoned his best Subjects for endeavouring to reconcile him to his Subjects should now himself being made a Prisoner against Law find no Relief by Law or Endeavours of his Loyal Subjects For Cromwel sends Horton into Wales against Major-General Laughorn and Colonel Poyer who headed the Welch and had seized Pembrook and Tenby-Castles Fairfax marches into Kent and Rainsborough into the North where the Northern-Men had seized Pontfract-Castle and the Members restore the Earl of Warwick to be Admiral and fit out a Fleet under him to suppress that which joined the Prince of Wales Horton beats the Welch and took Laughorn and Poyer Prisoners and besieges and takes Pembrook and Tenby but whilst he besieged these Hamilton who the Year before was released from being a Prisoner in Pendennis-Castle by the King for holding Correspondence with the Covenanters while he was Commissioner now comes into England to discharge the King from his Imprisonment with a numerous Army of Scots which Sir Marmaduke Langdale Major-General Massey and many English join against these Cromwel after the Surrender of Pembrook and Tenby marches and utterly routs them and takes Hamilton Prisoner Nor were the Fate of the Kentish Essex and Suffolk Men better for Fairfax fights and beats the Kentish Men at Maidstone the Remainder under my Lord Goring whom the King had made Earl of Norwich cross the Thames at Greenwich and join the Essex Men headed by Sir Charles Lucas and march to Colchester where my Lord Capel and many Suffolk Men joined them Fairfax pursues them and after a stubborn Siege of 11 Weeks forces it to surrender being reduced to extream Famine and after caused Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle to be shot to Death Equal to this was the Success of the Surrey-Men for they were routed by Sir Michael Lewesly and my Lord Francis killed near Kingston But the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Holland with those which were escaped fled over Kingston-bridg and were pursued by Colonel Scroop and overtaken at St. Neots where Major-General Dolbier is killed the Earl of Holland taken Prisoner but the Duke of Buckingham escaped But the Northern-Men besieged in Pontfract Castle are not so easily subdued on the contrary a Party of about 30 Horse break through the Besiegers and surprize Rainsborough in his Bed at Doncaster about 12 Miles from Pontfract and kill him because he refused to be carried off a Prisoner but Pure Famine at last forced the Besieged to surrender The revolted Fleet now commanded by the Princes Rupert and Maurice partly cajol'd by the Earl of Warwick their former Admiral and unwilling to forsake their Country Wives and Children in great part return to the Parliament the rest were after pursued by Blake and Popham to Ireland from thence to Portugal from whence they were forced by Blake to Carthagena where Blake run the Princes Ships on shore yet the Princes having then but three Ships left and having no Port in Europe to protect them seek for one in the West-Indies where Prince Maurice is lost in a Hurricane and Prince Rupert after got into France and sold the Remainder of this miserable Fleet being two tatter'd Ships to Mazarine to fit out himself for other Adventures Whilst the Army was thus busied abroad the Members having got possession of the Fleet and the City of London being well affected to them they join with the Scotish Commissioners and rescind the Votes of Non-Addresses to the King
ordered it that before the King should come at it he should pass through a Room wherein he had placed four Tables and upon each Table lay 5000 l. in Silver when the King came into the Passage he started and was amazed at the sight having never before seen such a Sum he asked the Treasurer the meaning of it who told the King It was the Boon he had given Sir Robert Carr Swounds Man the Oath he usually swore but five thousand should serve his turn and so for that time the Treasurer saved the King the other fifteen thousand Pounds To support these Favourites and other of the King's Country-men of less Note was all the King's Care notwithstanding his Foreign Affairs or his Proclamation at his first coming to London against Monopolies or his Speech at the opening of the Parliament But since Money cannot be had by Parliament other means must be found out There were many ways used for raising Monies during this Interval of Parliament First Monopolies which swarmed more than in any King's Reign before Secondly Payments for new invented Knighthoods never before heard of in England in Times of Peace called Baronets the Prince was 1000 l. and the King to quicken the Market promised to make but 200 of them tho when this Market was done he kept it up all his Life-time after Thirdly Tho the Baronets paid for their Honours yet the King issued our Commissions for reviving the old Obsolete Laws for making Men which could expend 40 l. per Annum to compound for not being Knighted Fourthly Payments for being made Knights of Nova Scotia Fifthly The purchasing of English Honours at certain set Prices a Baron at 10000 l. a Viscount at 15000 l. an Earl at 20000 l. Sixthly Payments for Scotish and Irish Honours I do not find set Prices of these Scotish Honours of the same Title to have the Precedence of an Irish as a Scotish Baron Viscount or Earl to have the Precedence of an Irish and tho an English Honour of like Degree had the Precedence of either of the other yet if either of the other had a higher Title he should precede an English Peer under a less as a Scotish or Irish Viscount shall precede an English Baron so such an Earl shall precede an English Viscount Seventhly Compositions upon defective Titles Eighthly Compositions for Assart Lands Ninthly Monies for making Prince Henry Knight Tenthly Monies to marry the Lady Elizabeth to the Palsgrave Eleventhly A Benevolence Twelfthly Monies borrowed upon Privy-Seals and never repaid besides Sales of Lands Woods and Fee-farm Rents c. During this Interval of Parliament was perpetrated a most horrible Murder upon the Person of Sir Thomas Overbury which is the more remarkable if it be considered how far tho the King detested the Fact Favourites had the Ascendant over the King and how the King influenced the Causes of this Murder and that the Story may more intirely consist it will be necessary to borrow a little of common Fame Sir Robert Carr was made Viscount Rochester the 25th of March 1610 and upon the 22d of April following was made one of the King's Privy-Council and having the Ascendant above all other Favourites over the King he chose a Council of some Persons how to advance himself in this great Power Of these Sir Thomas Overbury a Gentleman of brisk and lively Parts was the chief who had as much an Ascendant over the Lord Rochester as he had over the King and as Rochester was a Favourite so was Thomas Earl of Suffolk who had a Daughter named Frances married to Robert Earl of Essex Son of Robert cut off in the last Year of Queen Elizabeth who after was General of the Army raised by the Parliament in the late Civil Wars Tho of disagreeing Humours the Earl and Countess were of agreeable Years when they were married both about the Age of twelve Years and now had lived above ten Years without any Carnal Knowledg of one with the other as both confessed when the Countess sued for a Divorce whereto the Countess was intolerably bent and if publick Fame may be credited and which is attested by a Writer of the first 14 Years of King James his Life chap. 7. she entred into a Conspiracy with one Ann Turner to have poisoned the Earl But how cold soever the Countess was in her Affections to the Earl they were not less on fire to my Lord of Rochester and that these Flames might soar in an equal height the Countess by the help of Mrs. Turner procures one Doctor Foreman as he was called to bewitch Rochester into equal Desires of mutual Love with the Countess and now Familiarity between the Countess and Rochester becomes publickly scandalous However the Earl continued his Love to the Countess but withal acquainted her with the Dishonour she brought upon him and more upon her self by her loose Life which was now become so publickly taken notice of this was so far from reclaiming the Countess that it stung her to the quick and instead of Reformation she by Letters to Mrs. Turner who the Countess says is all her hopes of Good in this World and by her to Dr. Foreman whom she calls sweet Father and subscribes her self his Affectionate Daughter Frances Essex endeavours to procure the Doctor to bewitch the Earl to Frigidity towards her Sir Francis Bacon in his Charge against my Lord Rochester after Earl of Somerset at his Trial for the Murder of Sir Thomas Overbury gives Sir Thomas hard words as That there was little in him that was solid for Religion or Moral Vertue but was wholly possest with Ambition and vain Glory and was loth to have any Partners in my Lord of Rochester's Favour and that to flatter my Lord in his unlawful Love with the Countess of Essex Sir Thomas had made his Brags that he had won Rochester the Love of the Countess by his Letters and Industry But these stoln Pleasures could not satisfy the Countess's Desires and that she might enjoy them to be compleat she endeavours since the Design of poisoning the Earl did not succeed to make way to her Desires of marrying Rochester by suing out a Divorce against the said Earl which she acquaints Rochester with and Rochester and the Countess acquaint the Earl of Northampton who before was privy and consenting to the Familiarity between them and was easily induced to join in procuring a Divorce Tho this was agreed between them yet the Viscount would not proceed further till he had consulted Sir Thomas Overbury protesting he the Viscount would do nothing without his Advice Sir Thomas told him The marrying the Countess would not be only hurtful to his Preferment but helpful to subvert and overthrow him and who would being possest of so great Possibilities as he was so great Honours and large Revenues and daily in expectation of others cast all away upon a Woman noted for her Injury and Immodesty and pull upon himself the Hatred and Contempt
in Christendom when he was putting it into an universal War all the Western Princes 〈◊〉 Christendom except King James were engaged in it against the House of Austria but it was so vast as in the Nature of things if Henry had been young as he was in the 57th Year of his Age he could not have lived to have accomplished it at his Death tho he lived but 13 Years after the Treaty of Vervins when he made Peace with Philip the 2d of Spain he had amassed such a Treasure as is incredible if so great an Historian as Messeray did not testify it especially if it be considered that before the Treaty at Vervins France had for forty Years before been imbroiled in a Civil War and with Spain and these Wars being in all the Parts of France France was never before in so poor and feeble a State and Henry himself after the Peace giving himself up to Venery and Gaming above any King of France before him or since Nor can it be imagined from whence such Treasures should arise for there are no Gold nor Silver Mines in France unless it were from the Trades which the English Dutch Dane Swede and Hamburghers drove into France However Henry was addicted to Women and Gaming yet otherwise he excelled all the Kings of the Age not only in Heroick Vertues but in Prudence Constancy and Secrecy in his Designs curious in Enquiry into the Qualities of Men whom he would prefer as Qualities merited and was pleasant and witty in his Conversation and always disposed to take the Impression of good Counsel He left his Son a Prince of weak Constitution both of Body and Mind at ten Years of Age and his Wife an imperious bigotted Italian to the Church of Rome Regent These overthrew all the Methods which Henry had laid for promoting the French Grandure and gave themselves up to be governed by Favourites yet in a different manner from those in England whereby they squandered away all that inestimable Treasure which Henry left in less than half the time Henry had been collecting it and put all France into Tumults and Wars whilst the English patiently submitted to the Exorbitances of King James his Favourites and by Proclamations were forbid to mention them or talk of their Government no not in Parliament And now 't is time to return to England and see what 's doing there If we begin this Year 1612 with January we shall find two Marriages in it to succeed the two Deaths of the two famous Henry's of England and France The first upon the 14th of February being Shrove-Sunday between Frederick Count Palatine of the Rhine commonly called the Palsgrave and the Princess Elizabeth the King 's only Daughter and the Triumphs Pageant◠and other Gaieties upon the Thames in the City and Inns of Court far exceeded any before seen in England which you may read at large in Stow's Chronicle fol. 1004. so as the Tears for the Death of Prince Henry were overflowed by the excess of Joy for this Marriage However Northampton was not pleased with it nor the Emperor or King of Spain and from the same Causes viz. It would so far advance the Protestant Interest in Germany as to make it more formidable to the Popish Religion and 't is certain for I had it from good Authority that Queen Ann was averse to it and to put the Princess out of conceit of it would usually call her Daughter Goodwife Palsgrave to which the Princess would answer she would rather be the Palsgrave ' s Wife than the greatest Papist Queen in Christendom The Reason of the Queen's Aversion to this Marriage is not said but certain it is that these fading Joys for this Marriage were succeeded by fixt and real Calamities which the King took little Care to prevent and shall never live to see nor his Son after him an end of While the Preparations for solemnizing this Marriage were making a different sort was making for another between the Viscount Rochester and the Countess of Essex and to make the Way to it more passable two Rubs were to be removed one to take off Sir Thomas Overbury the other to procure a Divorce not only a Mensa Toro between the Earl and the Countess but a Nullity whereby the Countess should be free to marry as she pleased and she had agreed upon the Person To remove Sir Thomas it was agreed between the Earl of Northampton Rochester and the Countess that Sir Thomas should be sent Ambassador to the Great Duke or Emperor of Russia so that if Sir Thomas did accept of it he should be far enough out of the way to hinder this Design and if he did not to commit him to the Tower where they would do well enough with him The Business of the Embassy was no sooner propounded to the King but assented to by him and Sir Thomas was not unwilling to undertake it How harsh soever Rochester was to Sir Thomas when he disswaded Rochester from marrying the Countess yet now he becomes instant kind to Sir Thomas and tell him how much he relied upon his Integrity and Parts which in his Absence he should not only want but that thereby Sir Thomas would give Occasion to his Enemies which were many and upon Rochester's account to ruine him when as it would not be in Rochester's Power to prevent it but if Sir Thomas would refuse to undertake this Embassy Rochester would in a short time undertake to reconcile him to the King and Sir Thomas would in the mean time be at hand to assist him with his Counsel upon all Occasions This was all deep Dissimulation which Sir Thomas took to be in good earnest and so Sir Thomas excused his going on this Errand and this was what Rochester desired Hereupon Rochester possest the King that Sir Thomas was not only grown insolent and intolerable to him but to the King by contemning him in refusing to go on this Embassage The King becomes incensed hereat and the more as 't was commonly said Sir Thomas had vented some stinging Sarcasms upon the Court which came to the King 's hearing and so ordered him to be committed to the Tower Northampton and Rochester had prepared the Business so that Sir William Wade was removed from being Lieutenant of the Tower and Sir Jervis Elvis a Gentleman wholly depending upon them was made Lieutenant of it Upon Sir Thomas his Commitment Sir Jervis Elvis by Order from Northampton and Rochester confines him close Prisoner so that Sir Thomas his Father was not permitted to visit him nor any of his Servants tho one desired he might be confined with his Master The Countess that she might not be behind-hand with Rochester and Northampton had consulted with Mrs. Turner for a fit Instrument to practise what was designed upon Sir Thomas Mrs. Turner's Husband was an Apothecary and had a Servant named Richard Weston who since her Husband's Death was become very poor this Man was agreed by the
the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and the Principality of Wales and of the Dominions and Islands of the same of the Town of Calais and of the Marches of the same and of Normandy Gascoign and Guienne General Governor of the Seas and Ships of the Kingdom Master of the Horse to the King Lord Warden Chancellor and Admiral of the Cinque Ports and of the Members of the same Constable of Dover-Castle Justice in Eyre of all the Forests and Chases on this side of Trent Constable of the Castle of Windsor Gentleman of his Majesty's Bed-Chamber one of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council in his Realms of England Scotland and Ireland and Knight of the most Honourable Order of the Garter But tho all others worshipped this prodigious Favourite yet Arch-bishop Abbot a Prelate of Primitive Sanctity and Integrity would not flatter neither the King nor his Favourite in their Courses so dangerous to the Church and State and dishonourable to the King and tho in Disgrace he wrote this following Letter to the King which you may read in Rushworth fol. 85. May it please your Majesty M I Have been too long silent and am afraid by my Silence I have neglected the Duty of the Place it has pleased God to call me unto and your Majesty to place me in But now I humbly crave leave I may discharge my Conscience towards God and my Duty to your Majesty and therefore freely to give me leave to deliver my self and then let your Majesty do what you please Your Majesty hath propounded a Toleration of Religion I beseech you to take into your Consideration what that Act is what the Consequence may be By your Act you labour to set up the most Damnable and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon How hateful will it be to God and grievous to your Subjects the Professors of the Gospel that your Majesty who hath so often and learnedly disputed and written against those Heresies should now shew your self a Patron of those wicked Doctrines which your Pen hath to the World and your Conscience tells your self are superstitious idolatrous and detestable and hereto I add what you have done by sending the Prince into Spain without the Consent of your Council the Privity or Approbation of your People and altho you have a Charge and Interest in the Prince as the Son of your Flesh yet the People have a greater as Son of the Kingdom upon whom next after your Majesty are their Eyes fixed and their Welfare depends and so tenderly is his going apprehended as I believe however his Return may be safe yet the Drawers of him into this Action so dangerous to himself so desperate to the Kingdom will not pass away unquestion'd and unpunished Besides the Toleration which you endeavour to set up by your Proclamation cannot be without a Parliament unless your Majesty will let your Subjects see that you will take to your self the Ability to throw down the Laws of the Land at your Pleasure What dread Consequence these things may draw afterwards I beseech your Majesty to consider and above all lest by this Toleration and discountenancing the true Profession of the Gospel wherewith God hath blest us and this Kingdom hath so long flourished under it your Majesty doth not draw upon this Kingdom in general and your self in particular God's Wrath and Indignation I have heard my Father say that King James kept a Fool called Archy if he were not more Knave whom the Courtiers when the King was at any time thoughtful or serious would bring in with his antick Gestures and Sayings to put him out of it In one of these Modes of the King in comes Archy and tells the King he must change Caps with him Why says the King Why who replies Archy sent the Prince into Spain But what said the King wilt thou say if the Prince comes back again Why then said Archy I will take my Cap from thy Head and send it to the King of Spain which was said troubled the King sore But if we look back into Spain we shall see things of another Complection than when Buckingham came into it For now he is disgusted he put the Prince quite out of the Match as that tho all things were agreed upon the coming of the Dispensation from Rome so as King James said all the Devils in Hell could not break the Match yet his Disciple and Scholar could tho the Duke had certified the King the Match was brought to a happy Conclusion and the Match publickly declar'd in Spain and the Prince permitted Access to the Infanta in the Presence of the King and the Infanta was generally stiled the Princess of England and in England a Chappel was building for her at St. James's and the King had prepared a Fleet to fetch her into England which only proved to bring back his Son How things especially actuated by Love should stay here may seem strange yet such an Ascendant had Buckingham over the Prince that the Affront put upon him Buckingham must quite deface the Prince's vowed Love and Affection to the Infanta but how to prevail with King James to comply might have an appearance of some Difficulty since the King had set his Rest upon it and had quarelled with the Parliament and dissolv'd them in great Anger and Fury for but mentioning it After the Duke had gained the Prince to break or at least not to observe the Conditions of the Treaty of the Marriage with the Infanta so solemnly sworn to by both the Kings and the Prince let 's now see how he behaved himself to King James afterwards but this will be better understood if we look back and see how things stood before the Prince's and Duke's Arrival in Spain The Prince's going into Spain was not only kept secret from King James ' s Council but from my Lord Keeper Williams tho the King confided in his Abilities above all the other of his Council but when it had taken vent the King asked the Keeper what he thought Whether the Knight Errant's Pilgrimage meaning the Prince's would prove lucky to win the Spanish Lady and to convey her shortly into England Sir answered my Lord Keeper If my Lord Marquess will give Honour to Conde Duke Olivares and remember he is the Favourite of Spain or if Olivares will shew honourable Civility to my Lord Marquess remembring he is a Favourite of England the Wooing may be prosperous but if my Lord Marquess should forget where he is and not stoop to Olivares or if Olivares forgetting what Guest he hath received with the Prince bear himself haughtily and like a Castilian to my Lord Marquess the Provocation may be dangerous to cross your Majesty's good Intentions and I pray God that either one or both do not run into that Error The Answer of the Keeper took such Impression upon the King that he asked the Keeper if he had wrote to his Son and the
she should take other French Catholicks in their Places but nevertheless by the Consent of the King of Great Britain That the King of Great Britain and the Prince of Wales his Son should oblige themselves by Oath not to attempt by any means whatsoever to make her change her Religion or to force her to any thing that might be contrary thereto and should promise by writing in the Faith and Word of a King and Prince to give Order that the Catholicks as well Ecclesiastical as Secular who have been imprisoned since the last Edict against them should be set at Liberty That the English Catholicks should be no more enquired after for their Religion nor constrained to take the Oath which contains something contrary to the Catholick Religion That their Goods that have been seized since the last Edict should be restored to them And generally that they should receive more Graces and Liberty in Favour of the Alliance with France than had been promised them in consideration of that of Spain The Deputation of Father Berule Superior General of the Fathers of the Oratory to his Holiness to obtain the Dispensation for the aforesaid Marriage THE Instructions which were given to Father de Berule were to render himself with all Diligence at Rome to obtain the Pope's Dispensation and to this Effect to represent to his Holiness That the King of Great Britain having demanded of the King his Sister Madame Henrietta Maria for a Wife for the Prince of Wales his Son his Majesty hearken'd the more willingly to this Proposition in that he esteem'd it very profitable towards the Conversion of the English as heretofore a French Princess married into England had induced them to embrace Christianity but the Honour which he had vowed to the Holy See and particularly to his Holiness who baptized him in the Name of Pope Clement VIII did not permit him to execute the Treaty without having obtained his Dispensations That this Marriage ought to be look'd upon not only for the Benefit of the English Catholicks but of all Christendom who would thereby receive great Advantage That there was nothing to be hazarded for in Madame seeing that she was as firm in the Faith and in Piety as he could desire That she had a Bishop and 28 Priests to do their Duties That she had not a Domestick that was not Catholick and that the King of Great Britain and the Prince of Wales would oblige themselves by Writing and by Oath not to solicit her directly or indirectly neither by themselves or by Persons interposed to change her Religion On the contrary having nothing to fear for her he had great Cause to hope that she being dearly beloved of the King who was already well enough disposed to be a Catholick and of the Prince of Wales she might by so much the more contribute to their Conversion as Women have wonderful Power over their Husbands and their Fathers-in-law when Love hath given them the Ascendant over their Spirits That she was so zealous in Religion that there was no doubt but she would employ in this pious Design all that depended upon her Industry and that if God should not bless Intentions in the Person of King James and of the Prince of Wales it was apparent that their Children would be the Restorers of the Faith which their Ancestors had destroyed seeing she would have the Charge to educate them in the Belief and in the Exercises of the Catholick Religion till the Age of 13 Years and that these first Seeds of Piety being laid in their Souls cultivated with Care at the time when they should be more susceptible of Instructions would infallibly produce stable and permanent Fruits that is to say a Faith so firm that it may not be shaken by Heresy in a riper Age. That after all the Catholicks of England would receive no small Profit at present since the King of Great Britain and the Prince of Wales would both oblige themselves upon their Faith and by Writing no more to enquire after them nor punish them when they should be discovered to enlarge all those that had been imprisoned and to make them Restitution of Money and of other Goods that had been taken from them since the last Edict if they were yet in being and generally to treat them with more Favour than they could have expected from the Alliance with Spain And further He had Orders to let the Pope understand that to render more Respect to the Church it had been agreed that Madame should be affianced and married according to the Catholick Form and agreeable to that which was followed at the Marriage which Charles IX made of Madam Margaret of France with the late King Henry IV. then King of Navarre All these things spoke themselves and appeared so visibly that they would admit of no doubt so this Father that wanted neither Spirit nor Fire represented them dexterously to the Pope and his Holiness made him hope for a speedy and favourable Answer c. See the Life of Cardinal Richlieu printed at Paris 1650. fol. 14 15. How does this agree with the King's Speech at the opening of the Parliament in the 18th Year of his Reign That if the Treaty of the Match between his Son and the Infanta of Spain were not for the Benefit of the Established Religion at home and of the Reformed abroad he was not worthy to be their King And how does this agree with that part of the King's Speech at the opening of this Parliament That as for the Toleration of the Roman Religion as God shall surely judg him he said he never thought nor meant nor never in Words expressed any thing that savoured of it Do not Religion Truth and Justice support the Thrones of Princes and Hypocrisy Falshood and Injustice undermine and overthrow them What future Happiness then could either the King or Prince hope to succeed this Treaty sworn to by them both so diametrically contrary to the Laws and Constitutions of this Nation wherein the Majesty of the King as well as the Safety of the Nation is founded and to govern by these and observe this Treaty will be impossible What Peace could the Prince find at home even in his Bed when an imperious French Wife shall be ever instigating him to break his Coronation-Oath to truckle to that imposed upon him by her Brother of France These Pills how bitter soever must be swallowed by the King rather than his Son shall be baulk'd a second time nay it seems they were very sweet to him For Mr. Howel in the Life of Lewis III. says fol. 66. that King James said passionately to the Lords of the Council of the King of France My Lords the King of France has wrote unto me That he is so far my Friend that if ever I have need of him he will render me Offices in Person whensoever I shall desire him the Truth of this you will see by and by Truly he hath gained upon
thereunto that altho he granted Commissions for collecting certain Duties and Customs due by Law yet made none for receiving the Subsidies of Tunnage and Poundage till it was granted in Parliament Since his time all Kings and Queens have had such Grants for Life by the free Love and Good-will of the Subjects but whensoever the People have been grieved by laying on any other Imposition or Charges upon their Goods and Merchandise without Authority of Law which has been very seldom yet upon Complaint in Parliament they have been relieved saving in the time of your Royal Father who having through ill Counsel raised the Rates and Charges upon Merchandise to that height at which they now are yet he was pleased so far to yield to the Complaint of his People as to offer That if the Value of such Impositions as he had set might be made good unto him he would bind himself and his Heirs by Act of Parliament never to lay any more which Offer the Commons did not yield to Nevertheless your Loyal Commons in this Parliament out of special Zeal to your Majesty's Service and especial Regard of your pressing Occasions have taken into their Consideration so to frame a Grant of Subsidy of Tunnage and Poundage to your Majesty that both you might have been better enabled for the Defence of your Realm and your Subjects by being more secure from all undue Charges be more encouraged chearfully to proceed in Trade by Encrease whereof your Majesty's Profit and likewise the Strength of the Kingdom would be much augmented But being now not able to accomplish this their Desire there is no Course left to them without manifest Breach of their Duty to his Majesty and Country save only to make this Declaration That the receiving Tunnage and Poundage and other Impositions not granted by Parliament is a Breach of the Fundamental Liberties of this Kingdom and contrary to your Majesty's Royal Answer to the Petition of Right The King who had so unwillingly heard the Commons Remonstrance against the Duke before the Bill of Subsidies was passed both Houses now it was past both Houses was resolved to hear no more of this and therefore when this Remonstrance concerning the Tunnage and Poundage was engrossed and reading in the House the King sent for the Speaker and the House to the House of Lords where the King came so unexpectedly that the Lords had not put on their Robes nor had the Commons given the Speaker any Order or Direction to deliver the Bill of Subsidies neither was it brought down to the Commons again as is usual When the Commons came to the Lords House the King said It may seem strange that I come so suddenly to end this Session before I give my Assent to the Bills I will tell you the Cause tho I must avow that I owe the Account of my Actions to God alone It is known to every one of you that a while ago the House of Commons gave me a Remonstrance how acceptable every Man may judg and for the Merit of it I will not call that in question for I am sure no wise Man can justify it Did ever any King of England but this King's Father and himself treat a Parliament or either House at this rate before At the opening of the Parliament he calls them Fools if they would not do as he would have them and now he tells the Commons No wise Man can justify their Advice to him I 'm sure a wiser Man than this King or his Father says He that wins Souls is wise and if you convert the Proposition He that provokes them is otherwise Heretofore the Kings of England and I believe all prudent and civiliz'd Princes ever forbore to give any Petitioners harsh Language if their Petitions did not please their usual Answer was The King will consider or be advised upon them One great End of the Meeting of Parliaments is truly to represent to the King the State of the Kingdom which is rarely done by Flatterers and Favourites whose Interest is contrary to that of the Kingdom and if any thing be done in Prejudice of the King and Kingdom that both may be redressed in Parliament In the Commons Remonstrance to the King they set forth the weak and dangerous State of the Kingdom equally dangerous to the King and Kingdom in six several Particulars Does the King either answer or deny any one of the Particulars otherwise than that he is sure no wise Man can justify their Remonstrance But tells no Reason for this nor from whom he had this Assurance Was ever any King or Man so great as to be above his Interest or less for being well advised in all his Actions Nay ought not not only every King but other Men be so much more careful and advised in all their Actions by how much greater they are The King goes on and says Now since I am truly informed that a second Remonstrance is preparing for me to take away the Profit of Tunnage and Poundage one of the chief Maintenances of my Crown by alledging I have given away my Right thereto by my Answer to your Petition So that here the King hath true Information of that but says not how he was truly informed which was not in being for the Remonstrance was not passed the Commons when the King came into the House of Lords so that it may more probably be the King is not truly informed of this Remonstrance I 'm sure he is misinformed if the Remonstrance as it is printed in Rushworth and Franklin be true that the Commons alledged that the King had given away his Right to the Customs by his Answer to the Petition of Right For the Commons denied there that either he or any of his Predecessors before him which was long before the Petition of Right had any Right to them before they were granted by the free Gift of the Subject Tho the King would take the Customs to which he had no Right yet would he not permit the Commons to sit till they could perfect a Bill to give him Duties upon Tunnage and Poundage without which no King of England before him claimed any other Right But since the King says in his Declaration for the Dissolution of the Parliament that his Predecessors time out of mind have had these Customs but says not who told him so it 's fit to see when and what Customs of Tunnage and Poundage were taken and for what end and how they were taken Sir Edward Coke in his fourth Institute of the High Court of Parliament fol. 32. out of Records makes thirteen Observations upon the Subsidy of Tunnage and Poundage 1. Of Poundage only at 6 s. in the Pound for two Years upon Condition c. And this was 47 Edw. 3. 2. 6 d. for Poundage 2 s. for Tunnage of Wine hac vice This was 6 Ric. 2. 3. 6 d. of every Pound of Merchandise 2 s. of every Tun of Wine upon Condition
see what Fruits the Petition of Right passed but the Year before had and the King 's repeated Declarations to maintain the Laws of the Land and the Liberty and Property of the Subject But if this Prince has not kept his Word for the time past he will keep it he says for the time to come in the Declaration he made for the Dissolution of this last Parliament I do not find the Date of it yet it begins with the usual Prologue However Princes are not bound to give an account of their Actions but only to God In this the King says nothing of the Eyes of all Christendom being upon him but tells how the Aids granted this last Parliament were for Payment of his Fleet and Army and that with part of those Monies he began to supply his Magazines and Stores and to put his Navy into a constant Form and Order and that notwithstanding the Provocations of evil Men whose Punishment he reserves to a due time he will maintain the Established Religion and Doctrine of the Church of England and the antient and just Rights and Liberties of the Subject Yet as he will maintain the Subjects Rights so he expects that they yield as much Submission and Duty to his Royal Prerogative and as ready Obedience to his Authority and Command as had been performed to any of his Predecessors Then wills his Ministers not to be terrified by the harsh Proceedings strained against them for as he will support them by his Authority and Prerogative so he expects they should obey him and that he will receive the Customs and the Duty of Five in the 100 and if any factious Merchants refuse to pay they shall be assured he will find honourable and just means to support his Estate and Soveraignty and preserve the Authority God had put into his Hands and for this his Subjects ought to acknowledg their own Blessedness and for the same to be thankful to God the Author of all Goodness For this you must take the Prince's Word for the next twelve Years But being thus great and happy at Home let 's see what is doing Abroad The War against France was not more inconsiderately begun about two Years before than the Peace made with it was secret The first time it was made known was when the French King besieged Privas he proclaimed the Peace with his good Brother of England The Reformed were astonished and confounded that the King of England who brought them into the War should leave them out of the Peace Hereupon Privas surrenders so does Castres and Nismes the great Rohan is forced to submit and disband The Power of the Reformed thus rooted up and while the King of England is making War against the Members of Parliament Richlieu marches with an Army into Italy and takes Salusses and Pignerol from the Duke of Savoy Richlieu having thus secured the King of England took no less care that the Empire should not put a stop to the swelling Ambition of his Master and to this purpose enters into a Confederacy with the Protestant Princes of Germany to call the King of Sweden in to Germany who next Year entred into it where for eighteen Years the French Protestant Princes joining the Swede a most dreadful War was raised all over Germany so as the French had no cause to fear any Danger thence on the contrary they took Brisac and other Places and had opportunity to wrest Lorain from that Duke But King Charles prospering as he thought in his Domestick War having taken more Prisoners in it I mean the Members of Parliament and Constables of Hertfordshire than his Father and he had done in all their Wars against France Spain and the Empire for the recovery of the Palatinate was very unwilling to enter into a Foreign and therefore in a kind of petitioning way sends Sir Henry Vane his Ambassador to the King of Sweden to take care of the Patrimony of his Brother but with no better Success yet in a more rough scornful and dishonourable manner than his Father's Ambassadors had with the Emperor But that he might seem to do something the King sent Marquess Hamilton with 6000 Men to assist the Swede who tho every-where else victorious yet this Army under Hamilton had worse Success than that under Mansfield being starved and mouldred away almost to nothing and yet fought not at all and being reduced to two Regiments the King of Sweden would not permit King Charles to name the Officers See Whitlock's M. f. 15. and Franklin's Anno 1630. The ill Success of Hamilton's Army put the King out of all Conceit of prosecuting any Foreign War and therefore wholly makes it his Business to make himself more Absolute at Home There is but one Rub in the way viz. the great Prop of the Church the Arch-bishop of Canterbury Abbot a Prelate of most eminent Learning whose upright Integrity stood as an unshaken Rock against the Innovations both in Church and State which were now so fiercely push'd on by the Arminians I find but little Action in this Year 1631 things were only preparing to what followed yet altho Arch-bishop Abbot was living the Torrent run so high in the University of Oxford that several of the Members were proceeded against and censured for Sermons preach'd against Arminianism and expell'd the University and the Book of Sports and Pastimes upon the Lord's-day was republished Judg Richardson was so hardy as to repress them but the Bishops took this as an intruding upon the Ecclesiastical Power and Bishop Laud complained thereof to the King and the Judg was check'd for it See Whitlock's Memoirs fol. 16 17. But in the Year 1632 this Reverend Prelate died and thereby left room for Laud the Fire-brand of Arminianism to take Possession Before we see what follows let 's look back upon what went before He being of a restless aspiring Temper in the beginning of King James his Reign got to be Chaplain to Mountjoy Earl of Devonshire and to shew he would be great upon any account he marries the Earl to the Lady Rich tho her Husband was then alive and had many Children by her viz. Robert then Earl of Warwick and Henry Earl of Holland which Act so displeased King James that the Earl fell into his Displeasure and tho Laud hanker'd near twenty Years after the Court to get Preferment principally under the Countenance of Neal Bishop of Winchester yet the King would never endure to hear of it But at last by the Importunity of Neal and others Williams Bishop of Lincoln and Lord-Keeper was prevailed upon to intercede for him without any Success till at length the Keeper told the King It would be hard to serve a King who could not forgive one Fault At last he got the King to prefer Laud to the Bishoprick of St. Davids but he had not been scarce one Year in his Bishoprick before he became Williams his bitter Enemy and Prosecutor as you may read in the second Part
he was over parsimonious ill becoming so great a Prince He laid the Foundation of an unhappy Reign before he became King not only in his Dissimulation in the Treaty of Marriage with the King and Infanta of Spain to the Displeasure of his Father but much more in the French Treaty not only in submitting to grant a Toleration of the Popish Religion and that his Children should be brought up under their Mother till they were twelve Years old but by engaging to assist the French King with a Fleet against the Reformed in France which he did tho the French broke their Faith in denying Mansfield to land the Army at Calais raised for the Recovery of the Palatinate Unlike his Predecesâ—or Henry the Fifth who so soon as he became King banished all his Flatterers and loose Companions and betaking himself to grave and wise Counsel he became the most Renowned and Victorious of all our English Kings Charles became more wilful and gave himself to be more governed by Favourites after he became King than before So that the insite Piety and Affection which is due to Parents and usually exprest in some mournful Demeanour upon their Death took no Impression in him after his Father's Death but contrary Passions against his Father's Counsel and Will prevailed upon him For next day after his Father's Death only the King and Buckingham present the Keeper Williams coming to wait upon him the King asked him whether the Parliament were dissolved upon his Father's Death Which when the Keeper told him it was the King commanded him to issue out new Summons for calling another and not to stay a day for Subsidies must be had for carrying on a War against Spain and when the Keeper advised him to consider a little hereof and that before Writs were issued out Interest should be made about Elections the King in Displeasure turn'd from him Which you may read in the second Book and second Folio of the Keeper's Life And these two things were observable in this Prince That when any advised him against his Will he would never ask it after or be Friends with him and that in all his Reign as well in Prosperity as in Adversity he would never own any one of his Irregularities to be so but justified them all to his Death As Henry was the most self-denying of all his glorious Actions ascribing them only to God so Charles upon all occasions in all his irregular Actions gloried he was accountable to none but God for them After he was married he became the most uxorious Husband of all our English Kings except Henry the Sixth and being intangled by the Articles of Marriage which the Queen fostered and the Laws and Constitutions of the Nation contrary to them which his Parliaments stedfastly asserted he became both ways uneasy and to reconcile them was impossible But to me it seems how uxorious soever the King was yet during Buckingham's Regency for so it may be truly called he had an Ascendency over the Queen as appears by the French War in the second Year of the King notwithstanding all the Power of the Queen against it He was unaffable in his Conversation and Approaches to him very difficult and those with such strained Submissions as were never required by any of his Predecessors As his Actions were without Counsel sudden and inconsiderate so were his Resolutions as variable and uncertain so that oftentimes he would change them the same day And as his Actions were without Counsel so were his Designs without Secrecy which blasted them as well at Home as Abroad He was so superstitiously addicted to the Arminian Clergy which flatter'd him that I do not find except Juxton Bishop of London that he preferr'd any others in the Church till he fell into Adversity In his adverse Fortune he would betake himself to contrary Extreams yet be as inconstant in them as in his Actions in Prosperity He was only constant in his Affections to the Queen after he had given up his Favourites in his prosperous Fortune to the Parliament and her Counsels fixed stedfast in him tho in his Declarations to the Kingdom and Parliament he profess'd otherwise and herein he was as unhappy as he was before in his Designs in his Prosperity for they whether by Fate or his own Imprudence became known to his Enemies who blaz'd them abroad not only to the Nation but all the World so that the sincerity of his Promises and Declarations became suspected as well by his Friends as Enemies and all Accommodation with them more difficult whereby it came to pass that his Armies being subdued by them and thereby falling into the Hands of his Enemies he became a Sacrifice to them in the 49th Year of his Age having reigned 23 Years ten Months and three Days leaving six Children three Sons Charles Prince of Wales James Duke of York and Henry Duke of Gloucester whereof the two elder were Exiles and three Daughters Mary Princess of Orange and Elizabeth a Virgin who not long survived him and Henrietta Maria born at Exeter So that as King John and his Son Henry the Third lost all Normandy and the greatest part of Aquitain to the French by endeavouring a more than Legal Jurisdiction over their Subjects whereby they lost their Love and Obedience so these two Princes Father and Son by raising and Arbitrary Power over their Subjects not only lost their Honour Abroad but with their own Subjects and for want of whose Assistance this King lost his Life and suffered the French to grow so great as to endanger the Safety of their own Subjects in the Realms of England Scotland and Ireland I 'll conclude this Story with one which a learned Gentleman who liv'd in those Times affirmed When the Duke of Buckingham was stabb'd by Felton 1628 the Earl of Portland was then newly made Lord Treasurer and the King to manifest his Affection to the Duke order'd the Treasurer to issue out of the Exchequer 30000 l. I think for a solemn Funeral for the Duke but the Treasurer unwilling the King should be at so hateful an Expence at a time when the King was at War with France and Spain told the King that the Sum laid out in erecting a stately Tomb for the Duke would be a more lasting Monument of his Favour to the Duke than a Funeral-Expence which would be but the Work of a Day and soon forgot The King assented and several Patterns were brought and what the King lik'd the Treasurer dislik'd till at last the King pitch'd upon one which he said he would have but then the Treasurer said Sir what will the World say that you should be at such an Expence for a Favourite when your Father has not a Stone to cover him which struck the King so as he proceeded no farther in it I remember I think it was in 1669. that the Commons voted 50000 l. for the Charge of taking up this King's Body and the solemn Funeral
and sure never was there such a Generation who so impudently out-braved Truth and all that may be call'd Sacred If you could force a Belief into them they first told you they fought for King and Parliament then they declared for the King and People against the Parliament and now they have taken off the King if you will have any Benefit of their Protection you must engage to their Government without King or House of Lords and be content with a piece of the Commons call'd the Rump Not content with the Death of the King the Rump proceeds to abolish Monarchy and place the original Power of Government in the People whose Representatives they are if you 'll take their Word and voted it High Treason to restore Monarchy or to assist or pray for Charles Stuart or any of that Line overthrow the King's Statue with an Exit tyrannus Regum ultimus Nor are they satiated with the Blood of the King but erect another High Court of Injustice whereof one Lisle an ignorant Fellow was President who condemns the Marquess Hamilton Earl of Holland and Lord Capel for raising Arms against the Parliament which themselves had destroy'd But tho the Rump and Army were establish'd upon these strange Principles yet being the Instruments of Divine Vengeance like a Torrent broke loose from raging Seas in less than five Years time they overwhelm not only England but Ireland and Scotland almost pull'd the Dutch States up by the Roots and made France and Spain tremble But that we may observe what follow'd let 's see what went before The Scots were the first who invaded England against the King to impose their Solemn League and Covenant which was more against the English Laws and Constitutions than Laud's Service-Books Canons and High-Commission were against the Scotish In July last the Scots invaded England commanded by the Marquess Hamilton in August Cromwel routs and utterly overthrows this Army and takes Hamilton Prisoner So the Scots who began these Wars first are the first chastised by this English Army But this is but the Earnest of what shall follow The secluded Members who first join'd the Scots beginning first with an equivocal Protestation but after downright joined with the Scots in their Covenant are now not only turned out of the House by the Rump but kept in nasty Prisons till they became as little dangerous as The House of Lords The horrid Irish Massacre and Rebellion succeeded in the third place And now the Rump having established themselves by subduing of the Scots under Hamilton and deposing the secluded Members are laying Rods in Piss to scourge these abominable Irish But before we proceed let 's see how things stood in Ireland In October 1641. the Irish Massacre was which succeeded in a Rebellion in which Richlieu's Scarlet was as deep dyed as in the Scotish and English Commotions The Head of this accursed Crew was John Baptista Pennuncio the Pope's Nuncio who in his Passage through France threatned he would suffer no Man to live in Ireland that wished well to the King or to the English Affairs Thus you see how all the Factions conspired against the King the Laws and Constitutions of England But for these last seven Years viz. so long as the Distractions were continued in England the War was pursued but by halves in Ireland King Charles in his Life-time had made the Marquess of Ormond Lieutenant of Ireland who in 1643 made a Truce with the Irish that the King might make use of the English in England But the Irish kept their Faith no better in it than the Scots had before with the King in the Peace in 1639. For on a sudden they rise against the Marquess now the English are sent into England and had surprized him if he had not been informed before and escaped into Dublin and being in no Condition to defend it but obliged to deliver it up either to the English sent by the Parliament or to the Irish he gave it up to the English who make Colonel Jones Governour and so Ormond leaves Ireland After the Marquess was withdrawn the Nuncio behaved himself like a Church-Man with such a Despotical Tyranny that he became intolerable even to the Irish themselves who being press'd by Jones Coot and Monk combine in a Body and send to the Queen and to the Prince of Wales for then the King was close Prisoner in the Isle of Wight to return the Marquess of Ormond and they would submit to his Authority and join to expel the Scots and Parliament's Forces The Nuncio taking this for an Affront to his Authority being that of the Apostolick See which is infallible threatens Excommunication to them who should not obey him but neither he nor his Excommunication were obey'd but was forced to Capitulate with the Irish themselves to procure his Departure which was as shameful as his Entrance was proud and insolent Upon the Marquess's Return he enter'd into most dishonourable Articles with the Irish which yet would not please Owen Ro Oneal who join'd with the Parliament's Forces and reliev'd Londonderry then besieg'd by the Lord Ardes After this Pacification with the Irish such as it was Ormond raises a numerous Army and by my Lord Inchiqueen routs a Party of Jones's going to Drogheda who takes the Town and Dundalk Green-Castle Newry and Trim and returns Victorious to the Marquess Hereupon the Marquess besieges Dublin but unfortunately sends my Lord Inchiqueen into Munster with if not the greatest the best part of the Army Jones falls upon the Remainder and utterly routs them This was in August 1649. And the same Month Cromwel lands at Dublin with an Army of 15000 old Soldiers Upon this Disaster the Irish no more to be reconciled to the English than the Scots Covenanters to Episcopacy quarrel with the Marquess which was never after composed So the Marquess left Ireland again leaving the Earl of Clanrickard Deputy Cromwel after his landing first storms Drogheda or Tredah with a most terrible Execution and after in less than one Year all Ireland upon the matter is reduced to the Obedience of the Rump who take dreadful Vengeance upon all the Irish who could be found to have had any hand in the Massacre of the English The King Charles II. having lost England and Ireland with all their Dependencies except the Isles of Guernsey Jersey Man and Scilly and the Plantations in America which shall soon follow set up for Scotland and makes the Marquess of Montross his Commissioner who having got together about 400 Swedes Danes Poles and Germans lands them at the Wick of Cathness in April 1650 and takes Dumbeath But Lesley having sent Major-General Straughan with 300 choice Horse he set upon this ill composed Body of Montross and utterly routs them Montross fled but was betrayed by the Laird of Aston who had formerly served him The Covenanters to shew their Clemency and Humility bind the Marquess in a Chair planted backwards on a Cart that all
Queen Regent of Spain upon the French Irruption into the Spanish Netherlands in 1667 having made Peace with Portugal and Col. Fitz-Gerald an Irish Papist Major-General The Business of this Army was as the Vogue went That since the French King could not get that part of Holland which was drencht by Fresh Water to souse it with Salt Water by cutting down their Sea-Banks but Point Homo For the Dutch Mob astonished and confounded with the Loss of their Country by Land and opposed by Two the most Powerful Kings in the whole World by Sea in a Rage assassinated the Two De Witts Cornelius and John as the Betrayers of their Country and the Causers of this War and depose the States who they thought were of the Lovestein or De Witts Faction and restore the Prince of Orange now in the first Year of his coming to age to the Command of his Ancestors and make Monsieur Fagell Pensioner of Holland The Prince being the King's Nephew and having never offended him raised an Expectation in the People and Fear in the French King that the King would not suffer the Prince to fall into a worse State than the De Witts intended by suffering the French to conquer Holland whereby the Prince's Authority must needs be swallowed up This the French King foresaw and therefore to obviate it the French King was the first who made Application to the Prince and proposed to him the making him Soveraign of the Vnited Provinces under the Protection of England and France such a Protection was never heard of before But the French King knew how to deal with his Brother of England It 's admirable to consider that notwithstanding the Conquest by the French of the other Provinces and the Desolation of Holland and the long Prejudices even from his Cradle against him by the Lovestein Faction this Generous Prince in his most florid and ambitious Age should out of his vertuous innate Love to his Country stand so firm to it that his Answers were That he would never betray a Trust reposed in him nor sell the Liberties of his Country which his Ancestors had so long defended and God so blest him herein But out of these Ruins shall this limited Prince arise and put a check to the boundless and arbitrary Ambition of this designing French Universal Monarch as his Ancestors before had to the Spanish The King it seems could not but see that whilst he got nothing but blows by Sea the French got all by Land and therefore sent the Duke of Buckingham my Lords Arlington and Hallifax to the French King keeping his Court at Vtrecht but with Instructions as secret and dark as those of making the War These when they came into Holland were informed of the French Designs and the King's Answer to their Deputies was viz. That the King might treat as he pleased but that what the French King had got was his own and that what he should get he would not restore without an Equivalent Which raised such an Indignation in them that nothing would serve their turn but destroying at least mastering the French Fleet And in this Humour they went to the Prince of Orange and promised the same and engaged to their utmost to bring the French King to be satisfied with Mastricht and of keeping Garisons in the Towns upon the Rhine belonging to the Electors of Brandenburgh and Cologn From Holland Two of these proceed to the French Court at Vtrecht where the French Air changed their Minds they left in Holland and about Four Days after sent word to the Prince of Orange that the States must give Satisfaction to both Kings jointly and that neither would treat separately upon which the Prince desired to know what the Kings joint and respective Demands were and of the new Agreement made by them so contrary to their Promise to the Prince and States Whereupon Mr. Secretary Trevor makes these Queries 1. Whether they were sent to promote the French Conquest If not why by making the Peace impossible as far as in them lay would they force the Dutch to submit to the French Dominion 2. Whether they did not know that the French Demands alone had been rejected by the States and that the granting of them would make it impossible for the Dutch to give the King any Satisfaction 3. Whether having received from the Prince and States all imaginable Assurances of their Designs to return to the King's Amity and to purchase it at any Rate they could they could faithfully neglect these and enter into a new Engagement so prejudicial to England 4. How far those who were joined in Commission did concur in their Judgment and whether these Considerations with many others were not represented to them and urged by some who desired to serve the King faithfully 5. Whether or no it was for that Reason they opposed to fiercely my Lord Viscount Hallifax's whom came a Day or two after them Appearing and Acting jointly with them tho in the same Commission with them in as ample a Manner as themselves 6. Who were those who after my Lord Hallifax could be kept out no longer went privately to the French Camp under Pretences and had Negotiations of their own on foot 7. Whether they had order to call the French King King of France and to name him before their Master as well in the French Demands as of his Majesty's in all their Agreements which they sent to the Prince of Orange 8. Whether they had Instructions to stand in the Behalf of the French upon the Publick Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion in the Vnited Provinces the Churches to be divided to the Roman Priests to be maintained out of the Publick Revenue And to bind the King's Hands so that the French King may be sure of his Bargain these Plenipotentiaries Two of them agreed with the French that the King should not treat nor conclude a Peace with the Dutch without them But the French King shall find no more Security herein than the Dutch and Spaniard did in the King 's joining in the Triple League For the Support of this holy Catholick Design stood my Lord Treasurer Clifford and a new Band of Parliament-Pensioners never before heard of in England at Board and Wages but these being a kind of Land-Privateers are to tax the Country to pay themselves and to do whatsoever shall be commanded or no Purchase no Pay In this state of Affairs the Parliament met again the 4th of February 1671 â— when the Commons like Men coming out of a drowzy Lethargy began to consider the dangerous state of the Nation and the dangerous Consequences of the severe Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters by provoking them to join with the Popish and therefore tho they question'd the King's Declaration of Indulgence and no Money was like to be had unless he recall'd it yet upon the 14th of February the Commons resolved Nemiâ—â— contradicente That a Bill be brought in for the Ease
of Indulgence was an unlawful Act and that if they had submitted to the King's Will to have enjoined it to have been read in all Churches and Chappels of their respective Diocesses it had been an unlawful Act which was one Reason they could not comply with the King's Will and that this Declaration was not intended a Favour to the Protestant Dissenters but a Design to ruin the established Religion and Church of England and the enjoining the Bishops to have read was a Design upon their Persons as well as the Declaration was upon the Church and that the King professed himself to be of the Popish Religion which they believed and declared to be Idolatry in the worshipping Images and derogatory to God's Honour by Invocation of Saints whereby they grant to Creatures an Omniscience which is inseparable from God and only to be ascribed to him and that the King had owned the Papal Power which not only claims a Dominion over all Kings and Kingdoms to be at the Pope's disposal and who had declared the Church of England to be Heretical Schismatical and Sacrilegious Persons with whom no Faith is to be kept but had assumed a Power equal or superiour to God himself in dispensing with God's Laws and setting its own above them by sending his Ambassador to the Pope and receiving his Nuncio With what Conscience then could the Bishops approach God's Altars in their highest Acts of Devotion and in the Prayer for the Parliament declare to God that he is their most religious King and in the Litany to pray to God to keep and strengthen the King in the Worship of God or Religion which the King profest And how could they delare to God he is their most gracious Sovereign when he had imprisoned them for not submitting to his unlawful Will and had owned a Power which had declared them Hereticks Schismaticks and Sacrilegious Persons who were by all ways and means to be extirpated from the Face of the Earth Yet the Bishops by their Canonical Obedience were as much obliged hereto and to enjoin the Clergy in their respective Diocesses to offer these Praises to God as they were not to obey the King's Will by enjoining the King's Declaration of Indulgence to be read by all the Clergy in their Diocesses To this Dilemma had the flattering Church and State in King Charles the II's Reign tho intending it against the Presbyterians by their Act of Vniformity brought the Church and State too in the Reign of King James But lest this establishing of Popery should have no longer support than in the King's Life a new Miracle is to be added to the Legend for the next day after the Bishops were committed to the Tower the Queen was brought to Bed of a Prince of Wales so that now they had got a Prince of Wales and the Queen received the Consecrated Clouts and the Pope by his Nuncio is become God-father a Foundation so infallible is laid for exalting the Papal Chair and extirpating the Pestilent Northern Heresy that it's Heresy to doubt it But Man purposes and God disposes and in truth without God's special Assistance not only these Dominions of England Scotland and Ireland but all the Western Parts of Europe were not to be retrieved out of I may say even a desperate State for in England the King had a standing Army of above 20000 Men and the Whigs were but too forward to congratulate the King in his Designs and in humouring him in giving him up their Charters as the Tories in King Charles his Reign in their Abhorrences of the King 's calling a Parliament and as forward then as the Whigs now in surrendring their Charters The Protestant Army in Ireland not only disbanded by Tyrconnel and a Popish Army set up but the Protestants disarmed and Scotland so perfectly subdued that there the King 's Absolute Will without reserve must pass for Law The King of Spain so weak as not able to defend himself much less relieve others the Empire engaged in a War against the Turks in the East so as the Western Parts were in no Condition to repel the Impression the French should make upon it The Kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark remote and at such natural Enmity with one another that if one should side with France or England the other would engage against it and tho Holland were considerable elsewhere at Sea yet their Strength at Sea was inferiour to the English but much more in Conjunction of the French with the English However something must be done for Modesty in this State had been the highest Crime and of all Foreign Princes the Prince of Orange was most immediately concerned not only in the Oppression of the French King upon his Principality of Orange and the Dangers which threatned the Vnited Provinces by the swelling Grandeur of the French but by the King 's Arbitrary Proceedings in England for the Princess was the Presumptive Heir to the Crown of England and Scotland And since it is the Laws and Constitutions which erect these Nations into Kingdoms whereof the King is the Head then if the King destroys the Laws and Constitutions he is neither King nor the Princess of Orange Presumptive Heir to them besides since the King had assumed a Power of Dispensing with the Laws he might as well in Dispensing with the Succession and the Prince was well assured neither those about the King nor the Pope would much favour his or his Lady's Title to the Crown nor was the introducing the Prince of Wales into the World intended to have either the Prince or Princess come to the Crown of England The Prince of Orange thus injured by both these Kings and being denied the Benefit of any Humane Laws for redress has recourse to God and his Sword for relief and opposes the Justice of his Cause against the Potency of his Adversaries Nor does he take up his Sword to vindicate his own Rights only but for restoring the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland to their antient Rights Laws and Privileges invaded by King James and to put a stop to the French King 's boundless Ambition and Tyranny in Murdering Ravaging and Destroying rather than making a War upon all his neighbouring Princes not dispossest and ruined by him A Design so great by so little a Prince as no less than a Divine Power could inspire him to such an Undertaking The Prince these two last years had several Conferences with the Electors of Brandenburg Saxony and the Princes of the House of Lunenburg and other Princes of Germany it 's believed in concerting Measures how to behave themselves against the Designs of these two Kings but the Results were so secret that I find no mention of them But how secret soever these Results were yet the Preparations to put them in Execution could be no Secret especially the Naval Preparations by Sea though the Dutch Ambassador assured the King they were not intended against him yet refused to communicate
Gaunt's elder Brother So that of the Succession of 14 Kings after the Conqueror there were but four viz. Richard the First Edward the First and Second and Richard the Second which succeeded as Heirs to the Conqueror or his Heirs Admit Edward the 4th succeeded right as Heir to Phillippa Daughter of the Duke of Clarence yet if it be true which Richard the 3d says and which is confirmed by the Authority of the Act of Parliament 1 Rich. 3. that Edward was contracted to Eleanor Boteler before he married Elizabeth then did not Edward the 5th if it may be called a Succession succeed right nor could Henry the 7th claim any Right to the Crown of England in Right of his Wife Elizabeth the eldest Daughter of Edward the Fourth But whether it be true or not that Edward was contracted to Eleanor Boteler before his Marriage yet Richard the 3d succeeded not as Heir Edward Earl of Warwick the Son of George Duke of Richard's elder Brother being then alive Of all the Kings of England that succeeded the Conqueror Henry the 7th had the least Pretension to any Title to the Crown for tho he were supposed to have been descended from John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster yet it was the Duke's Paramour Katherine Swinford whose Issue by the Duke tho by Act of Parliament they were legitimated to all other purposes yet were not capacitated to succeed to the Crown of England but if the Title of Lancaster had been preferable to that of York and Henry had been of the legitimate Line yet could not he have succeeded as Heir his Mother under whom he claimed being then alive and out-lived her Son Nor did the King's Marriage with Elizabeth eldest Daughter of Edward the 4th improve his Title to his Succession the Marriage being subsequent to it and before it the Crown by Act of Parliament was entailed upon Henry the 7th and the Heirs of his Body and after Marriage he never used her Name in calling any Parliament or in any Proclamation or the Coin or passing any Act of Parliament and as he reigned without her before Marriage so he did after her Death for he out-lived her tho she left two Sons Arthur and Henry after Henry the Eighth and two Daughters Elizabeth Queen of Scotland and Mary after Queen of France It seems to me that Ferdinand King of Castile and Arragon had the same Opinion which Richard the 3d and the Parliament had that the Issue of Edward the 4th were not legitimate for he would not assent to the Marriage of his Daughter Katherine with Arthur Prince of Wales so long as the Earl of Warwick Son of the Duke of Clarence lived and there a fine Trick was found out to put the poor Prince to Death for endeavouring to make his Escape out of the Tower with Perkin Warbeck and in him ended the Masculine Line of the Race of the Plantagenets who had governed the English Nation after Stephen to Henry the 7th above 340 Years So that from the Conqueror to Henry the 8th scarce one of four of the Kings of England succeeded in a right Line as Heirs to the Conqueror As the Saxon Dynasty ended in Edward the Confessor and the Norman began in the Conqueror so it seems to me that the Norman ended in Richard the 3d and another of the British was erected in Henry the 7th who was the Son of Edmund of Hadham the Son of Owen Tudor by Katherine Daughter of Charles the 6th of France Wife of Henry the 5th of England and Mother of Henry the 6th So that Henry the 7th's Title to the Crown of France was better than that to the Crown of England for that of England was from a Maternal Ancestor Margaret Countess of Richmond no otherwise related to the Crown of England than descended from John of Gaunt by Katherine Swinford his Paramour Tho I do not find that Henry the 7th or any of his Descendants ever assumed the Sirname of Tudor So that tho the Crown of England neither in the Saxon nor Norman Race of Kings was always Hereditary so neither was the Succession to the Crown elective For in elective Kingdoms after the Death of one King there is an Establishment of the manner of Elections and in the mean time there are Custodes Regni appointed whose Power ceases upon the Election of a King but neither of these were ever heard of in either of the Saxon or Norman Race and tho sometimes it 's said the Kings were chosen as of Edward the Son of Alfred by the Nobles and so of Athelstan and so in the Norman Race Henry the First was said to be chosen for that he promised to abrogate all the Oppressions and Errors brought into the Government by his Father and Brother tho his eldest Brother Robert was then alive and restore the good Laws of Edward the Confessor and Stephen was chosen by the Clergy and Londoners yet this was rather a form of Speaking in those days than any formal Election and the manner differed according to the different Humours of the Times Nor do we read that ever the Parliament meddled with the Succession of the Crown before Henry the Fourth for tho the first Parliament of Edward the Third renounced their Allegiance to Edward the Second and are said to have chosen Edward the Third yet they went no further and such an Election was no more than a Declaration of their Submission as when the Council declared James the Second King But whether the Crown of England was Hereditary in the Saxon and Norman Race it 's evident it was not so in this British Race for as it began in Henry the Seventh so it was entailed by Act of Parment upon him and Heirs of his Body before his Marriage with Elizabeth the eldest Daughter of Edward the Fourth So the inheritable Right of Edward's Issue and all the Norman Race was barred by this Act. Before we proceed in the Succession of the British Race we 'll take a view of the Genealogy of it John of Gaunt by Katherine Swinford had Issue John created Earl of Somerset who had Issue John created Duke of Somerset who had Issue Margaret After the Death of Henry the Fifth Katherine his Wife Sister of Charles the Sixth of France married Owen Tudor a Welch Gentleman who had Issue Edmund of Hadham created Earl of Richmond who married Margaret Daughter and Heir of John Duke of Somerset who had Issue Henry the Seventh Henry the Eighth succeeded his Father without any Contradiction for the Wars between the houses of York and Lancaster had destroyed the whole legitimate Lancastrian Line and Richard the Third after the Murder of his Brother Clarence and Death of Edward the Fourth had murdered his two Nephews Edward and Richard Sons of Edward the Fourth and himself was killed in the Fight in Bosworth-fields and after that Henry the Seventh had put Edward Earl of Warwick Son of the Duke of Clarence to Death none of all
horrible manner massacred many English and seized upon the English Factories there to the Value of four hundred thousand Pounds and made the rest of the English Slaves and sent them into other Islands which the Dutch had possessed themselves of This was in the Year 1622. Nor did the Dutch stay here but seized upon the English Factories in Seran Nero Waire Rosingen Latro Cambello Hitto Larica Lantare and Poloroone possessing themselves of their Goods and Factories there and took 1800 English which they sent into other Islands and Plantations which they had forced from the Indians Let 's see now how highly King James resented these things he only sent to the Dutch Ambassador and told him He never heard nor read a more cruel and impious Act than that of Amboyna But I do forgive them and I hope God will but my Son's Son shall revenge this Blood and punish this horrid Massacre nor never further vindicated his own Honour or his Subjects Blood and loss of their Goods and Trade herein Whereas about a Year before when he heard of the Commons horrid Invasion upon his Prerogative by asserting their Rights and Privileges in a Fury he dissolves the Parliament and sick as he was or seemed to be to the indangering of his Health he came in a hurry from Theobalds called his Council and Judges about him and propria Manu cut the Commons Protestation out of their Journal-Book and committed many of their Members close Prisoners without Bail or Main-prize and banished others That we may take a better View of the latter end of this Reign and the following one of King Charles it will be convenient to look into Holland and herein observe That Barnevelt and the Dutch States after they had retrieved their Cautionary Towns from King James Barnevelt assisted by Hugo Grotius nourished a Faction in Holland called the Arminian from Arminius who maintained 5 Heads contrary to what Calvin had taught in his Institutions which was the Doctrine of the Church set up in Holland and the other Vnited Provinces By this Faction thus countenanced by Barnevelt and Grotius they endeavoured to have deposed Maurice Prince of Orange State-holder tho he and his Father and Uncles were the principal Instruments whereby the Dutch became States But Maurice proved too hard for them and cut off Barnevelt's Head and had hanged Grotius if his Wife had not conveyed him away in a great Chest pretending it contained Arminian Books This was in the Year 1620. Tho Barnevelt and Grotius propagated the Arminian Tenets to have deposed the Prince of Orange and advanced their Democratical Government yet the Church-men of England who preached the King's absolute Power and exalted his divided Will from the Laws and Constitutions of the Nation above his Royal Will in Governing by them promoted these Tenets and those that opposed them were stiled Puritans The principal Stickler herein was Dr. William Laud a Man of a most turbulent and aspiring Disposition and one of the first Acts for which he was taken notice of was to marry the Earl of Devonshire to the Lady Rich Mother to Robert Earl of Warwick and Henry Earl of Holland when her Husband was alive but this was so far from advancing him that the King was highly incensed against him for it Yet Laud's aspiring Humour could not contain him in a private State but follow the Court he would yet could never arrive higher than to be one of the King's Chaplains by means whereof he sometimes got the King's Ear. The King hated the Presbyterian Government and had got the Bishops in Scotland to be re-ordained by three of the English Bishops as a distinct Order which the Kirk in Scotland took for an abominable Usurpation over them and also in the Year 1618 got the five Articles commonly called The five Articles of Perth to be settled as more agreeable to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England but this was to the further Indignation of the Kirk-party and herein King James set up his rest as having gained an high Point but tho the King hated the Presbyterian Government yet he opposed the Arminian Tenets Arch-bishop Abbot observed of him when he was at Court he was Buckingham's only inward Counsellor sitting sometimes with him privately whole hours and feeding his Humour with Malice and Spite and when he was at Oxford his Business was to pick Quarrels in the Lectures of publick Readers and to advertise them to the Bishop of Durham Neal the great Countenancer of the Arminian Tenets and Promoter of the King's Prerogative that he might fill the Ears of King James with Discontents against the honest Men that took pains in their Places and settled the Truth which he called Puritanism in their Auditors As you may read in Rush fol. 444. Nor could Laud forbear when he could get the King's Ear but he urged him more than once to promote the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England in Scotland after the obtaining the passing of the five Articles at Perth this frighted King James who better knew the Temper of his Country-men and how difficultly he had got the Articles of Perth to pass that Laud ignorant of the Temper of the Scotish Nation should be so audacious to put the King upon this which might as it after did embroil all Scotland in Tumults and Wars and now becomes more averse to Laua's Promotion than before But this was no Consideration to Buckingham whether the King would or nor Laud should rise And soon after Williams was made Lord Keeper the Bishoprick of St. Davids fell and Buckingham resolved Laud should have it and the Keeper must be the Man to propound it to the King and receive no Denial But it 's fit to observe here in what an humbling manner this Promotion was accomplish'd on the part of Laud and take it as it was sent me by a Gentleman with the Attestation of Col. L. and R. L. Esq who often heard Mr. Francis Osburn speak of it as a certain Truth and who had taken notice of it in some of his Works not made publick As soon as Laud had Information that the foresaid Bishoprick was vacant he hastens to wait upon the Duke of Buckingham for that Preferment but found the Duke was not stirring but being impatient of Delay prevails upon one of the Duke's Gentlemen to acquaint him he had earnest Business with his Grace and begged immediate Admittance which being granted the Doctor enters his Grace's Chamber and finds him a-bed with a Whore the Duke asks his Business Laud told him the Bishop of St. Davids was dead and that he came to beg his Grace to recommend him to the King for the vacant See The Duke told him that he had been represented to him as the proudest Man alive and therefore he could not in Honour recommend him to the King Laud assures his Grace that what had been said of him upon that Head was utterly false and the effect of
Malice c. for he was so far acquainted with himself as that he knew himself to be the humblest Man alive I 'll try that presently says the Duke and so as a Testimony of his great Humility orders him Spaniel-like to take several Turns over and under the Bed his Grace and his Whore all the while lying in it which he did to Content and when 't was over Well says the Duke now I believe you and you shall have the Bishoprick of St. Davids Williams who knew the Disposal of the Seal was as Buckingham pleased durst do no otherwise than become Laud's Advocate to the King but the King was at first utterly averse from it giving Laud's Marriage of the Lady Rich and his urging the King not to rest at the five Articles of Perth for some Reasons but the Keeper persisting and alledging how sorry Laud was for these the King at last said And is there no hoe but you will carry it then take him to you but on my Soul you will repent it and so went away in Anger using other fierce and ominous Words which were divulged in Court and are too tart to be repeated as you may read fol. 64. tit 75. in the Life of Archbishop Williams It 's observable that Benefits conferred upon Ambitious Men never create any Obligation of Gratitude on the contrary ill Men generally turn the Benefits received to the Ruin and Overthrow of their Benefactors More likely Instances hereof are rarely to be found than in Laud and Buckingham this having received his first Admission into the King's Favour by the Mediation of the Archbishop to the Queen Ann none else being able to perswade her to it yet before the Arch-bishop could bring the Queen to it she often told him My Lord You and the rest of your Friends know not what you do I know your Master the King better than you all for if this young Man be once brought in the first Persons that he will plague must be you that labour for him yea I shall have my part also the King will teach him to despise and hardly intreat us all that he may be beholden to none but himself as you may read in his own Narrative in Rushworth from fol. 438 to fol. 461. But Laud's Contrivance to ruin Williams after Bishop of Lincoln takes up almost a Volume reported by the Bishop of Litchfield and by what villanous Instruments Perjuries Subornation and keeping back of Witnesses expunging and razing Records and by displacing Sir Robert Heath from being Lord Chief Justice because he would not do Laud's Drudgery and bringing in Sir John Finch who would jurare in Verba Magistri as well as throw down the Bounds of the Forests to make the King's Subjects Inheritances to be a Prey to wild Beasts yet after Laud had perpetrated all these he confest he never read the Commission by which he acted See the second Part of the Bishop of Lincoln's Life However Laud could make no great Progress of his Malice against the Keeper in the Shortness of the Reign of King James after he became Bishop for the King had the Keeper's Parts and Learning in high Esteem tho Buckingham both hated and feared the Keeper for them no great sign of a wise Statesman see the Bishop of Litchfield's Life of Arch-bishop Williams Part 1. fol. 148. tit 156. and had so little Wit as to say so Yet Laud now a Bishop from a Stickler and Informer against those who opposed the Arminian Tenets now becomes a Patron and Promoter of them all Court-Favour now looked that way and the Opposers of them were discountenanced and ranked in the Degree of Puritans all the Youth generally ran that way and the Schools in both Universities rung loud upon those Tenets and from thence were dispersed into all Parts of the Kingdom The King having spent the two Subsidies granted in Parliament and the Benevolence which he had by his own Authority raised all over England for the Recovery of the Palatinate upon the Prince's Expedition into Spain Buckingham to his Project of getting the Dean and Chapters Lands propounds the Sale of all the Crown-Lands but this meeting with many Difficulties and being disswaded from the farther Prosecution of it by the powerful Reasons of my Lord Keeper Williams there was now no other means left to get Money but by calling a Parliament And now Buckingham courts the popular Humour and appears most forward for to make appear in Parliament the Reasons which induced him to perswade the Prince to break off from the Match with Spain which tho it took at present yet it was but short-lived for the Treaty of the Marriage between the Prince and Daughter of France spoil'd all But this was not known during the sitting of the Parliament which met upon the 16th of February 1623-24 We hear of no Proclamation now against talking of State-Affairs the debating of them in Parliament is not Sutor ultra crepidam on the contrary the King in his first Speech to them the 19th of February tells them He craves their Advice and that he would advise with them in Matters concerning his Estate and Dignity and that he had ever endeavoured by this and the like ways to procure and cherish the Love of his People towards him So he does hope and his Hope exceeded by Faith that never any King was more beloved by his People c. Let any Man compare this with what the King said and did last Parliament and after and judg of the Sincerity of this part of the King's Speech especially when he remembred himself better when in his last Speech to this Parliament he boasted he had broken the Necks of three Parliaments which were all that were in his Reign but this But these were but Generals of which he complains afterwards having learn'd it of his Scholar Buckingham in particular he asks their free Counsels in the Match of his Son the debating of which last Parliament gave him so great Offence Now at this time the King had broke off the Match in Spain and was treating another with France which was greedily entertained in the French Court and some Progress made in it of which the King never that I can find or do believe mentioned one word to the Parliament The next Particular which the King communicated to them was of his Scholar but now his Master Buckingham in whom he the King ever reposed the most Trust of his Person that he should be ever present with the Prince in Spain and never leave him till he returned again safely to him which he did tho not with that Effect of the Business expected yet not without Profit for it taught him the King this point of Wisdom Qui versatur in generalibus is easily deceived and that Generality brings nothing to good Issue but that before any Matter can be fully finished it must be brought to Particulars for when he thought the Affair had been before their going reduced to
The Keeper besought the Duke to make haste to Windsor and to shew himself to the King before Supper was ended to deport himself with all amiable Addresses and not to stir from him Day nor Night for the Danger was that some would thrust themselves to push on the King to break up the Parliament and the next degree of their Hope was upon the Dissolution of the Parliament to see his Grace committed to the Tower and then God knows what would follow the Keeper besought him to be secret and be quick and judicious in the Prevention More might not be said because the Loss of Time might lose all The Duke thankt him and made haste to Windsor before he was lookt for and was as inseparable from the King as his Shadow The Fineness of the Keeper's Wit in unriddling this Mystery is equal to that of Cicero in finding out the Bottom of Catiline's Conspiracy and by like means viz. by Women tho after a different manner For Fulvia of her own accord discovered Catiline's Conspiracy in Spite and Emulation to Sempronia but the Keeper bribed one of Fulvia's Stamp to get an Insight into this Design which so perplext the King It seems to me that the Prince and Duke had a Jealousy that the Spanish Ambassador might infuse something into the Keeper which might spoil the Narrative which the Duke made in Parliament of the Spanish Match and therefore the Keeper had given express Orders that neither the Spanish Ambassador nor any of his Train or Followers should come at him whereby the Keeper had been secluded for a Month from any Intelligence from thence But before Don Francisco Carondelet the Ambassador's Secretary was frequently at the Keeper's he was contrary to the Ambassador as well by Birth for he was a Walloon not a Castilian and Arch-Dâ—aâ—on of Cambray as by Nature being learned and of a free and pleasant Dispoâ—â—tion whereas the Spanish Ambassador was most austere and sowr so as there was a great Intimacy between the Keeper and him and out of him the Keeper got what a Servant the Secretary was to some of our English Ladies of Pleasure but above all to one in Mark-lane who by her Wit so managed the Secretary that he could keep no Secret from her which she would have had made known With her the Keeper held Correspondence and presented her bountifully though he told the Prince he had never seen her and by her the Keeper had the rough Draught of the Deâ—â—gn of the Paper which the Ambassador had put into the King's Hands The Keeper had also notice of an English Priest who lived in Drury-lane which the Secretary loved above any other and was dearer to him than his own Confessor but whether the Keeper came to the Knowledge of this by the Lady in Mark-lane or from the Secretary himself the Bishop does not say The Commons had drawn up a Remonstrance against the Liberty which the Priests assumed which the King called a Stinging one and which put the Priests into a great Terror and in this Terror he sent his Pursevant Captain Toothbie to seize the Priest in Mark-lane and not to commit him to Prison but to keep him at his own House till further Order The Secretary soon heard of this and was confounded what to do for the Priest's Delivery he knew no other means to do it but by my Lord Keeper and from him he was banished yet in this Extremity he sent to the Keeper to beg of him to see his Face but that Day tho he never saw him more this was it the Keeper deâ—â—red yet he seemed very unwilling to admit him however if the Secretary came about eleven of the Clock at Night the Keeper would order one of his Servants to let him in at the back-Door of the Garden When the Secretary came into the Keeper's Presence he told the Keeper That nothing but a Matter as dear to him as his own Life should have forc'd him to break Rule to offend his Lordship with his Presence and bewailed the Disaster of his Confrere's Attachment and most passionately implored the Keeper to compass his Deâ—iverance And would you have me says the Keeper run such an Hazard to set a Priest at Liberty a dead Man by our Statutes when the Eye of the Parliament is so vigilant upon the Breach of Justice especially in this kind to the sadding of godly Men who detest them that creep hither out of Seminaries above all other Malefactors because they come with an intent to pervert them who have lived in the Bâ—som of our Church My Lord says Francisco accenting his Words with passionate Gesture let not the Dread of this Parliament trouble you for I can tell you if you have not heard it that it is upon Expiration and then the Keeper pickt out of him the Heads of the Articles in the Paper the Ambassador had given the King with all the Reasons Circumstances and distorted Proofs and Expositions to confirm them and about two in the Morning dismist the Secretary and ordered the Pursevant to release the Priest with Caution that he should cross the Seas that Day or the next The Keeper was as happy in his Memory as in his Wit and Invention for after the Secretary was gone he neither slept nor stirred out of the Room till he had digested all the Secretary had told him in Writing with his Observations upon each Particular and when he had trimmed up a fair Copy but what it was the Bishop says not he carried it to the Prince at St. James's This was upon Tuesday morning after the King went to Windsor The Prince read the Charges and admired at the Virulency of them with the Antiscripts of the Keeper which were much commended whereupon he caused his Coach to be made ready but before he went the Keeper humbly begg'd of him to conceal the Matter for two Reasons First for searching into the King's Counsels which he would not should be opened Secondly that when he had found them out to discover them tho to his Highness which the Prince promised and then went to Windsor When he came there he called for the Duke and shewed him the Paper privately with the Apology in the other Column the Duke humbly thankt the Prince that his Case was interwoven with his Highness and their double Vindication put into one Frame and besought the Prince to know what Vitruvius had compacted a Piece of Architecture of such Vicinity in so short a time but could not obtain it So they forthwith desired a private Hearing of the King and gave the Schedule to his Majesty's Consideration the King read it deliberately and at many Stops said 't was well very well and drew the Prince and Duke near to him and embraced them both protesting he sorrowed much that he had aggrieved them with a Jealousy fomented by no better than Traitors And that you may know said the King how little you shall pay me for Reconciliation I ask no
the narrow Passages between the Salt-pits those that escaped were lost in the Salt-Pits and Ditches and the Crowd was so great in passing a Bridg that many were drown'd in the River yet in this Confusion and Adversity the Bravery of the English appear'd for a few having past the Bridg the French following the English rallied and faced about to charge the French who cowardly retreated over the Bridg. Except this little Action yet as great in Fame as any other the English Nation never received like Dishonour as in this loose and unguided Conduct of this lascivious Duke in this Expedition of whom it may be truly said he was Mars ad Opus Veneris Martis ad Arma Venus Home he comes and finds things as much in Disorder here as he had left them in Dishonour abroad the Prisons full of the most eminent Gentry of England by a special Warrant from the King for refusing to lend as they were assess'd by the Commissioners for the Loan and Bail denied them upon return of their Corpus's An Army was kept on foot when this Expedition had consumed all that which should have paid them which had not been done in 80 Years before the People fearing this was more to enslave than defend them In this Confusion Sir Cotton's Advice is called for by the King and Council what 's to be done who in a long and well composed Speech beginning at Charles the 5th sets forth the Design of the House of Austria to attain an universal Monarchy in these Western Parts of Europe How the Design was first check'd by Henry the 8th against Charles but more by Queen Elizabeth against his Son Philip the 2d they following a free Council and thereby winning the Hearts of a loving People ever found Hands and Money for all Occasions That the only way to raise Money speedily and securely was the Via Regia by Parliament other ways were unknown untrodden rough tedious and never succeeded well That Religion lies nearest the Conscience of the Subject and that there was a Jealousy of some Practices against it and that tho the Duke of Bucks had broken the Spanish Match out of a Religious Care that the Articles demanded might endanger the State of the Reformed Religion yet being an Actor in the French Match as hard if not worse passed than those of Spain Sir Robert goes on and enumerates the Miscarriages in these two last Years the Waste of the King's Revenue the Pressures upon the publick Liberty of the Subjects in commanding their Goods without Consent in Parliament imprisoning their Persons without special Cause shewed and this made good against them by the Judges How to obviate these he leaves to the prudent Consideration of the Council but like old Sir Charles Harboard he wishes that the Duke might appear to be the first Adviser for calling a Parliament so that the People may be satisfied this Parliament should be called by the zealous Care and Industry of the Duke Now the Hopes of getting Money by calling the Parliament works more than the Laws of God or sacred Justice could do for upon the 29th of January Writs are issued out for the Assembling of a Parliament to meet the 17th of March following the Prison-Doors are opened for the imprisoned Gentry to go abroad the Arch-bishop the Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Lincoln who tho now in Disgrace was the first Raiser of Laud after Bishop of London and Arch-Bishop of Canterbury have Writs to 〈◊〉 in Parliament But see the Unstability of Resolutions not founded in Truth Justice or Prudence for the next Day after the Writs for summoning the Parliament were agreed the King January the 30th granted a Privy-Seal to Burlemach for 30000 l. to be returned to Sir William Balfour and John Daâ—bier for raising a thousand German Hâ—rse with Arms both for Horse and Foot to be sent into England February the 28th where was an Army already upon free Quarter and after grants a Commission to 23 Lords and others to raise Money upon Impositions or otherwise Thus things stood in the State before the Meeting of the Parliament Now let 's see how they stood in the Church Barnevelt having headed a Faction in Holland which called themselves Arminians and designing by them to have deposed the Prince of Orange lost his Head for it about four Years before now on the contrary the Arminian Faction here which called themselves the Church of England ascribed all Dominion to the absolute Power of the King The Principals of this Faction were Neal Bishop of Wâ—â—chester Laud Bishop of Bath and Welâ—s and Richard Mountague afterwards advanced to the Bishopricks of Chichester and Norwich this Faction was headed by the Duke At this time the Jesuits had taken a House at Clarkenwell designing to make a College of it who in a Letter to the Father Rector of the Jesuits at Brussels boast that they had planted the soveraign Drug Arminianism which they hoped would purge the Protestants from their Heresy and that it flourished and bore Fruit in a due Season and they proceeded by Counsel and Consideration how and when to work upon the Duke's Jealousy and Revenge and in that they gave the Honour to those who merit it which were the Church Catholicks they assured themselves they had made the Duke and the Parliament irreconcilable and that they have those of their Religion who stand continually at the Duke's Chamber to see who comes in and who goes out They glory how admirably in their Speech and Gestures they act the Puritans and the Cambridg Scholars shall find by woful Experience they can act the Puritans better than they have done the Jesuits That their Foundation is Arminianism that the Arminians and Projectors affect Mutation Having thus laid the Foundation for propagating their Religion the Jesuits next Care was for the State and in the first place they consider the King's Honour and Necessities and shew how the King may free himself of his Word as Lewis the 11th did and for greater Splendor and Lustre how he may raise a great Revenue and not be beholden to his Subjects which was by way of Excise which must be by a mercenary Army of Horse and Foot For the Horse they had made sure they should be Foreigners and Germans who would eat up the King's Revenue and spoil the Countries wheresoever they came tho they should be paid What Havock then will they make there when they get no Pay or are not duly paid they will do more Mischief than we hope the Army will do This mercenary Army of 2000 Horse and 20000 Foot was to be taken into pay before the Excise be settled In forming the Excise the Country is most likely to rise if the Mercenary Army subjugate the Country the Soldiers are to be paid out of the Confiscations they hope instantly to dissolve Trade and hinder the Building of Ships by devising probable Designs and putting the State upon Expeditions as that of Cadiz and in taking
Lesley gave all for lost But the Prince as he did before at Edghill pursuing the Enemy too far gave an Opportunity to Sir Thomas Fairfax to rally his Men and joining with Cromwel's Regiment of Lobsters armed with Pot Back and Brest fell upon the Right Wing of the King's Army and routed them and also the rest of the King's Foot destitute of Horse and obtain'd a compleat Victory In this Fight above 7000 were slain 3000 of the King's part taken Prisoners and 25 Ordnance 47 Colours 10000 Arms two Waggons laden with Carabines and Pistols 130 Barrels of Powder with all the Bag and Baggage After this the Parliament's Generals returned to the Siege of York and summoned it which was delivered up to them by Sir Thomas Glenham and the Marquess of Newcastle went beyond Sea Thus was all the North reduced to the Parliament by the fatal Rashness of the Prince who might have avoided the Fight and joined with the Marquess of Montross and Col. Clavering who were with 6000 Foot within two Days march of him The North thus subdued upon the Matter Essex by the Perswasion of my Lord Roberts marches into the West but a different Fate attended him For the King followed him and joining with Prince Maurice followed Essex into Cornwal where he block'd up all the Avenues so as Essex must either fight or be starv'd but in regard that the King had possest himself of all the Passages Essex could not fight without an apparent Hazard of the Loss of his Army However Sir William Balfour with 2300 Horse brake through the King's Army and got to Salt-Ash and from thence to Plimouth which held for the Parliament Now were the Parliament's Foot in a wretched State the King closely pursuing them and the Countrey People rising upon them Hereupon Essex deserts them and with divers of his Officers by Sea got to Plimouth leaving Skippon to take care of the rest who upon the 2d of September capitulated to deliver up to the King all their Artillery with all the Bag and Baggage no Person under a Corporal to wear any kind of Weapon all Officers above to wear only Sword and Pistol And so Skippon marched to Pool which was in the Parliament's Power The Ill Success of Essex in this Expedition was the Cause of Essex his Fall tho the Parliament at present seemed to be otherwise disposed and of the Rise of Cromwel as we shall observe Whilst these things were doing in the North and West other Actions of less Consequence happened Sir Thomas Middleton having taken Mountgomery-Castle the King's Forces advanced in a much greater Body to retake it whereupon Sir Thomas retreated But being joined with Sir William Brereton Sir John Meldrum a Scot and Sir William Fairfax returned and charged the King's Party and took Prisoner M. G. Broughton Lt. Col. Bludwel M. Williams nine Captains many inferiour Officers and 1500 common Soldiers Of the Parliament's Party Sir William Fairfax was slain with Eleven Wounds Maj. Fitz-Symons and about 40 Souldiers and 60 wounded Monmouth Town and Castle were surprized by Massey with the Loss only of Six Men. Lieut. Gen. Lesley in the North fell upon the Forces commanded by Sir Philip Musgrave kill'd divers upon the Place and took 100 Prisoners My Lord Herbert Son of the Earl of Worcester was beaten by Massey who killed 50 and took 60 Prisoners and Massey fell upon a Party of the King 's near Beachy killed 70 and took 170 Prisoners and Col. Charles Fleetwood took two Troops of the King's Horse near Belvoir Castle From these lesser Actions we now advance to tell of Greater The Parliament's Army every where victorious in the North Lesley had now an Opportunity to return to New-Castle which he summoned to yield which being refused he stormed and took it by Force whereupon Sir John Marlay the Mayor and others fled to the Castle and would have capitulated but were denied and so were forced to surrender at Discretion But how successful soever the Parliament's Forces were in the North after the Fight at Marslon-Moor the King reaped but little after the Parliament's Foot had delivered up their Arms in the West for Essex having joined Manchester and Waller resolved to hinder the King's Return to Oxford and upon the 23d of October rendezvouz'd the Army at Aldermaston-Park and next Night privately passed the Water at a Ford near Padworth and next Morning to Bucklebury-Heath near Newberry where the King then was and about 12 a Clock drew down their whole Army between Thatcham and Shaw and skirmished with the King's Horse Manchester's Troops and the London Train'd-Bands crossed the River Kennet between Newberry and the Hill and forced the King's Party which kept the Pass from thence with some Execution but Sir Bernard Astley Son of Sir Jacob or the Lord Astley coming to their Rescue forced the Parliamentarians back again In the Afternoon 4000 of Essex and Waller's Horse and Dragoons with 500 Foot charged the King's Forces on the West of Newberry and forced them to retreat in some Disorder and some of the King's Field-Pieces were taken Essex followed the Success and charged the King's Life-Guard whom he overpowered and had much more endamaged if the Lord Bernard Stuart had not come to their Assistance and secured their Retreat but the Parliamentarians every way advancing beat the King's Army out of the Field with the Loss of many Colours and two Pieces of Cannon Sir Anthony St. Leger Lieutenant-Colonel Leak Lieutenant-Colonel Topping and Captain Catclyne elder Brother of Sir Nevil Catclyne my worthy Friend were killed and the Earl of Cleveland and some few others taken Prisoners If the King's Affairs succeeded so ill in the West they did worse in the North for Leverpool submitted to the Parliament and Lesley had Tinmouth-Castle a Place which hereafter he shall be better acquainted with tho not in the Quality of a General of an Army but a Prisoner surrender'd upon Articles After this Janus's Temple was shut this Year if you begin it at January And now a Treaty of Peace at Vxbridg is set on foot at the Desire of the King but no Success attended it This Year tho the Princes Rupert and Maurice followed the King in his Wars against the Parliament yet the Elector Palatine Frederick their elder Brother petitioned the Parliament that he might come over and take the Covenant which tho at first they refused yet afterwards they admitted him and allowed him 8000 l. per Annum out of my Lord Petres and other Delinquents Estates and so he continued till after the Treaty at Munster 1648 where he led a Life not becoming a Prince in Adversity The Treaty of Peace at Vxbridg not succeeding the Parliament took the Town of Shrewsbury which as it is one of the most famous of all the Towns of England so it stopt on that part the Entercourse of Wales with the Counties of Salop Chester and Worcester But to throw a little Water into the Wine of the Parliament's
assume to themselves the Supream Power of Ordering the English Affairs confirm the Vote of Non-Addresses to the King and raze the Votes of having a Conference with the King and the Declaration that the King's Concessions were a sufficient Ground for a Peace out of the Journals of the House And vote first that all Power resides in the People Secondly That the Power belongs to the Peoples Representatives in the House of Commons Thirdly That the Votes of the Commons have the Force of a Law without the King Fourthly That to take Arms against the Representatives of the People or the Parliament is High-Treason Fifthly That the King himself took up Arms against the Parliament and therefore is guilty of all the Blood shed in this Civil War and ought by his own Blood to expiate it The Nation was astonished at these Votes for the Person of the King of England was ever esteemed Sacred and therefore tho his Ministers were always accountable in Parliament for using or abusing the Name of the King to gratify their Ambition and wicked Designs against the King or Kingdom yet in no time was any King of England arraigned and judged to die by his own Subjects and tho Edward the Second Richard the Second Henry the Sixth and Edward the Fifth were murdered by wicked Men yet none of these suffered upon pretence of Justice But lame-footed Vengeance shall overtake both Rump and Army and as they both joined by Force to impose these upon the King and Nation so both without Force or any Man kill'd in their Defence shall be cashier'd with all imaginable Ignominy and Reproach These Men whom nothing but the King 's and his Loyal Subjects Blood could satiate against Law shall by Law have their own Blood shed in the most terrible manner the Law can inflict these Men who would have the Crown and Church-Lands for their Avarice shall either die or be hang'd as a Company of Beggars Oliver's Heir being undone to pay the Charge of his Father's Funeral or those who had Estates shall forfeit them to encrease the Revenues of the Crown The Regicides to put the best Face they could upon this audacious Act send the Bill for Trial of the King up to the Lords for their Concurrence but so far were the Lords from concurring that they threw the Bill over the Bar Hereupon the Rump vote the Lords dangerous and useless yet Henry Martin said they were useless but not dangerous Then the Rumpers advise with the Judges about the Trial of the King who unanimously declare it against Law and the Scots Commissioners protest against it But neither Authority Law nor Reason would take place with those Men so they erect a new Court never heard of before called a High Court of Justice for the Trial of the King to consist of I think Seventy two thirds of which were Souldiers who by putting the King to Death expected the Reward of the Inheritance both of the Crown and Church If it be Misery to have been happy to what a miserable State have these cursed Minions Flatterers and Sycophants brought one of the greatest and most high-born Princes in the Western World to gratify their Ambition Lust and Avarice for this Prince whom they would have to rend his Subjects from their Laws has now no Subjects who dare protect him by the Laws He who before so often gloried that to him alone belonged the Power of Proroguing Adjourning and Dissolving Parliaments who never did him Wrong but met to assist him against those who wronged him and to have reconciled him to his Subjects has now no Power to dissolve this Rump of a Parliament which will not be reconciled to him He who before so often called his truly Loyal Subjects Undutiful Seditious and Vipers Terms unusual in Princes shall hear himself call'd Tyrant Murderer and Traitor by his implacable Subjects He who before so often gloried he was only accountable to God for all his Actions shall be now called to an Account by a company of Men for Actions whereof they themselves were much more guilty and be sent to God to pass his Accounts there also For upon the 20th of January the King was haled before this Assembly where he was charged of Treason Tyranny and Murder for raising War against the Parliament and People of England Tho it 's evident the Members seiz'd the Militia the Tower of London and Fleet which Powers were inherent in the King and shut him out of Hull and granted Commissions for levying Souldiers before the King set up his Standard at Nottingham But admit the King did first raise Arms to have forced the Parliament and first actually set up his Standard against them and that was a Crime yet was the Regicides Crime greater who had forced the Parliament and set up themselves instead of it The King now too late flies to the Laws of the Land for his Protection protests against the Jurisdiction of the Court as established by no Legal Authority and declares his Life was not so dear to him as his Honour and Conscience and the Laws and Liberties of his People and that he will lose his Life rather than submit to such a Tyrannical Court And at last the King desired to be heard before the Lords and Commons in some things which concerned the Peace of the Kingdom and Liberty of the Subjects but this too was denied And so the 4th day after this Appearance Bradshaw the President gave Sentence upon him to lose his Head all the Court to the number of 67 owning it by standing up Which Sentence was executed the 30th of January The Character of King Charles the First THus fell one of the greatest and most high-born Princes of the Western World In his Person he was somewhat more than ordinarily tall and the Composition of it was framed in most exact natural Proportion of Parts so that he was very active and of a fine Mein in his Motion which was commonly more than ordinarily fast yet he appeared best on Horse-back and excelled in managing his Horse so that when he was in Spain in sight of the King Queen the Infanta's and the Infanta Maria whom he courted or at least seemed to do so and innumerable other Spectators he took the Ring in his first Course His Visage was long and appeared best when he did not speak for he had a natural Impediment in his Speech and would often stutter in it especially when he was in Passion To these Natural Endowments may be added a Temperance in Eating and Drinking and Chastity tho his Enemies unjustly traduced him otherways rarely to be found in Princes He was born in Scotland about two Years before his Father became King of England and being bred from his Infancy in a most luxurious and flattering Court tho he avoided the Luxury of it yet the Flattery of it took such deep Root in him that he would never permit free Counsel to take any Impression in him In his Nature