so spacious that her said Servants and Family may enter and stay therein In which there shall be an ordinary and publique door for them and another inward door by which the Infanta may have a passage into the said Chappel where she and others as above said may be present at Divine Offices 9. That the Chappel Church and Oratory may be beautified with decent Ornaments of Altar and other things necessary for Divine Service which is to be celebrated in them according to the custom of the Ho. Ro. Church and that it shall be lawful for the said Servants and others to go to the said Chappel and Church at all hours as to them shall seem expedient 10. That the care and custody of the said Chappel and Church shall be committed to such as the Lady Infanta shall appoint to whom it shall be lawful to appoint Keepers that no body may enter into them to do any undecent thing 11. That to the administration of the Sacraments and to serve in Chappel and Church aforesaid there shall be so many Priests and Assistants as to the Infanta shall seem fit and the election of them shall belong to the Lady Infanta and the Catholike King her Brother Provided that they be none of the Vassals of the King of Great Britain and if they be his will and consent is to be first obtained 12. That there be one Superiour Minister or Bishop with necessary Authority upon all occasions which shall happen belonging to Religion and for want of a Bishop that his Vicar may have his Authority and jurisdiction 13. That this Bishop or Superiour Minister may correct amend or chastize all Roman Catholiks who shall offend and shall exercise upon them all Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical and moreover also the Lady Infanta shall have power to put them out of her service when soever it shall seem expedient to her 13. That it may be lawful for the Lady Infanta and her Servants to procure from Rome Dispensations Indulgences Jubilees and all Graces as shall seem fit to their Religion and Consciences and to get and make use of any Catholike Books whatsoever 15. That the Servants of the Family of the Lady Infanta who shall come into England shall take the Oath of Allegiance to the King of Great Britain provided that there be no clause therein which shall be contrary to their Consciences and the Roman Catholike Religion and if they happen to be Vassals to the King of Great Britain they shall take the same Oath that the Spaniard doth 16. That the Laws which are or shall be in England against Religion shall not take hold of the said Servants And onely the foresaid Superiour Ecclesiastical Catholike may proceed against Ecclesiastical persons as hath been accustomed by Catholikes And if any Secular Judge shall apprehend any Ecclesiastical Person for any offence he shall forthwith cause him to be delivered to the aforesaid Superiour Ecclesiastick who shall proceed against him according to the Canon-Law 17. That the Lawes made against Catholikes in England or in any other Kingdom of the King of Great Britain shall not extend to the Children of this Marriage and though they be Catholikes they shall not lose the Right of Succession to the Kingdom and Dominions of Great Britain 18. That the Nurses which shall give suck to the Children of the Lady Infanta whether they be of the Kingdom of Great Britain or of any other Nation whatsoever shall be chosen by the Lady Infanta as she pleaseth and shall be accounted of her Family and enjoy the priviledges thereof 19. That the Bishop Ecclesiastical Persons and Religious of the Family of the Lady Infanta shall wear the Vestment and Habit of his dignity profession and Religion after the custom of Rome 20. For security that the said Matrimony be not dissolved for any cause whatsoever The King of Great Britain and Prince Charles are equally to pass the Word and Honour of a King and moreover that they will perform whatsoever shall be propounded by the Catholike King for further confirmation if it may be done decently and fitly 21. That the Sons and Daughters which shall be born of this Marriage shall be brought up in the company of the most Excellent Infanta at least until the Age of Ten years and shall freely enjoy the Right of Succession to the Kingdoms as aforesaid 22. That whensoever any place of either Man-servant or Maid-servant which the Lady Infanta shall bring with her nominated by the Catholike King her Brother shall happen to be void whether by death or by other Cause or accident all the said Servants of her Family are to be supplied by the Catholike King as aforesaid 23. For security that whatsoever is Capitulated may be fulfilled The King of Great Britain and Prince Charles are to be bound by Oath and all the King's Council shall Confirm the said Treaty under their hands Moreover the said King and Prince are to give their Faiths in the Word of a King to endeavour if possible that whatsoever is Capitulated may be established by Parliament 24. That conformable to this Treaty all these things proposed are to be allowed and approved of by the Pope that he may give an Apostolical Benediction and a Dispensation necessary to effect the Marriage But though our King and Prince subscribed these Articles as they were sent to them by the Earl of Bristol in this manner Hos supra memoratos Articulos omnes ac singulos approbamus et quicquid in iis ex nostra parte seu nostro nomine conventum est ratum atque gratum habemus approving and expressing them to be very acceptable unto them And after they had wrought the King to sign these large immunities to the Papists viz. Quod Regnorum suorum Romano Catholici persecutionem nullam patientur molestiáve officientur Religionis suae causa vel ob exercitium illorum ejusdem sacramentorum modò iis utantur absque scandalo quod intelligi debet inter privatos parietes nec juramentis aut sub alio praetextu qualicunque ordinem Religionis spectante vexabuntur That the Roman Catholikes should not be interrupted in the exercise of their Religion doing it privately without Scandal nor be vext with any oaths in order to the same What rested but a closing of both Parties Yet all would not do for the Spaniard never intended the Match at all as is evident by a Letter of the King of Spain's written to his Favourite the Conde of Olivares dated the Fifth of November 1622. found among the Lord Cottington's Papers THe King my Father declared at his Death That his intent never was to marry my Sister the Infanta Donna Maria with the Prince of Wales which your Unkle Don Baltazer understood and so treated this Match ever with intention to delay it notwithstanding it is now so far advanced that considering all the aversness of the Infanta to it it is time to seek some means to divert the Treaty
pounds subsidies due to the late Queen besides what the Parliament had given him And fearing that Proclamations who were indeed very active Ministers would now become Laws ushering in the Kings will with large strides upon the peoples Liberties who lay down while they stept over them The ingenious sort sensible of this incroaching Monarchy brake out into private murmur which by degrees being of a light nature carried a Cloud with it by which the wise Pilots of the State foreseeing a Storm gathering strive to dissipate it the next Session of Parliament which was held the nineteenth of February in the seventh year of our Kings Reign Thomas Sackville Earl of Dorset Not long after this the Earl of Dorset Lord High Treasurer died suddenly as he sate at the Council Table which gave occasion to some persons disaffected to him as what eminent Officer that hath the managing of Moneys can please all to speak many things to his Dishonour But they considered not that besides the Black worm and the White day and night as the Riddle is that are gnawing constantly at the root of this tree of Life there are many insensible Diseases as Apoplexies whose Vapors suddenly extinguish the Animal Spirits and Apostems both in the upper and middle Region of Man that often drown and suffocate both Animal and Vital who are like imbodyed Twins the one cannot live without the other if the Animal Spirits fail the Vital cannot subsist if the Vitals perish the Animal give over their operations And He that judges ill of such an Act of Providence may have the same hand at the same time writing within the Palace walls of his own Body the same Period to his Lives earthly Empire The Earl of Salisbury succeeded him a man nourished with the milk of Policy under his father the Lord Burley famous for Wisdom in his Generation a Courtier from his infancy Batteld by Art and Industry under the late Queen mother of her Country Though Nature was not propitious to his Outside being Crooked backt She supplied that want with admirable indowments within This man the King found Secretary and Master of the Wards and to these he added the Treasurers staff knowing him to be the staff of his Treasury For he had knowledg enough to pry into other Mens Offices aswell as his own and knew the ways of disbursing the Kings moneys The Earl of Northhampton he made Lord Privy Seal and these were the two prime wheels of his triumphant Chariot The Earl of Suffolk was made Lord Chamberlain before but he came far behind in the management of the Kings affairs being a Spirit of a more Grosser Temper fitter to part a fray and Compose the differences of a disordered Court than a Kingdom Upon the Shoulders of the two first the King laid the Burthen of his business For though he had many Lords his Creatures some by Creation and some by insinuation for Kings will never want supple-hand Courtiers and the Bishops being his Dependents the most of them tending by direct Lines towards him as the Center of their advancement so that He like the Supreme Power moved this upper Region for the most part and that had an influence upon the lower in inferior Orbs yet these two noble Men were the two great Lights that were to discover the Kings mind to the Parliament and by whose Heat and Vigor the blessed fruits of Peace and Plenty should be produced The Lord Treasurer by a Command from the King instructs both Houses in their business and what they shall do well to insist upon this Session First To supply his Majesties wants Secondly To ease the people of their Grievances They go commonly yoakt together for the peoples Grievances are the Kings Wants and the Kings Wants are the peoples Grievances How can they be separated If the King will always want the people will always suffer For Kings when they do want lay commonly lawless impositions on the people which they must take off again with a sum of money and then they want again to a continued vicissitude These two Propositions are sweetned by him with a third Which is to make the Parliament witnesses of those great favours and honours that his Majesty intended his Royal Son Prince Henry in creating him Prince of Wales Which though the King might do without a Parliament and that divers Kings his Predecessors had done so as by many precedents was manifested yet being desirous to have a happy Vnion betwixt him and his People he would have nothing resound ill in their ears from so eminent an instrument to the Kingdoms good as his Son Then they excuse the Kings necessities proceeding from his great disbursements For the three hundred and fifty thousand pounds Subsidies due in the late Queens time he received with one hand and paid her Debts with another redeeming the Crown Lands which she had morgaged to the City He kept an Army of nineteen thousand men in Ireland for some time a foot wherein a great many of the Nobility were Commanders and other deserving Soldiers that would have been exposed to want and penury if not supplied And it was not safe for the King to trust the inveterate malice of a new reconciled Enemy without the Sword in his hand The late Queens Funeral Charges were reckon'd up which they hoped the Parliament would not repine at Nor was it fit the King should come in as a private Person bringing in one Crown on his head and finding another here or his Royal Consort with our future Hopes like so many precious Ienels exposed to Robbers without a Guard and Retinue How fit was the Magnificence at the King of Denmarks being here And how just that Ambassadors from Foreign Princes more than ever this Crown received should find those Entertainments and Gratuities the want whereof would put a dim lustre abroad upon the most sparkling Jewels of the Crown Besides the necessary Charge of sending Ambassadors to others being concurrent and mutual Civilities among Princes That these are the causes of the Kings wants and not his irregular Bounty though a magnificent mind is inseparable from the Majesty of a King If he did not give his subjects and servants would live in a miserable Climate And for his Bounty to those that were not born among us it must be remembred he was born among them and not to have them taste of the blessing he hath attained were to have him change his Vertue with his Fortune Therefore they desire the Kings wants may be supplied a thing easie to be granted and not to be valued by Wise-men nor spoken of without contempt Philosophy saith that all Riches are but food and rayment the rest is nugatorium quiddam And that it is but purior pars terrae and therefore but crassior pars aquae a thing unworthy the denial to such a King who is not only the wisest of Kings but the very Image of an Angel that hath brought good
the Ears of the Princes of the Union quailed their courage made them look back into their own condition and having not so much faith as to depend upon our King for assistance before the Spring they submitted themselves to the Emperor leaving the almost-ruined Palatinate as a Prey to an insulting Enemy the English only giving Spirits to the Vital parts of it conveyed by the Conduct of those Instruments Vere Herbert and Burrowes Men fitter to command Armies than to be confined within the Walls of Towns Benssheim Grundtriss vnd Entwurff etlicher ohrt der ChurPfaltz vnd wie die Spanier nach etliche treffeÌ„ endtlich gar dar auss geschaleÌ„ word Mansfeldt only that was rejected and slighted by Anhalt makes good his fidelity by bearing up against the power of the Emperor not that he was able to grapple with his whole Force but being an active spritely man and having a nimble moving Army of fourteen or fifteen thousand men he did harasse the Countries force Contribution from the Cities and when any greater power came against him he got from them into another Country and harrowed that to their perpetual vexation So that he was as goads in their sides and thorns in their eyes And thus he continued in despight of the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria for almost two years after till they were constrained to purchase their peace of him at a dear rate to which Mansfeldt was also inforced not finding assistance nor Supplies to support him As soon as the Princes in the Palatinate were retired to their Quarters before the great loss at Prague came to their knowledge the Earl of Essex with a Convoy of Horse to Swibruken passed into Lorain and through France posted for England to solicit the King to send those Regiments promised and other Supplies if possible that the English there and the whole Countrey might not be exposed to ruine But when he came into England he found the Court Air of another temper and not as he left it for it was much more inclined to the Spanish Meridian And though Gondemar the King of Spain's Ambassador at the departure of one of his Agents into Spain facetiously bad him commend him to the Sun for he had seen none here a long while yet we had the Spanish influence hot among us the King himself warmed with it then what will not the Court be The King and his Ministers of State had several ends and drive different designs His was for the matching of his Son with some great Princess aiming at no other glory though he debased himself to purchase it For presently after he received a Denial in France he sent to Sir Iohn Digby his Leidger Ambassador in Spain to treat of a Marriage betwixt the Prince of Wales and the Infanta Maria Sister to that King which was in 1617. No blood but blood Royal can be a propitiatory Offering for his Son yet the best Sacrifice is an humble spirit No matter what Religion what Piety that is not the Question When Kings have earthly aims without consideration of God God looks to his own Glory without respect of man The little foundation of hope they built upon at that time was now raised to a formal building by the cunning practices of Gondemar who assured the King it was his Master's real intention the Prince should marry the Infanta And he wished the King his Master had all the Palatinate in his power to present it as a donative to the Prince with his fair Mistris The King that now heard all was lost in Bohemia saw little possibility of injoying the Palatinate quietly but by the Treaty of a Marriage was lulled asleep with Gondemar's windy promises which Sir Iohn Digby seconded being lately made Vice-Chamberlain to the King Baron of Sherborn and a great manager of the affairs at Court Sir Walter Aston being sent Leidger Ambassador into Spain for the general correspondence And the King anchoring his hopes upon these shallow promises made himself unable to prevent the Tempest of War that fell on the Palatinate tying up his own hands and suffering none to quench the Fire that devoured his Childrens Patrimony WILLIAM HERBERT Earl of PEMBROKE c It was thought the Papists did much contribute to Gondemar's liberaliâ—y for they began to flourish in the Kingdom he having procured many Immunities for them and they used all their industry to further the Match hoping that if the Prince did not adhere to Rome yet his Offspring might and at present looked for little less than a Toleration No stubborn piece of either Sex stood in Gondemar's way but he had an Engin to remove them or screw them up to him None that complied with him but found the effects of his friendship many Iesuits fared the better for his intercession he releasing numbers among the rest one Bauldwin an arch-Priest accused to have had a hand in the Gunpowder-Treason and had been seven years in the Tower a man of a dangerous and mischievous spirit who was after his release made Rector of the Iesuits College at St. Omers By his Artifices and Negotiations having been time enough Ambassador in England to gain credit with the King he got Sir Robert Mansel the Vice-Admiral to go into the Mediterranean sea with a Fleet of Ships to fight against the Turks at Algier who were grown too strong and formidable for the Spaniard most of the King of Spain's Gallions attending the Indian Trade as Convoys for his Treasures which he wanted to supply his Armies and he transported Ordnance and other Warlike Provisions to furnish the Spanish Arsenals even while the Armies of Spain were battering the English in the Palatinate so open were the King's ears to him so deaf to others For Sir Robert Nanton one of his Secretaries a Gentleman of known honesty and integrity shewed but a little dislike of those proceedings and he was commanded from Court and Conwey was put in his place And Gondemar had as free access to the King as any Courtier of them all Buckingham excepted and the King took delight to talk with him for he was full of Conceits and would speak false Latin a purpose in his merry fits to please the King telling the King plainly He spoke Latin like a Pedant but I speak it like a Gentleman And he wrought himself so by subtilty into the King's good affections that he did not only work his own will but the King 's into a belief that the Treaties in agitation were though slow real and effectual So easily may wise men be drawn to those things their desires with violence tend to And he cast out his Baits not only for men but if he found an Atalanta whose tongue went nimbler than her feet he would throw out his golden Balls to catch them also And in these times there were some Ladies pretending to be Wits as they called them or had fair Neices or Daughters which drew great Resort to
him to put himself into his hands being unusual with Princes But he that valued his Honor above all earthly things was the more indeared to him in that he gave him by this access an opportunity to express it and protested That he earnestly desired a neerer conjunction of Brotherly affection with him for the more intire Unity betwixt them The Prince repaying his Noble expressions with the like Civilities le ts him know how Sensible he was of those high Favours he had found during his abode in his Court and presence which had set such an estimation upon his worth that he knew not how to value it but he would leave a Mediatrix that should make good his defects if he would do him the honour and make him so happy as to preserve him in the good opinion of her his most fair his most dear Mistris And so imbracing each other they parted This kind Farewell was upon the twelvth of September the King leaving the Prince to be attended to the Sea-side by a numerous train of Spanish Courtiers whereof the Principal were Cardinal Zapata the Marquess Aytone the Earl of Gondemar the Earl of Monterie the Earl of Baraias who was Steward of the King's houshold but now the Manager of the Prince's Domestical Affairs These Grandees and others had at Saint Andero a fair opportunity to see some of the Navy Royal of England and were feasted aboard the Prince's Ship But at their return towards the shore the Prince being with them in the Barge a Tempest overtook them with that Fury that they could neither fetch the Land nor make to the Ships again and night and darkness joining with the Storm the Rowers fainting with labour because they thought themselves at the end of their Work their horror and fear almost heightned to Despair In this Calamity yeilding themselves to the Mercy of the Seas they spied a light from a Ship neer which the wind had driven them that gave new life to Hope and plucking up their Spirits to fetch that Ship with the danger of being broken to peeces by the Ships side at last they got aboard This cooled the heat of their Ceremonies so much so that when the Tempest was over they parted And the Prince arrived safely at Portsmouth upon the fifth of October following and the next day at London where the Peoples joy elevated above Bonfire-expressions might teach misguided Princes that LOVE is the firmest foundation of security and Happiness When the Prince and Buckingham met at Saint Andero the Spanish entertainments did not take them off from minding their Business The Duke had time in his Recess to mature his Conceptions And whether his adverseness to the Spanish in affection wrought upon the Prince or whether the Prince's affection that was wrought upon in the Spanish Court lost the Vigor and Virtue by losing the Object or whether the united Operations of both cannot be determined But one Clark a Creature of the Dukes was posted back to Madrid to the Earl of Bristol to command him not to deliver the Procuration for the Espousals which the Prince had sealed and sworn to perform till he had further Order from England pretending the Infanta might after the Espousals betake her self to a Cloister and defraud him of a Wife Bristol was much troubled at this Restriction That a public Act of such Eminency betwixt two such great Princes highly obliging should be smothered up by a private Command from one of the Parties that had not power to do it having in true Justice tyed up his own hands and when the Dishonour of it would so much reflect upon the other Party and therefore he resolved notwithstanding the Prince's command if the Dispensation came to make the Espousals within ten days according to the agreement And he would bear himself up from the authority he had under the great Seal of England to perfect this Work if he had not within the limited time a Command from Our King to the contrary CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD PRINce of Wales Duke of Cornwell etc. The Duke being jealous of Bristol from some particular Discontents and ill Resentments betwixt them and the Prince fearing he would be too forward in the Espousals assoon as they landed in England posted towards the King who was then at Roiston where they gave him a fair and plausible Narration of their Proceedings laying the load upon the Spanish Delaies and Bristol's miscarriages Which the King as a Father to his Son and as a friend to his Favourite indulged to taking their Account without examination as good and just payment And his good Brother of Spain must now be dallied with by Talion Law not falling off in a direct line but obliquely that the King might thereby measure out to himself a way to his Ends. And these two great Opposites to Spain the Prince and Duke must prepare it by closing with those of the Council about the King and others of the Nobility whose judgment not prejudice made them averse to the Spanish Superciliousness cementing their Power with that strength that a Parliament must be called and the People consulted with That they discovering to the King the fraudulent proceedings of the Spaniard the King's Integrity and Justice in breaking the Treaty might the more appear to the People and by that means they should be mounted upon the Wings of the Peoples affections as Enemies to that which was so contrary to them The News of a Parliament to break the Spanish match was quickly carried about and according to their thoughts it took much with the People and gained them much respect and Honour But the first thing they did was to procure an absolute Command from the King to the Earl of Bristol to suspend the delivery of the Proxie till Christmas though the Dispensation came which they effected and sent away with all speed In which Letter Bristol had instructions to demand the Restitution of the Palaâ—inate and Electoral Dignity which were both waved and neglected in the Conclusion of the Treaty but now are set a foot again to let the King of Spain see the Edge of their Eargerness was taken off For saith the Letter It would be a great disproportion for me to receive one Daughter with joy and contentment and leave another in tears and sighs But Bristol's power of deferring the Espousals till Christmas was to be reserved to himself and not made publick till the Dispensation should come to discover it And there was a Clause in the Procuration left by the Prince that the Power of that should be in force but till Christmas and then to expire so that the Execution of it was to be respited till it were altogether invalid And the Spaniard for his greater affront must make all Provision ready for accomplishing so glorious a work that all the Eyes of the Christian World looked upon either with dislike or affection The King of Spain to be his own
so some things are not to be concealed for it derogates from the glory of God to have his Justice obscured his remarkable Dispensations smothered as if We were angry with what the Divne Power hath done who can debase the Spirits of Princes and is mighty among the Kings of the earth And though the Priests lips should keep knowledge yet as the Prophet saith he can make them contemptible and base before all the people And therefore why should we grudge and repine at God's Actions for his thoughts are not as our thoughts nor his wayes as our wayes His Judgments should teach us Wisdom and his glorious proceedings should learn us Righteousness that his Anger may be turned away from us And let them that stand take heed lest they fall For though God rewarded Jehu with the Kingdom for the good service he did him yet because he walked not with him God visited the house of Jehu and laid the blood of Jezreel which he was commanded to shed upon the head of his Posterity But all the Arguments of Men and Angels will neither penetrate nor make impression in some ill-composed Tempers till they are softned with the fire of Love and that holy Flame is best kindled with Patience by willingly submitting to the al-disposing Providence that orders every thing Before whose Altar waiting for the Season of Grace I will ever bring the best fruits of my Labours But if that which I intend should not come to Perfection the day of man's life being but as a Dawning and his time as a Span I will never be displeased with my Master in long and dangerous Labours for calling me away to rest before my work is done FINIS The Table An Index exactly pointing to the most material Passages in this HISTORY A CRuelty at Amboyna 281 Queen Ann an Enemy to Somerset 78 80. Her Death 129. and Character ibid. Anhalt the Prince thereof intimate with the Count Palatine persuades him to accept of the Crown of Bohemia 132. Is made General of the Bohemian Forces 135. His good Success at first in routing of Bucquoy's Army 140. Is overthrown afterwards by the Duke of Bavaria 141. Fliâ—s so doth Helloc his Lieutenant General ibid. and afterwards submits to the Emperor 142 Ansbach the Marquess thereof Commander in Chief of the Forces raised by the Protestant Princes of Germany in defence of the Palatinate 135. for slowes a fair advantage over Spinola 138. His Answer to the Earl of Essex ib. with Sir Vere's Reply thereunto 139 Lady Arabella dies 90 Arch-bishop Whitgift's Saying concerning King Iames at Hampton-Court Conference 8. his Character Dies when ibid. Arch-bishop Bancroft succeeds Whitgift in the See of Canterbury 8. Dies his Character 53 Arch-bishop Abbot accidentally kills a Kâ—eper 198. his Letter to the King against a Toleration in Religion 236. yet sets his hand as a Witness to the Articles of Marriage with the Infanta 237 Arch-bâ—shop of Spalato comes into England his Preferment here relapses to the Roman Church dies at Rome His manner of Burial 102 Arguments about the Union of England and Scotland 34. for and against a Toleration 237 Articles agreed on concerning the Marriage of the Infanta 212. Preamble and Post-script to the Articles 238. Private Article sworn to by the King 240 Arundel and Lord Spencer quarrel 163. Arundel thereupon commited to the Tower his Submission ibid. August the fifth made Holy-day 12. B Bacon's Speech in Star-Chamber against Hollis Wentworth and Lumsden 84 He is made Lord Chancellour 97. is questioned 158. His humble Submission and Supplication 159. His Censure 160. The Misery he was brought to his Description and his Character ibid. Bancroft succeeds Whitgift in the Archbishoprick of Canterbury 8. dies Character 53 Barnevelt opposes the Prince of Orange 125. Is seized on together with his Complices 127. his Sentence and Death ib. His imployments 128 Baronets a new order made 76 Battail of Fleury 217 Benevolence required but opposed 78 Bishops in Scotland to injoy their temporal Estates 8 Black-Friers the downful there 241 Blazing-Star 128 Bounty of King Iames 76 Boy of Bilson his Impostures discovery very and confession 107 c. Bristol forbid to deliver the Procuration for Espousals 254. Hath Instructions to demand the Palatinate and Electoral dignity 155. without the restitution of which the Treaty for the Match should proceed no further 256. Bristol sent to the Tower but gains his liberty by submission 272 Brunswick loses his Arm 217. raises a gallant Army 142. and is defeated 145 Buckingham made Marquess Master o the Horse and High Admiral 147. Rules all ibid. His Kindred advanced ib. A lover of Ladies 149. Marries the Earl of Rutland's Daughter ib. over-ruled by his Mother ibid. Gondemar writes merrily concerning her into Spain ib. Buckingham's Medicine to cure the King 's Melancholy 218. made Duke 229. He and Olivarez quarrel 249. Goes to the Fleet sent from England to attend the Prince home 250. His Relation to the Parliament of the transactions in Spain 263. He is highly commended by the People 264. accused of Treason by the Spanish Ambassadour 272 New Buildings within two mile of the City of London forbid by Proclamation 48 Bergben ap Zome besieged 216. The Siege raised 218 Breda besieged 28 Butler a Mountebank his story 287 C Car. a Favourite and the occasion thereof 54. made Viscount Rochester and soon after Knight of the Garter 55. opposed by Prince Henry ib. rules all after the death of Prince Henry and Salisbury 65. Is assisted by Overbury 66. with Northampton plots Overbury's death and why ib. created Earl of Somerset and married to the Divorced Countess of Essex 72. both Feasted at Merchant-Tailors Hall ib. Vid. Somerset Cecil holds correspondence with the King of Scotland 2. His put-off to the Queen his secret conveyances being like to be discovered ib. proclaims the late Queens Will ibid. made Earl of Salisbury 7. vid. Salisbury Ceremonie Sermon against them 11 Chelsey College 53 Commissioners for an Union betwixt England and Scotland 27 High-Commission a Grievance 46 House of Commons their Declaration 164. Their Remonstrance 167. House of Commons discontent 188 their Protestation ibid. Conference at Hampton-Court 7. where the King puts an end to the business 8 Conwey and Weston sent Ambassadors into Bohemia 133. Their Characters ib. Their Return 142 Cook Lord Chief Justice blamed 89 90. a breach betwixt him and the Lord Chancellor why 74. brought on his Knees at the Council-Table 95. his Censure 96. his faults ib. his Character 97. Is again in disgrace 191 D Denmark's King comes into England his Entertainment 33. His second coming 76 Diet at Ratisbone where an agitation concerning the Electoral Dignity 220. The result thereof 224 Digby sent Leidger Ambassador into Spain to Treat of a Marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Infanta of Spain 143. made Baron of Sherborn 144. Sent to the Emperor for a punctual answer concerning the Palatinate 154. His Return and Relation to the
defeat for the space of 2 years 143. and constrains him and the Duke of Bavaria to purchase their peace at a dear rate ib. comes into Brabant 216. his Souldiers mutiny by the way 217. comes into England 283. Forces raised for him ib. his design ruined ib. Masks in great esteâ—m 53 King of Spain intends not to conclude the Match betwixt the Prince of Wales and the Infanta of Spain 116 Match between the Prince of Wales and the Infanta of Spain treated of 143. who of the Nobility favourers thereof and who not 144 Match with Spain concluded in England 238. as likewise in Spain 247. Marriage Preparations in Spain for it 255. yet the Treaty dissolved Match with France thought of 257 A Treaty of Marriage with France 276 Michael and Mompesson questioned 155. their offence ibid. Mompesson flies Michael censured 158 Monjoy created Earl of Devonshire 6 Monson arraigned but his Trial laid aside 89 Lord Monteagle the Discoverer of the Powder-Treason rewarded 32 Montague Lord Treasurer 148. made Lord Treasurer Viscount Mandevile and Earl of Manchester afterwards Lord Privy Seal 149 N New-England describ'd 75. when first planted and by whom ib. Noblemen created 6 7 Nobility Petition the King 187 Northampton made Lord Privy Seal 43 He and Rochester plot Overburie's death why 66. assists the Countess of Essex in suing out a Divorce 67. engages the Lieutenant of the Tower in poysoning Overbury 70. reviles Overbury after his death 73. touched at heart and dies 74 Northumberland with others committed to the Tower 33. why 130. his marriage and Issue ib. is released out of Prison by intercession of his Son-in-law Viscount Doncaster ib. hardly drawn to take a Release from his hand ib. Rides through London in a Coach drawn by Eight horses ib. O Oath of Allegiance 51 Prince of Orange made Knight of the Garter 64. Death of Maurice Prince of Orange 286. Different carriage of two Princes of Orange ib. Overbury a great assistant of Viscount Rochester 66. opposes his marriage with the Countess of Essex ibid. Rochester and Northampton plot his death ibid. is betray'd by Rochester how 67. committed to the Tower ibid. Mistriss Turner imployed to poison him 70. Weston and Franklin imployed by her therein ib. the Lieutenant of the Tower like ingaged therein ibid. The poison set a work but the operation retarded and by what means 71. Overbury writes to Somerset 72. is betrayed by the Lieutenant of the Tower 73. dies and is scandaliz'd after death by Northampton ibid. Oxford gallantly accompanied goes to the Palatinate 136. his character 161. is committed to the Tower 191. his death 286. P Parliament declines the Union with Scotland 41 Parliament undertaken by Somerset 77. dissolved ibid. Parliament called An. 1620. 150. complies with the King 153 Parties in Parliament 161. Parliament adjourned 164. re-assembled 165. their Petition to the King 174. dissolved by Proclamation 190. Parliament summon'd An. 1623. 257. advises the King to break off the Treaâ—y with Spain 265. their Declaration 269. Petition against Recusants 272. a Catalogue of them taken notice of by it 276 Prince Elector Palatine comes into England 62. is made Knight of the Gartâ—r 64. married to the Lady Elizabeth ib. with whom he returns home 65. is Elected and Crowned King of Bohemia 132. sâ—nds to our King to excuse the suddenness of the acceptation of that Kingdom ib. is proscribed ib. is overcome in his General the Prince of Anbalt 141. Flies with his Queen ib. is censured ib. loss of his Son ib. His Character 142 March of the English into the Palatinate 136. Restitution of the Palatinate demanded by the Lord Digby 154 Piety of the Lord Mayor 106 Prince Henry installed Knight of the Garter 6. created Prince of Wales 52. slights the Countess of Essex 56 his death 62. and funeral 63 Prince of Spain his disaster 62 Prince Charles his Journey into Spain 225. His Attendants ib. He and Buckingham disguise themselves and change their names 225. questioned by the Mayor of Dover 225. pass through France where they have a view of the Princess Henrietta Mariâ— 226. Arrive at Madrid 227. The Prince rides in State to Court 228. His Royal Entertainment 129 Many of the English Nobility flock thither unto him 229. The Spaniards strive to pervert the Prince 229. So doth the Pope by his Letter 231. The Prince's Answer 233. A Dispensation thereupon dispatched to Madrid 235. Articles sworn to by the Prince the Match is concluded in Spain 247. New delaies sought out by the Spaniards 248. The Prince takes a resolution to return home 249. but takes a solemn Oath to solemnize the Marriage 251. After Gifts and Preseots on both sides leaves Madrid and comes to the Esourial ibid. The Description of it 252. The Prince is Feasted there 253. The King and Prince's Complements at parting 253. The Prince in danger by a Tempest 254 Proclamation against Jesuits 51. for uniformity in Religion 11. against New Buildings 48. Proclamation against talking sets peoples tongues a work 190 Protestant Religion in danger 171 Protestants in France providentially relieved by one that hated their Religion 247 Q Queen of Scots translated to Westminster 71 Queen Ann opposes Somerset why 78. Her Death her Character 129 R Rawleigh his Treason 4. his West-Indian Voyage 112. his Design discovered to Gondemar 113. The King by Gondemar incens'd against him 115. He is committed to the Tower 116. beheaded 117. His Character and description ibid. Recusants confin'd to their houses 51 Reformation in the Church fought after 7 Four Regiments sent into Holland 280 Duke of Richmond dies suddenly 257 Dutchess of Richmond her legend 258 Rochester rules all after the death of Prince Henry and Salisbury 65. with Northampton plots Overburie's death 66 S Earl of Salisbury made Lord Treasurer 43. not pleased with Rochester's greatness 91. Obstructs Five thousand pound given him by the King ibid. Lord Sanquir murders Turner a Fencer 59. for which he is hanged 60 Duke of Saxony executes the Imperial Ban 135 Satyrical Sermon 152 Say and Seal his Character 161 Sermon against Ceremonies 11 Somerset devises to get Money 76. undertakes a Parliament 80. opposed by the Queen 78 80. begins to decline 80. The King deserts him ib. He and his Countess seized 81. and Arraigned 82 Somerset's description in his life The Countess in her death 83 Southampton released out of the Tower 4. Restored to the right of Blood and Inheritance 6. His Character 161. Committed 191. He and his Son dies 284 King's Speech to the Parliament Anno 1603. 13. In the Star-Chamber 100. To the Parliament An. 1620. 153. Second Speech to the Lords 155. To the Parliament An. 1623. 259. Bacon's Speech in Star-Chamber 84 Spencer his Character 162. He and Arundel quarrel 163 Spinola forms an Army in Flanders 135. Strives to intercept the English in their March towards the Palatinate 137. Besieges Berghen ap Zome 216. Raises his Siege 218. Besieges Breda 280 Book of Sports
to amuse than inform the Understanding But Elegancies in expression though I am not able to reach them my self I admire in others especially if they run in a smooth Chanel and keep that mediocrity that they overflow not the bank But while I am pleading for Mediocrity I find my self in a Labyrinth betwixt too little Pamphlets our Kings Court and his Kitchen and I know not by what Clue to avoid it They are like two extremes Scylla and Charybdis therefore to pass by and not be indangered by them I will shape my Course in the middle betwixt both and Truth shall be my Gale For I protest without passion I lean to no Faction or side but set down plainly what my Conscience and Knowledg dictates to me Nor do I intend to asperse Noble Families Where is there one as that famous Orator the Lord Verulam said that like a fair Pomegronate hath not some corrupted Cornel And may not that be pickt out from the rest but it must taint them all And how can Truth be known but by the good savour it leaves behind For a good Name is like a precious Oyntment Never any thing of History should be left to Posterity if men may not be spoken of when they are dead And if their Actions be genuinely related there will be an intermixture of Good and Bad professedly allowed according to the good or ill Comportment of the person presented though as I said tenderly to be dealt with for Man is of no Angelical nature But it is easie to daub over the foulest Deformities and make them appear Beautiful For as Ulpian said of the Laws of his time so I say of Historical Relations Nulla veritas ita diserte ulla de re cavere potest ut malitios a calliditas locum fraudi non inveniat But this stirring of the Waters is only to make the Truth less perspicuous when time shall settle them all things will appear clearly Records and publick Actions within Memory cannot sink though the Dregs and muddy water thrown in to trouble them may But I will steer steady and avoid them both hoping to arrive at some happy Port if I can pass the Shallows of Ignorance or Rocks of Prejudice that lie in the Way The Authors PICTURE drawn by Himself AS others print their Pictures I will place My Mind in Frontispiece plain as my Face And every Line that is here drawn shall be To pencil out my Souls Physiognomy Which on a Radiant height is fixt My Brow Frowns not for these Miscarriages below Vnless I mean to limit and confine Th' Almighty Wisdom to conceits of mine Yet have no envious Eyes against the Crown Nor did I strive to pull the Mitre down Both may be good But when Heads swell men say The rest of the poor Members pine away Like Ricket-Bodies upwards over-grown Which is no wholsome Constitution The grave mild Presbyter I could admit And am no Foe to th' Independent yet For I have levell'd my intents to be Subservient unto Reason's Soveraignty And none of these State-Passions e'r shall rise Within my Brain to rule and tyrannize For by Truth 's sacred Lamp which I admire My Zeal is kindled not Fanatick fire But I 'll avoid those vapours whose swoln spight And foaming Poyson would put out this light Vain Fuellers they think who doth not know it Their light 's above't because their walk 's below it Such blazing Lights like Exhalations climb Then fall and their best matter proves but slime For where conceited Goodness finds no want Their Holiness becomes Luxuriant Now my great trouble is that I have shown Other mens faults with so many of my own And all my care shall be to shake off quite The Old Mans load for him whose burthen's light And grow to a full stature till I be Form'd like to Christ or Christ be form'd in me Such Pieces are Grav'n by a Hand Divine For which I 'l give my God this Heart of mine Contemnit linguas vita probanda malas UERA EFIGIES PRUDENTISSIMAE PRINCIPIS ELIZABETHAE ANGLIAE FRANCIAE ET HIBE REGINAE ETc ELIZABETHA REGINA Lo heare her Type who was of Late Spains foile faiths shield queene of state In briefe of women neere was seene So great a Prince so good a queene Are to be sould bi ROger Daniell at the angell in lumbard streete THE LIFE REIGN OF JAMES THE FIRST KING OF Great Britain THE various hand of Time began now to sheath the Sword of War that had been long disputing the Controversie which Religion and Policy that Princes mix together had for many years so fiercely maintained The wearing out of that old but glorious and most happy Piece of Soveraignty the late Queen bating the Spanish Violence and ending with the Irish-Rebellion and submission of Tirone as if the old Genius of Iron-handed-War were departed and a New one Crowned with a Palm of Peace had taken possession of the English Nation Iames the sixth King of Scotland was proclaimed King of England For though Princes that find here a Mortal Felicity love not the noise of a Successor in their life-time yet they are willing for the Peace of their people to have One when they can hear no more of it That which the Queen could not indure from others She was well pleased to express her self and bequeath in her last Will as a Legacy to this then Happy Nation He was thirty six years of Age when he came to the Crown How dangerous the passage had been from his very Infancy to his Middle Age is not only written in many Histories but the untamed and untractable Spirits of most of that Nation are a sufficient Witness and Record The wise Queen found many petty Titles but none of that Power any other Hand that should have reacht for the Crown might a caught a Cloud of Confusion and those Supporters and Props that held up her Greatness loth to submit to Equals made Scaffolds to his Triumphs In the Wane or last Quarter of the late Queen the Court Motions tended by an Oblique Aspect towards this Northern Star and some of her great Council in her Presence would glance at the King of Scots as her Successor which would make her break into Passion saying Was this imputed to Essex as a Crime and is it less in you Yea Cecil himself held his Correspondencies which he was once like to be trapt in For the Queen taking the Air upon Black-Heath by Greenwich a Post summoned her to enquire from what Quarter his business came and hearing from Scotland She staid her Coach to receive the Pacquet but the Secretary Sir Robert Cecil being in the Coach with Her fearful that some of his secret Conveyances might be discovered having an active Wit calls for a knife suddainly to open it lest put offs and delays might beget Suspition and when he came to cut it he told the Queen it looked and smelt ill-favouredly coming out of many nasty Budgets and
was fit to be opened and aired before She saw it which reason meeting with her disaffection to ill Scents hindred her smelling out his underhand Contrivances But now he may do it openly for he was the first that publickly read and proclaimed the late Queens Will Posts are sent in hast yet in so calm and quiet a manner as if the loss of so pretious a Mistriss had stupified the people And now the Great-ones strive who shall be most Obsequious and Court their Happy Hopes That Party that had been Opposite to the late Earl of Essex whose death as some thought shortned the Queens life strove to ingratiate themselves by suppressing them that had any Relation to him assuring the King that always counted him his Martyr that he aimed at the Crown himself and Princes apt to be jealous soon take such impressions And now I have stirr'd the Ashes of great Essex I must revive his memory with this short Character for Reports flying upon the Airy wing of the Times have variously exalted or depressed him as the Serene for him or the cloudy fancy against him waved up and down He had a Gallant and Noble Spirit full of Vrbanity and innate Courtesie which too much took the Popular Eye and being a great ingrosser of Fame it procured him many Enemies which made his Spirit boil into passion and that was more suitable to his Enemies Designs than his own for they lighted their candle by his fire and this heat being blown by some fiery Spirits about him gave to the goodness of his Nature a tincture of Revenge which his Enemies made reflect upon the Queen so 1 1 2 OVID RETRIBVAM DOMINO PRO OMNIBVS QVAE TRIBVIT MIHI 3 Jacobus 〈◊〉 Mag Brit Fra Hib Rex 3 IACOBVS DEI GRATIA MAGNAE BRITANNIAE FRANCIAE ET HYBERNIAE REX HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE BEATI PACIFICI 4 ✚ IACOBVS DG MAG BRITA FR ET HI REX 5 MAG BRIT FRA ET HI VX ELIZABETHA FILIAR◠5 NOBILIS SPE FIDE VERITATE FRAN-PERRY DEL-ET SCVLP that the Coal he strove to bring to burn his Enemies Nests kindled his own Funeral Pile But our King coming through the North Banquetting and Feasting by the way the applause of the people in so obsequious and submissive a manner still admiring Change was checkt by an honest plain Scotsman unused to hear such humble Acclamations with a Prophetical expression This people will spoil a gud King The King as unused so tired with Multitudes especially in his Hunting which he did as he went caused an inhibition to be published to restrain the people from hunting him Happily being fearful of so great a Concourse as this Novelty produced the old Hatred betwixt the Borderers not yet forgotten might make him apprehend it to be of a greater extent though it was generally imputed to a desire of enjoying his Recreations without interruption At Theobalds Secretary Cecil's House the Lord Chancellor Egerton the Lord Buckhurst Treasurer the Earl of Notingham Admiral and others of the Council to the deceased Queen met him and they with him found the Duke of Lenox the Earl of Marr the Lord Hume and the Lord Kinloss These with others were made of his Privy-Council The Bishops forgot not to strengthen themselves and their Party against their opposites the Non-Conformists who had gotten new courage upon their hopes of the Kings compliance with them and the King to please both sides went in a smooth way betwixt them at first not leaving out the third Party the Popish the most dangerous whom he closed with also by entertaining into his Councils the Lord Thomas Howard and the Lord Henry Howard the one Son the other Brother to the late Duke of Norfolk who would have been his Father but became a Sufferer for his Mother The one a plain-hearted man the other of a subtile and fine Wit of great Reading and Knowledg excellent for outward Courtship famous for secret Insinuation and cunning Flattery the first a suspected though it was otherwise the last a known Papist bred up so from his Infancy yet then converted as he pretended by the King being the closest way to work his own ends On these he heaped Honours making the Son Earl of Suffolk and the Brother Earl of Northampton And this Gentleness of the King to the Popish party was so pleasant to them that they suckt in the sweet hopes of alteration in Religion and drunk so deep thereof that they were almost intoxicated Now every man that had but a Spark of Hope struck fire to light himself in the way to Advancement though it were to the Consumption both of his Estate and Being The Court being a kind of Lottery where men that venture much may draw a Blank and such as have little may get the Prize Those whose Hopes were almost quenched like Water cast upon Lime burn inward till it breaks out into Flame so hard it is for uncomposed Spirits missing their aims to settle upon the Basis of solid Reason The Earl of Southampton covered long with the Ashes of great Essex his Ruins was sent for from the Tower and the King lookt upon him with a smiling countenance though displeasing happily to the new Baron of Essingden Sir Robert Cecil yet it was much more to the Lords Cobham and Grey and Sir Walter Rawleigh who were forbidden their attendance This damp upon them being Spirits full of acrimony made them break into Murmur then into Conspiracy associating themselves with two Romish Priests men that could not live upon lingring Hopes and other discontented persons which every Change produces The ground of the Design was to set up the Lady Arabella a Branch sprung from the same Stem by another Line and to alter Religion and Government disposing already to themselves the principal places of Honour and Profit The Lord Grey should get leave to transport two thousand men into Holland with whom he should seise upon the King and Prince Sir Walter Rawleigh was to treat with Count Arembergh for procuring of Moneys and Cobham to go to the Arch-Duke and the King of Spain to perswade their Assistance This Embrion proved abortive and they brought their Plea to excuse their attempting it as compleat a One That the King was not yet crowned The Arraignment was at Winchester where strong proofs meeting weak denyals they with others were found guilty of High Treason George Brook the Lord Cobham's Brother and the two Priests suffered for it the rest found Mercy the King being loth to soil the first steps to his Crown with more blood But their Pardon carried them to the Tower where the Lord Grey some years after dyed and in his Death extinguished his Family The Lord Cobham Sir Griffin Markham and others discharged of imprisonment lived miserable and poor Cobham at home and the rest abroad And Rawleigh while he was a Prisoner having the Idea of the World in his contemplation brought it to some
perfection in his excellent and incomparable History but when Liberty turned it to Action it taught him to roam so as the event proved fatal to him This Conspiracy put on such a face that few or none could discover or know what to make of it That the muddy waters were stirr'd was apparent but it was with such a mixture that little could be visible in it The Lord Grey Cobham and Sir Walter Rawleigh were Protestants why should they strive to alter Religion though the Priests Markham Bainham and others might But it seems they joyned together in a Politick way every one intending his own ends Discontent being the Ground-work upon which they built this slight Superstructure A great mischiefe intended to the Kings Majestie at his first entrance into the Kingdome of England before his Coronation Watson Clark Priests administring Oaths of secresie and applanding the project It came to nothing by Gods mercy The Kings Majesties clemency towards the Conspiratours after judgment past upon them No treason in England attempted but had a Romish Priest in the practise Watson Seducing Noblemen that being hudled together could not stand long Rawleigh's greatest Accuser was a Letter of Cobhams which some say after he denyed to be his hand Some of the Conspirators it may be desired to seem formidable venting their Anger so for being slighted others strove to make themselves so that they might have the glory of enlarging the Roman Power and they joyned together thinking their single strength would not prevail In this Cloud looking for Iuno they begot a Monster which having neither head nor foot some part lived the other dyed While these were provoked with Neglects others were incouraged with Favours Many of the Gentry that came out of Scotland with the King were advanced to Honours as well as those he found here to shew the Northern soyl as fruitful that way as the Southern But Knights swarmed in every corner the Sword ranged about and men bowed in obedience to it more in Peace than in War this Airy Title blew up many a fair Estate The Scots naturally by long converse affecting the French Vanity drew on a Garb of Gallantry meeting with a plentiful soyl and an open-handed Prince The English excellent for imitation loth to be exceeded in their own Country maintained their follies at their own charge All this came accompanied with a great Plague which hapned this year in London whereof above thirty thousand dyed Yet who will not venture for a Crown For in the heat of it on the five and twentieth of Iuly being the day dedicated to Saint Iames the King with his Wife Queen Anne were both crowned at Westminster fulfilling that old Prophecy or rather Fancy current among the Scots as they report before Edward the first brought the Royal Chair out of Scotland with the Stone in it and placed it at Westminster to Crown our Kings in Which Stone some old Saws deliver to be the same that Iacob rested his head on Ni fallat Fatum Scoti hunc quocunque locatum Inveniunt lapidem Regnare tenentur ibidem Englished Fate hath design'd That wheresoe'r this Stone The Scots shall find There they shall hold the Throne But how the Stream of Time runs through the Chanel of these Prophetical Fancies experience shews For 't is true if the Scots came so near the Throne as to enjoy the Stone or Chair where the English Kings are Inaugurated they may hold the Crown But being only grounded upon Conjecture these Conceits are commonly made up before they are half moulded or like Abortives are shaped after they are born When these Ceremonies were past the King retired from this croud of Infection gave some admission to Ambassadors that from all the neighbouring Princes and States came to congratulate his happy Inauguration For besides the ordinary Ceremony among Princes their Reason might tell them that if his Predecessors were able to graple with the growing Monarchy of him that coveted to be Vniversal and to assist and relieve her Neighbours and Confederates from his oppression He would be much more formidable bringing with him if nothing else Bodies of men Warlike and industrious hardned with cold and labour and active in the difficultest attempts however of late by what Divine Judgment I know not utterly disheartned to be Helpers who were formerly Hinderers to all the English Expeditions so that in him they courted their own Conveniences For certainly if ever the English Monarchy were in its true Glory and Greatness it was by this Union But there is a Period set to all Empires The Prince a little before this was installed Knight of the Garter the Earl of Southampton and the young Earl of Essex were restored to the right of Blood and Inheritance and Honours were conferred so thick as if the King intended a new kind of Conquest by a proceeding that tended to their and his own Ruin For to subdue the greatness of the Nobility who formerly could sweep such a Party of People to them with their long trains and dependencies that they were able to graple with Kings He by a multiplicity of them made them cheap and invalid in the Vulgar opinion For nothing is more destructive to Monarchy than lessening the Nobility upon their decline the Commons rise and Anarchy increases HONORAT Do CAROL BLVNT CO DEVON BA R MOVNTIOY The RIght honourable CHARLES BLVNT Earle of Deuon Baron Mountioy and Knight of the Garter As the Papist was different from the Protestant Religion on one side so was the Puritan as they then called pious and good men on the other both which were active to attain their own ends and the King had the command of himself not bitterly to oppose but gently to sweeten their hopes for His thinking himself unsecure betwixt them The latter were now solicitous for a more clear Reformation This the Bishops opposed as trenching too much upon them and the King listen'd to having experience of it in Scotland how much it had incroached upon Him For He thought their dissenting from the established Government of the Church was but to get that Power into a great many mens hands which was now but in one and that one had dependance upon him with whom He might better grapple The Prelates distilling this Maxim into the King No Bishop no Monarch so strengthning the Miter by the same Power that upholds the Crown Yet to satisfie the importunity a Conference is appointed at Hampton-Court where the Bishops Opponents Doctor Reynolds Doctor Sparks Mr. Knewstubs and Mr. Chadderton men eminent in Learning and Piety in themselves as well as in the opinion of the people did desire in the name of the rest of their party That the Doctrine of the Church might be preserved in Purity That good and faithful Pastors might be planted in all Churches That Church-Government might be sincerely administred That the Book of Common-Prayer might be fitted to more increase of Godliness Out
of some of these Particulars they insisted upon the Bishops power of Confirmation which they would have every Minister capable of in his own Parish They disputed against the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage the Surplice the Oath ex officio and other things that stuck with them which they hoped to get all purged away because the King was of a Northern constitution where no such things were practised not yet having felt the Kings pulse whom the Southern Air of the Bishops breaths had so wrought upon that He himself answers most of their Demands Sometimes gently applying Lenitives where he found Ingenuity for he was Learned and Eloquent other times Corrosives telling them these Oppositions proceeded more from stubborness in Opinion than tenderness of Conscience and so betwixt his Arguments and Kingly Authority menaced them to a Conformity which proved a way of Silencing them for the present and some of them were content to acquiesce for the future and the King managed this Discourse with such power which they expected not from him and therefore more danted at That Whitgift Arch. Bishop of Canterbury though a holy grave and pious man highly pleased with it with a sugred bait which Princes are apt enough to swallow said He was verily perswaded that the King spake by the Spirit of God This Conference was on the fourteenth of Ianuary and this good man expired the nine and twentieth of February following in David's fulness of days leaving a Name like a sweet perfume behind him And Bancroft a sturdy piece succeeded him but not with the same Spirit for what Whitgift strove to do by Sweetness and Gentleness Bancroft did persevere in with Rigour and Severity Thus the Bishops having gotten the Victory strove to maintain it and though not on the suddain yet by degrees they press so hard upon the Non-conformists whom they held under the yoke of a Law that many of them are forced to seek Foreign Refuge They prevailed not only for themselves here but by their means not long after the King looked back into Scotland and put the Keys there again into the Bishops hands unlocking the passage to the enjoyment of their Temporal Estates which swel'd them so high that in his Sons time the Women of Scotland pulled them out of their tottering seats On the other side the late Conspiracy of Cobham and Grey had so chilled the Kings blood that he begins to take notice of the swarms of Priests that flockt into the Kingdom For though the Conspirators were of several Religions yet in their correspondence with Foreign Princes Religion was the pretence For in every alteration of Kingdoms few are so modest but they will throw in the Hook of their vain Hopes thinking to get something in the troubled Stream The Iesuits were not slack coming with the Seal of the Fisher in spreading their Nets but a Proclamation broke through them The King being contented to let them alone till they came too near him willing to comply rather than exasperate the safety of his own person made him look to the safety of Religion and to secure both He found this the best Remedy Declaring to all the World the cause of this Restriction VINVIT QVI PATITVR OBIIT ANNO AETATIS SVAE 73 Having after some time spent in setling the Politick affairs of this Realm of late bestowed no small labour in composing certain Differences We found among Our Clergy about Rites and Ceremonies heretofore established in this Church of England and reduced the same to such an order and form as We doubt not but every spirit that is led only with piety and not with humour should be therein satisfied It appeared unto Us in debating these Matters that a greater Contagion to Our Religion than could proceed from these light differences was eminent by persons common Enemies to them both namely the great numbers of Priests both Seminaries and Iesuits abounding in this Realm as well of such as were here before Our coming to the Crown as of such as have resorted hither since using their Functions and Professions with greater liberty than heretofore they durst have done partly upon a vain confidence of some Innovation in matters of Religion to be done by Us which We never intended nor gave any man cause to suspect and partly from the assurance of Our general Pardon granted according to the Custom of Our Progenitors at Our Coronation for offences past in the days of the late Queen which Pardon 's many of the said Priests have procured under Our Great Seal and holding themselves thereby free from danger of the Laws do with great audacity exercise all offices of their Profession both saying Masses and perswading Our Subjects from the Religion established reconciling them to the Church of Rome and by consequence seducing them from their Duty and Obedience to Us. Wherefore We hold Our self obliged both in Consequence and Wisdom to use all good means to keep Our Subjects from being affected with superstitious Opinions which are not only pernicious to their own souls but the ready way to corrupt their Duty and Allegiance which cannot be any way so safely performed as by keeping from them the Instruments of that infection which are Priests of all sorts ordained in Foreign parts by Authority prohibited by the Laws of the Land concerning whom therefore We have thought fit to publish to all Our Subjects this open Declaration of Our pleasure c. Willing and Commanding all manner of Iesuits Seminaries and other Priests whatsoever having Ordination from any Authority by the Laws of this Realm prohibited to take notice that Our pleasure is that they do before the nineteenth of March next depart forth of Our Realm and Dominions And to that purpose it shall be lawful for all Officers of Our Ports to suffer the said Priests to depart into Foreign parts between this and said nineteenth day of March Admonishing and assuring all such Iesuits Seminaries and Priests of what sort soever that if any of them after the said time shall be taken within this Realm or any of Our Dominions or departing now upon this Our pleasure signified shall hereafter return into this Our Realm or any of Our Dominions again they shall be left to the penalty of the Laws here being in force concerning them without hope of any favour or remission from Us c. Which though perhaps it may appear to some a great severity towards that sort of Our Subjects yet doubt We not when it shall be considered with indifferent judgment what cause hath moved Us to use this Providence all men will justifie Us therein For to whom is it unknown into what peril Our Person was like to be drawn and Our Realm unto Confusion not many Months since by Conspiracy First conceived by persons of that sort Which when other Princes shall duly observe We assure Our selves they will no way conceive that this alteration proceedeth from any change of disposition but out of
and those formalities of State which set a lustre upon Princes in the peoples eyes were but so many burthens to him for his private recreations at home and his hunting exercises abroad both with the least disturbance were his delights While he remained in the Tower he took pleasure in baiting Lions but when he came abroad he was so troubled with swarms that he feared to be baited by the people And the Parliament now drawing on which was summoned to be the nineteenth of March The King with the Queen and Prince four days before rode from the Tower to Whitehall the City and Suburbs being one great Pageant wherein he must give his ears leave to suck in their gilded Oratory though never so nauseous to the stomach He was not like his Predecessor the late Queen of famous memory that with a well-pleased affection met her peoples Acclamations thinking most highly of her self when she was born up on the wings of their humble supplications He endured this days brunt with patience being assured he should never have such another and his triumphal riding to the Parliament that followed But afterwards in his publick appearances especially in his sports the accesses of the people made him so impatient that he often dispersed them with frowns that we may not say with curses So various are the natures of Princes and their actions so remarkable that he may pass for a good man that will not pass for a good Prince The Speech he made to the Parliament both Houses being met and the first cannot be waved though it be somewhat long and printed in his own Works By the crisis and constitution of it the temper of his mind may be discovered For if ever he spake really to his Parliament it was then And I shall not comment upon it For I know Princes are made of those frail Elements that other men are but this much I will say He had strong abilities in some things that did dignifie the doer of them and in other things such weaknesses as would have much advanced his Wisdom to have left undone But if worldly Greatness and Glory may well make Princes more loth to leave them than they that have less we must give them some allowance of fear to lose them The Speech was to this effect It did no sooner please God to lighten his hand and relent the violence of his devouring Angel against the poor people of this City but as soon I did resolve to call this Parliament and that for three chief and principal Reasons The first whereof is and which of it self although there were no more is not only a sufficient but a most full and necessary Ground and Reason for convening of this Assembly the first Reason I say is That you who are here present assembled to represent the Body of this whole Kingdom and of all sorts of people within the same may with your own ears hear and that I out of my own mouth may deliver unto you the assurance of my due thankfulness for your so joyful and general applause to the declaring and receiving of me in this Seat which God by my Birth-right and lineal Descent had in the fulness of time provided for me and that immediately after it pleased God to call your late Soveraign of famous memory full of days but fuller of immortal Trophies of Honour out of this transitory life Not that I am able to express by Words or utter by Eloquence the vive Image of my own inward thankfulness but only that out of my own mouth you may rest assured to expect that measure of thankfulness at my hands which is according to the infiniteness of your deserts and to my inclination and ability for requital of the same Shall I ever nay can I ever be able or rather so unable in memory as to forget your unexpected readiness and alacrity your ever memorable resolution and your most wonderful conjunction and harmony of your hearts in declaring and imbracing me as your undoubted and lawful King and Governour Or shall it ever be blotted out of my mind how at my first entry into this Kingdom the people of all sorts rid and ran nay rather flew to meet me Their eyes flaming nothing but sparkles of affection their mouths and tongues uttering nothing but sounds of joy their hands feet and all the rest of their members in their gestures discovering a passionate longing and earnestness to meet and imbrace their new Soveraign Quid ergo retribuam Shall I allow in my self that which I could never bear with in another No I must plainly and freely confess here in all your audiences that I did ever naturally so far mislike a tongue too smooth and diligent in paying their Creditors with lip-payment and verbal thanks as I ever suspected that sort of people meant not to pay their Debtors in more substantial sort of coin And therefore for expressing of my thankfulness I must resort unto the other two Reasons of my convening of this Parliament by them in action to utter my thankfulness Both the said reasons having but one ground which is the deeds whereby all the days of my life I am by Gods grace to express my said thankfulness unto you but divided in this That in the first of these two mine actions of thanks are so inseparably conjoyned with my person as they are in a manner become individually annexed to the same In the other reason mine actions are such as I may either do them or leave them undone although by Gods grace I hope never to be weary of the doing them As to the first it is the Blessings which God hath in my Person bestowed upon you all wherein I protest I do more glory at the same for your weal than for any particular respect of my own reputation or advancement therein The first then of these Blessings which God hath joyntly with my person sent unto you is Outward Peace that is Peace abroad with all Foreign Neighbours For I thank God I may justly say that never since I was a King I either received wrong of any other Christian Prince or State or did wrong to any I have ever I praise God yet kept Peace and Amity with all which hath been so far tyed to my person as at my coming here you are witnesses I found the State imbarked in a great and tedious War and only by mine arrival here and by the Peace in my person is now Amity kept where War was before which is no small blessing to a Christian Common-wealth For by peace abroad with their neighbours the Towns flourish the Merchants become rich the Trade doth increase and the People of all sorts in the Land enjoy free Liberty to exercise themselves in their several vocations without peril or disturbance Not that I think this Outward peace so unseparably tied to my Person as I dare assuredly promise to my self and to you the certain continuance thereof But thus far I
for at my hands Thus the Beams of Majesty had an influence upon every branch and leaf of the Kingdom by reflecting upon the Root their Representative Body every particular expecting what fruit this Sun-shine would produce striving as much to insinuate into him as he did into the general so that there was a Reciprocal Harmony between the King and the People because they courted one another But when the Kings Bounty contracted it self into private Favourites as it did afterwards bestowing the affection he promised the whole people upon one man when the golden showers they gaped for dropt into some few chanels their passions flew higher than their hopes The Kings aims were to unite the two Kingdoms so that the one might corroborate the other to make good that part of his Speech by this intermixtion wherein he divides England and Scotland into halves But the English stumbled at that partition thinking it an unequal division and fearing that the Scots creeping into English Lordships and English Ladies Beds in both which already they began to be active might quickly make their least half the predominant part But he was Proclaimed King of Great Britain England must be no more a Name the Scotish Coyns are made currant and our Ships must have Saint Georges and Saint Andrews Crosses quartered together in their Flags all outward Ensigns of Amity But those English that had suckt in none of the sweets of this pleasant Stream of Bounty repined to see the Scots advanced from blew Bonnets to costly Beavers wearing instead of Wadmeal Velvet and Satin as divers Pasquils written in that Age Satyrically taunted at Which is not set down here to vilifie the Scots being most of them Gentlemen that had deserved well of their Master but to shew how cross to the publick Appetite the Hony-comb is that another man eats But the King like a wise Pilot guided the Helm with so even an hand that these small gusts were not felt It behoved him to play his Master-prize in the Beginning which he did to the life for he had divers opinions humours and affections to grapple with as well as Nations and 't is a very calm Sea when no billow rises The Romanists bogled that he said in his Speech They were unsufferable in the Kingdom as long as they maintained the Pope to be their Spiritual Head and He to have power to dethrone Princes The Separatists as the King called them were offended at that Expression wherein he professed willingly if the Papists would lay down King-killing and some other gross errors he would be content to meet them half way So that every one grounded his hopes or his fears upon the shallows of his own fancy not knowng yet what course the King would steer But these sores being tenderly dealt with did not suddenly fester but were skinned over The King desirous of the Title Pacificus did not only close with his own Subjects but healed up also that old wound that had bled long in the sides of England and Spain both being weary of the pain both willing to be cured The King of Spain sent the Constable of Castile with a mighty Train of smooth-handed Spaniards to close up the wound on this side where the old Enmity being well mortified they were received with singular Respect and Civility The King of England sent his High Admiral the Earl of Notingham with as splendid a Retinue of English to close it on that Who being Personages of Quality accoutred with all Ornaments suitable were the more admired by the Spaniards for beauty and excellency by how much the Iesuits had made impressions in the vulgar opinion That since the English left the Roman Religion they were transformed into strange horrid shapes with Heads and Tails like Beasts and Monsters So easie it is for those Iuglers when they have once bound up the Conscience to tye up the Vnderstanding also EARL OF NOTTINGHAM GEORGE CAREW EARL OF TOTNES And to satisfie the Kings desires about an Vnion betwixt England and Scotland the Parliament made an Act to authorise certain Commissioners viz. Thomas Lord Ellesmere Lord Chancellor of England Thomas Earl of Dorset Lord Treasurer of England Charles Earl of Notingham Lord High Admiral of England Henry Earl of Southampton William Earl of Pembroke Henry Earl of Northampton Richard Bishop of London Tobie Bishop of Duresme Anthony Bishop of Saint Davids Robert Lord Cecil Principal Secretary Edward Lord Zouch Lord President of Wales William Lord Mounteagle Ralph Lord Eure Edmund Lord Sheffeild Lord President of the Council in the North Lords of the Higher House of Parliament And Thomas Lord Clinton Robert Lord Buckhurst Sir Francis Hastings Knight Sir Iohn Stanhope Knight Vice-Chamberlain to his Majesty Sir Iohn Herbert Knight second Secretary to his Majesty Sir George Carew Knight Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen Sir Thomas Strickland Knight Sir Edward Stafford Knight Sir Henry Nevill of Berk-shire Knight Sir Richard Bukley Knight Sir Henry Billingsley Knight Sir Daniel Dun Knight Dean of the Arches Sir Edward Hobby Knight Sir Iohn Savile Knight Sir Robert Wroth Knight Sir Thomas Chaloner Knight Sir Robert Maunsel Knight Sir Thomas Ridgeway Knight Sir Thomas Holcroft Knight Sir Thomas Hesketh Knight Atturney of the Court of Wards Sir Francis Bacon Knight Sir Lawrence Tanfield Knight Serjeant at Law Sir Henry Hubberd Knight Serjeant at Law Sir Iohn Bennet Doctor of the Laws Sir Henry Withrington Sir Ralph Grey and Sir Thomas Lake Knights Robert Askwith Thomas Iames and Henry Chapman Merchants Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons or any eight of the said Lords and twenty of the said Commons Which Commissioners shall have power to assemble meet treat and consult with certain select Commissioners to be nominated and authorised by Authority of the Parliament of Scotland concerning such Matters Causes and things as they in their Wisdoms shall think and deem convenient and necessary for the honour of the King and common good of both Kingdoms Yet the good intentions of this Vnion took no effect as will follow in the sequel of this History But there were a great many good Laws made which are too voluminous for this place having a proper Sphere of their own to move in Thus the King sate triumphing as it were upon a Throne of his Peoples Affections and his beginnings had some settlement for being loth to be troubled he sought Peace every-where But our inbred distempers lay upon the Lee intermixt with other gross dregs that the Princes lenity and the Peoples luxury produced For the King minding his sports many riotous demeanours crept into the Kingdom the Sun-shine of Peace being apt for such a production upon the slime of the late War The Sword and Buckler trade being now out of date one corruption producing another the City of London being always a fit Receptacle for such whose prodigalities and wastes made them Instruments of Debaucheries divers Sects of vitious Persons going under the
Title of Roaring Boys Bravadoes Roysters c. commit many insolencies the Streets swarm night and day with bloody quarrels private Duels fomented especially betwixt the English and Scots many Discontents nourished in the Countries betwixt the Gentry and Commonalty about Inclosure the meanest gaping after new hopes growing in some places to a petty Rebellion Daily discords incident to peace and plenty betwixt private Families Papist against Protestant one Friend against another the Papists being a strong and dangerous Faction missing their hopes strove to make the Scots more odious than they could make themselves though some of them went so high as to counterfeit the Kings Privy-Seal and make Addresses thereby to Foreign Princes for which one Thomas Dowglas taken in the fact was executed in Smithfield Others were so insolent as to quip and jear the English Nobility and other misdemeanours which caused secret heart-burnings and jealousies betwixt the Nations But then comes a Proclamation like a strong Pill and carries away the grossest of these humours Something yet stuck especially in the Consciences of the Popish Party that could not be purged away without a Toleration which they Petition for but not being granted they contrived one of the most Horrid and Stupendious Mischiefs that ever entred into the Hearts of Men For their heat of malice would not be quenched with the Blood Royal but the Nobility and Gentry the Representative Body of the whole Kingdom United at Westminster must be shattered in pieces and dis-membred by the blast of six and thirty Barrels of Gun-powder which those dark Contrivers had hid in a Cellar under the Parliament House being discovered by a light from Heaven and a Letter from one of the Conspirators when the fire was already in their hands as well as rage in their hearts to put to the Train The principal of these Contrivers was Robert Catesbie a Gentleman of a good plentiful Estate who first hatched and brooded the Plot and promised to himself the glory of an Eternal Name by the Propagation of it making choyce of Thomas GUY FAWKES Executed in the Year 1606. for the GUNPOWDER PLOT Percy Robert Winter Thomas Winter Iohn Grant Ambrose Rookwood Iohn Wright Francis Tresham Sir Everard Digby and others Gentlemen of good Estates for the most part and spirits as implacable and furious as his own who like combustible matter took fire at the first motion their zeal to the Roman cause burning within them which nothing but the blood of Innocents can quench The design thus set afoot they bind themselves to secresie by those Sacraments which are the greatest ties upon the Soul and Saint Garnet the Iesuit was their Confessor The foundation being laid every man betakes himself to his work some to provide money some materials Percy was to hire the Cellars under the Parliament House to lay Wood and Coal in for his Winter-provision Guido Faux a desperate Ruffian who was to give fire to the Train was appointed to be his man to bring in the Wood and Coal The Gunpowder provided in Flanders is brought from Lambeth in the night and covertly laid under the Wood. Thus they prepare all things ready for a Burnt-offering against the day the Parliament should meet which was to be upon the seventh of February But the King for some Reasons of State which at that time the dictates of Providence did much approve of prorogued the Parliament of the fifth of November following which scattered the Contrivers at present and they were at their wits end and some of them went beyond Seas because they would not beat too much about the Covert their materials being fitted others that staid here persisted with Patience made a Vice by them and met often to consult how they should manage their great business if it took effect They looked upon the King and Prince as already sacrificed to their Cruelty And Percy undertook to dispatch the Duke of York But because they must have one of the Blood Royal that must serve as a center to adhere to to keep all from Confusion they meant to preserve the Lady Elizabeth and make her Queen that under her minority and innocency they might the better establish their bloody Principles of Piety and Policy They had designed the fatal day to be upon the fifth of November when the King and both Houses were to meet and that day they appointed a great Hunting-match at Dunsmore-beach in Warwick-shire to be nearer the Lord Harington's House where the Lady Elizabeth was And they had by their horrid Art and Experience so fitted their Matches that were to convey the fire to the Powder that they could know a hundred Miles off to a minute when that Monstrous Fiery Exhalation would break out Solacing themselves in this bloody expectation and thinking their Conveyances under ground were not seen above by the Divine Discoverer they stood like Vultures gaping for their Prey when behold one tender-hearted Murderer among the Pack willing to save the Lord Monteagle writ this Letter to him MY Lord out of the love I bear to some of your friends I have a care of your Preservation therefore I would wish you as you tender your Life to forbear your attendance at this Parliament for God and Man have concurred to punish the wickedness of this Time And think not sleightly of this advertisement for though there be no appearance of any stir yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament and yet they shall not see who hurt them This Counsel is not to be contemned because it may do you Good and can do you no Harm for the danger is past as soon as you have burnt this Letter I hope God will give you grace to make use of it to whose Holy Protection I commend you THOMAS PERSI NOBILIS ANGLVS MAGNIBRITANNIAE REGIS STIPENDIARIVS ANNO 1605 Haec est vera prima originalis editio ThoÌ„ae Perci Os vultumq vides Thomae cognomine Percy Inter Britannos nobileis noâ—…ssimi Queis rebus 〈◊〉 ambitione superstitioso Animo nefandam machinatur dum necem Regi Regina Ordinibus diprenditur ipsum Deo volente seclus in auctorem 〈◊〉 A Thomas Ichryâ— Capâ—â—â—runt B Tho IehrusÌ„ Regi adduxerit C Tho Persi in Arce fugit D Thomas Persi sagittatus mortuus Execution of the Conspirators In the Gunpowder Plot in the Year 1606. This Prodigious Contrivance did not only stupifie the whole Kingdom with amazement but Foreign Princes made their Wonderment also And though for the Propagation of the Catholick Cause they might have Conscience enough to with it had taken Effect yet they had Policy enough to Congratulate the Discovery and some of them to take off the asperity of the Suspect sweetned their Expressions with many rich Gifts and Presents to the King and Queen But this bloody Design found in the hand of the Malefactors grasping the Mischief and confirmed by their own Confessions being such Spirits as were fit
the Common Laws divers contrary Reports and Precedents and divers Statutes and Acts of Parliament that do cross one another being so penned that they may be taken in divers senses therefore he could wish they might be reviewed and reconciled And whereas he is thought an Enemy to Prohibitions he saith he is not ignorant of the necessity of them if every stream might run in its own chanel but the overflowing and super-abundance of them in every Court striving to bring most grist to their own Mill was a distemper fit to be cured therefore he did not disallow the Use but the Abuse Then he closes with the House of Commons and not only thanks them for the Bonefire they made of certain Papers which were presented Grievances from some discontented murmuring spirits but he instructs them how to receive Grievances hereafter In which he would have them careful to avoid three things The first That they meddle not with the main points of Government that is his craft Tractent fabrilia fabri To meddle with that were to lessen him who hath been thirty years at the Trade in Scotland and served an Apprentiship of seven years here therefore here needs no Phormios to teach Hannibal Secondly He would not have such ancient Rights as he hath received from his Predecessors accounted Grievances that were to judg him unworthy to injoy what they left him And lastly That they should be careful not to present that for a Grievance which is established by a Law for it is very undutiful in Subjects to press their King wherein they are sure to be denyed Complaints may be made unto them of the High-Commissioners let the abuse appear then and spare not there may be errors among them but to take away the Commission is to derogate from him and it is now in his thoughts to rectifie it in a good proportion Then he shews the emergent cause of his great expences since his coming to the Crown which makes him desire a supply from them confirming what the Lords formerly delivered wherein he said when they opened his necessities unto them his purse only labour'd now his desires are taken notice of both at home and abroad his Reputation labours as well as his Purse for the World will think it want of love in them or merit in him that both lessen'd their hearts and tied up their hands towards him Thus the King expressed himself to the Parliament desiring their assistance assuring them he had no intention to alter the Government though he wished the Laws might be rectified But his King-craft as he calls it failed in striking at the Common Law and he was convinced in it how dangerous it was to give too much knowledg to the people the two great Hammers of the State the Church-man and Lawyer that work the people to obedience upon the two Anvils of Conscience and Policy beat him to the understanding of it so that ever after he joyned with them and that three-fold Cord was not easily dissolved But the times not being ripe yet to produce any thing but the fruits of obedience they after this Lesson setled themselves to make divers good Laws which they purchased at the rate of a Subsidie and a Fifteen DURHAM HOUSE SALISBURY HOUSE WORCESTER HOUSE ILLUSTRISS PRINC IOHAN GUILIELMUS DUX IULIAE CLIVIAE BERG COMES MARCH RAVENSBERG MEURS DOMINUS IN RAVESTEYN IN DEO REFUGIUM MEUM Natus a o 1562 28 Maÿ obÿt a o 1609 25 Martÿ aetatis suae ann o 46. mens 9. die 25. This year 1609. begot a Truce betwixt the King of Spain and the Low Countries yet by the death of the Duke of Cleve the War was like to revive again For while two petty Princes Brandenburgh and Newburgh strove for the inheritance Spain like the Vulture in the Fable attempted to catch it from both seizing upon Iuliers one of the chief Strengths of the Country which the States of the Netherlands by the help of our King and Henry the Fourth of France besieged and recovered again Sir Edward Cecil Brother to the Earl of Salisburg commanded four thousand English at that Siege whose Conduct gave Life to his Soldiers Valour and that advanced the Glory of his Conduct But where such fiery Spirits are congregated into a Body there will be often violent and thundring eruptions Sir Hatton Cheek was next Commander to Sir Edward Cecil a Man of a gallant and daring courage in the difficultest enterprises who speaking to Sir Thomas Dutton one of the Captains under his Command somewhat hastily Dutton disdaining to be snapt up being a man of a crabbed temper returned as hot an answer which broke into a flame But Dutton quenched it by telling Sir Hatton Cheek He knew he was his Officer which tied him in the Army to a strict Obedience but he would break that Bond and vindicate himself in another place And instantly quitting his Command he went for England Some small time after the taking of Iuliers Cheek fell sick and his distemper was the greater because he had heard Dutton strove to defame him both in Court and City for being full with passion he vented it with freedom enough in every place Cheek being recovered and heart-whole would not give time to his decayed limbs to suck in their old vigor but sends to Dutton that threatned him to give an account of the large expence of his tongue against him Dutton that waited for such a reckoning willingly accepted the Summons Cheek took Pigot one of his Captains to be his Second Dutton took Captain Gosnald both Men of well-spread fame and they four met on Calais Sands On which dreadful Stage at first meeting Dutton began to expostulate his injuries as if a Tongue-Combate might decide the Controversie but Cheek would dispute it otherwise Then their Seconds searching and stripping them to their Shirts in a cold morning they ran with that sury on each others Sword as if they did not mean to kill each other but strive who should first die Their Weapons were Rapier and Dagger a fit Banquet for Death At the first course Cheek ran Dutton into the neck with his Rapier and stab'd him in the neck backward with his Dagger miraculously missing his wind-pipe And at the same instant like one motion Dutton ran Cheek through the Body and stab'd him into the back with his left hand locking themselves together thus with four bloody keys which the Seconds fairly opened and would sain have closed up the bleeding difference but Cheeks wounds were deadly which he finding grew the violenter against his Enemy and Dutton seeing him begin to stagger went back from his fury only defending himself till the others rage weakned with loss of blood without any more hurt fell at his feet Dutton with much difficulty recovered his dangerous wounds but Cheek by his Servants had a sad Funeral which is the bitter fruit of fiery passions HENRY IIII ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE The venom of
this blow reached presently into England and came somewhat near our Kings Heart therefore he took the best way to prevent his Fears by striving to prevent his Dangers having no other end but his own For when he considered the horridness of the Powder Plot and by it the irreconcileable malice of that Party he thought it the safest policy not to stir those Ashes where so much Fire was covered which gave way to a flux of that Iesuitical humour to infest the Body of the Kingdom But now being startled with this poysoned knife he ventures upon a Proclamation strictly commanding all Iesuits and Priests out of the Kingdom and all Recusants to their own Houses not to come within ten miles of the Court and secures all the rest of his Subjects to him by an universal taking of the Oath of Allegiance which the Parliament both Lords and Commons then sitting began and the rest of the People followed to the Kings great contentment For the last Session the Parliament was prorogued till the sixteenth of October this year and meeting now they were willing to secure their Allegiance to the King out of Piety yet they were so stout even in those youthful days which he term'd Obstinacy that they would not obey him in his incroachments upon the Publick Liberty which he began then to practise For being now season'd with seven years knowledg in his profession here he thought he might set up for himself and not be still journy-man to the lavish tongue of men that pryed too narrowly into the secrets of his Prerogative which are mysteries too high for them being Arcana imperii fitter to be admired than questioned But the Parliament were apprehensive enough that those hidden mysteries made many dark steps into the Peoples Liberties and they were willing by the light of Law and Reason to discover what was the Kings what theirs Which the King unwilling to have searched into after five Sessions in six years time dissolved the Parliament by Proclamation HENRICUS Princeps Walliae etc a. Reverendissimus in Christo Pater D.D. RICHARDUS BANCROFT Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis About this time Richard Bancroft Arch-Bishop of Canterbury died a person severe enough whose roughness gained little upon those that deserted the Ceremonies One work of his shewed his spirit better than the ruggedest Pen can depaint it For it was he that first brought the King to begin a new Colledg by Chelsey wherein the choice and abiest Scholars of the Kingdom and the most pregnant Wits in matters of Controversies were to be associated under a Provost with a fair and ample allowance not exceeding three thousand pounds a year whose design was to answer all Popish Books or others that vented their malignant spirits against the Protestant Religion either the Heresies of the Papists or the Errors of those that strook at Hierarchy so that they should be two-edged Fellows that would make old cutting and flashing and this he forwarded with all industry during his time and there is yet a formal Act of Parliament in being for the establishment of it But after his death the King wisely considered that nothing begets more contention than opposition and such Fuellers would be apt to inslame rather than quench the heat that would arise from those embors For Controversies are often or for the most part the exuberancies of Passion and the Philosopher saith men are drunk with disputes and in that inordinateness take the next thing that comes to hand to throw at one anothers faces so that the design fell to the ground with him and there is only so much Building standing by the Thames-side as to shew that what he intended to Plant he meant should be well Watered and yet it withered in the bud I can lay nothing to the charge of this great man but from common fame yet this I may truly say That for his Predecessor Whitgift and his Successor Abbot I never heard nor read any thing tending to their disparagement But on him some unhappy Wit vented this Pasquin Here lies his Grace in cold Earth slad Who died with want of what he had The Queen was Mistress of Somerset-house as well as the Prince was Master of St. Iames and she would fain have given it the name of Denmark-house which name continued her time among her people but it was afterwards left out of the common Calender like the dead Emperors new named Month. She was not without some Grandees to attend her for outward glory The Court being a continued Maskarado where she and her Ladies like so many Sea-Nymphs or Nereides appeared often in various dresses to the ravishment of the beholders The King himself being not a little delighted with such fluent Elegancies as made the nights more glorious than the days But the latitude that these high-flying fancies and more speaking Actions gave to the lower World to judg and censure even the greatest with reproaches shall not provoke me so much as to stain the innocent Paper I shall only say in general That Princes by how much they are greater than others are looked upon with a more severe eye if their Vertues be not suitable to their Greatness they lose much of their value For it is too great an allay to such resinedness to fall under the common cognizance Philip Earle of Pemb Mong Lord Chamberlaine to the King etc. Now all addresses are made to Sir Robert Car he is the Favourit in Ordinary no sute nor no reward but comes by him his hand distributes and his hand restrains our Supreme Power works by second Causes the Lords themselves can scarce have a smile without him And to give the greater lustre to his power about this time the Earl of Dunbar the Kings old trusty Servant the Cabinet of his secret Counsels died so that he solely now took the most intimate of them into his charge and the Officer of Lord high Treasurer of Scotland which staff the other left behind him and though it could be no great Supporter yet the credit of it carried some reputation in his own Country where it was his happiness to be magnified as well as in England for he had Treasure enough here where the Fountain was And to ingrandize all the King created him Baron of Brandspech and Viscount Rochester and soon after Knight of the Garter Thus was he drawn up by the Beams of Majesty to shine in the highest Glory grapling often with the Prince himself in his own Sphear in divers Conteslations For the Prince being a high born Spirit and meeting a young Competitor in his Fathers Affections that was a Mushrom of yesterday thought the venom would grow too near him and therefore he gave no countenance but opposition to it which was aggravated by some little scintils of Love as well as Hatred Rivals in passion being both amorous and in youthful blood fixing by accident upon one object who was a third mans in which the Viscount
got the Mastery but to his ruin The Prince shewing his affection by his neglecting of her to be grounded rather upon envy to the Man than love to the Woman But before this time the Treasurer Salisbury that great Engin of the State by whom all Wheels moved held an intimate Correspondence with the House of Suffolk which he had strengthned with an Alliance marrying his eldest Son the Lord Cranborn to Katharine the eldest Daughter of that Family And being mindful of the asperity and sharpness that was betwixt him and the late Earl of Essex he thought it a good Act of Policy and Piety not to suffer Malice to become Hereditary and therefore he was a great means in marrying the young Earl of Essex to the Lady Frances Howard another of those Sisters that the Fathers Enmity might be closed up by the Sons Nuptial Fraternity The Earl of Essex was fourteen years of Age and she thirteen when they married too young to consider but old enough to consent Yet by the advice of Friends separated after marriage she under her Mothers wing and he visiting France and Germany till Time should mature and ripen a happy Co-union The Court was her Nest her Father being Lord Chamberlain and she was hatched up by her Mother whom the sour breath of that Age how justly I know not had already tainted from whom the young Lady might take such a Tincture that Ease Greatness and Court Glories would more distain and impress on her than any way wear out and diminish And growing to be a Beauty of the greatest Magnitude in that Horison was an Object fit for Admirers and every Tongue grew an Orator at that Shrine The Prince of Wales now in his Puberty sent many loving glances as Ambassadors of his good respects and amorous expressions are fit subjects for jealous reproaches to work on Her Husband having been now three or four years beyond the Seas sick with absence from her whom his desires longed after came over again and found that Beauty which he had left innocent so farded and sophisticated with some Court Drug which had wrought upon her that he became the greatest Stranger at home His Patience made way for him a while and he bore up with a gentle gale against the stream of this Womans affections which ran altogether unknown to him into another chanel Nor was her reputation yet become so rebust being of a tender growth to strike his ears with reproaches and therefore he imputed her sly entertainments to a Maiden bashfulness till surfeted with that dull Potion upon better advice he went to the Earl of Suffolk her Father and demanded his Wife thinking himself capable to enjoy both her and her love The Father that thought there had been an intimacy betwixt them suitable to their Conjugal Knot made use of his Paternal power to reduce his Daughter to the obedience of a Wife But while these things were strugling for a most violent Disease of a poysonous Nature imputed to but far transcending the small Pox seized on the Earl of Essex and had not the strength of Youth and that Almighty Power that orders all things wrought out the venom of it the Earth as probably wished by her had been his Marriage Bed For this Lady being taken with the growing fortunes of the Viscount Rochester and grounding more hope upon him than the uncertain and hopeless love of the Prince she cast her Anchor there which the Prince soon discovered and slighted her accordingly For dancing one time among the Ladies and her Glove falling down it was taken up and presented to him by one that thought he did him acceptable service but the Prince refused to receive it saying publicky He would not have it it is stretcht by another meaning the Viscount This was an aggravation of hatred betwixt the Kings Son and the Kings Friend The Countess of Essex having her heart alienated from her Husband and set upon the Viscount had a double task to undergo for accomplishing her ends One was to hinder her Husband from enjoying her the other was to make the Viscount sure unto her For dishonest Love is most full of jealousie Her Husband she looked upon as a private person and to be carried by him into the Country out of her element being ambitious of glory and a Beauty covetous of applause were to close as she thought with an insufferable Torment though he was a man that did not only every way merit her love but he loved her with an extraordinary affection having a gentle mild and courteous disposition especially to women such as might win upon the roughest natures But this fiery heat of his Wives mounted upon the wings of Lust or Love call it what you will carryed her after so much mischief that those that saw her face might challenge Nature of too much Hypocrisie for harbouring so wicked a heart under so sweet and bewitching a countenance To strengthen her designs she finds out one of her own stamp Mrs. Turner a Doctor of Physicks Widow a woman whom Prodigality and Looseness had brought low yet her Pride would make her fly any pitch rather than fall into the jaws of Want These two consult together how they might stop the current of the Earls affection towards his Wife and make a clear passage for the Viscount in the place To effect which one Doctor Forman a reputed Conjurer living at Lambeth is found out The women declare to him their Grievances he promises sudden help and to amuse them frames many little Pictures of Brass and Wax some like the Viscount and Countess whom he must unite and strengthen others like the Earl of Essex whom he must debilitate and weaken and then with Philtrous powders and such drugs he works upon their persons And to practise what effects his Art would produce Mrs. Turner that loved Sir Arthur Manwaring a Gentleman then attending the Prince and willing to keep him to her gave him some of the powder which wrought so violently with him that through a storm of Rain and Thunder he rode fifteen miles one dark night to her House scarce knowing where he was till he was there Such is the devillish and mad rage of Lust heightned with Art and Fancy These things matured and ripened by the cunning of this Jugler Forman gave them assurance of happy hopes Her Courtly invitements that drew the Viscount to observe her she imputed to the operation of those drugs he had tasted and that harshness and stubborn comportment she expressed to her Husband making him weary of such entertainments to absent himself she thought proceeded from the effects of those unknown known potions and powders that were administred to him So apt is the Imagination to take impression of those things we are willing to believe The good Earl finding his Wife nousled in the Court and seeing no possibility to reduce her to reason till she were estranged from the rellish and tast of
this the passage to his entertainment The King strucken suddenly with such heaps asked the Treasurer what this money was for who told him he had received his Majesties Commands to give so much to the Viscount Rochester The King that either carelesly thought five thousand pound to be no more than the noise so much makes in Scotland which doth not amount to above five hundred pounds or cunningly if he knew the value knew also the Treasurers meaning said it was too much for one man and made him be contented with less than the half And now the King casts his thoughts towards Peterborough where his Mother lay whom he caused to be translated to a Magnificent Tomb at Westminster And somewhat suitable to her mind when she was living she had a translucent passage in the night through the City of London by multitudes of Torches The Tapers placed by the Tomb and the Altar in the Cathedral smoaking with them like an Offertory with all the Ceremonies and Voices their Quires and Copes could express attended by many Prelates and Nobles who payd this last Tribute to her memory This was accounted a Piaculous action of the Kings by many though some have not stuck to say That as Queen Elizabeth was willing to be rid of the Queen of Scots yet would not have it her action and being it could not be done without her command when it was done she renounced her own act So though the King was angry when he heard his Mother was taken away by a violent death recalling his Ambassador threatning War and making a great noise which was after calmed and closed up with a large Pension from the Queen yet he might well enough be pleased that such a spirit was layd as might have conjured up three Kingdoms against him For Patrick Grey that the King sent to disswade Queen Elizabeth from taking away his Mothers life was the greatest Instrument to perswade her to it Distilling always into her this Sentence Mortua non mordet When she is dead she cannot bite But the Love that tends to self-preservation is an adjunct of Nature more powerful than Filial duty and therefore there will be no great strife where there are not adequate operations This time was also presented unto us in a various dress and the event shewed though some years after there was more cause of Mourning than Rejoycing though the latter got the predominance For the Prince Elector Palatine came over into England to Marry the Kings only Daughter and Death deprived us of the Kings eldest Son A Prince as eminent in Nobleness as in Blood and having a spirit too full of life and splendour to be long shrouded in a cloud of flesh If that which gave life to his life had been less he might happily have lived longer Not that there was too much Oyl or that concurrent Natural Balsamum in this fair and well-composed Lamp to extinguish it self but the light that came from it might cast so radiant a lustre as by darkning others it came to lose the benefit of its own glory Iealousie is like fire that burns all before it and that fire is hot enough to dissolve all Bonds that tends to the diminution of a Crown The Prince of Spain his contemporary Son to Philip the second not long before this like a young Phaeton wished himself but one day in his Fathers Throne and he fell not long after into the hard hand of an immature fate before he could step into the Chariot So dangerous are the paths of Greatness that the tongue many times rouling aside makes men tread awry Strange Rumors are raised upon this sudden expiration of our Prince the disease being so violent that the combate with Nature in the strength of youth being almost nineteen years of age lasted not above five days Some say he was poysoned with a bunch of Grapes others attribute it to the venemous scent of a pair of Gloves presented to him the distemper lying for the most part in the head They that knew neither of these are strucken with fear and amazement as if they had tasted or felt the effects of those violences Private whisperings and suspicions of some new designs a foot broaching Prophetical terrors That a black CARLO D'AVSTRIA PRINCIPE DI SPAGNA Christmas would produce a bloody Lent For the Spaniard who opposed the marriage of the Prince Palatine and saw their ruin growing up in Prince Henries towardly Spirit were reputed vulgarly the Mint-masters of some horrid practices and that a Ship of Pocket Pistols was come out of Spain fit Instruments for a Massacre And these Trepidations were not only in the lower Region but wrought upwards so high that Proclamations were sent abroad to forbid the making or carrying of Pistols under a foot long in the Barrel And all Papists are not only dis-armed being ever esteemed Vassals to the Catholick King but their Actions with caution pried into In such dark clouds as these the whole Kingdom was at a loss all ordinary Transitions of Nature are imputed to prodigious Omens the greater the fears are the more blazing is the Meteor that arises from them Some that knew the bickerings betwixt the Prince and the Viscount muttered out dark Sentences that durst not look into the light especially Sir Iames Elphington who observing the Prince one day to be discontented with the Viscount offered to kill him but the Prince reproved him with a gallant Spirit saying If there were Cause he would do it himself Now whether these rumors begot a further scrutiny or whether it be the Court-trick to daub and slubber over things that may be perspicuous I know not But the Physicians about the Prince gave it under their hands which was spread abroad in several copies that he died of a strong malignant Feaver so are all violent dissolutions where Nature hath power of resistance that his Liver was pale and livid lead-like the Gall had no Gall but was full of wind the Spleen was unnaturally black and the Lungs in many places spotted with much corruption the Midriff or Diaphragma blackish and the Head in some places full of blood and in some places full of clear water Thus was he Anatomized to amuze the World and clear the suspicion of poyson as if no venoms could produce these effects He died the sixth of November and was carried on a Hearse Triumphing even in Death to Westminster the seventh of December following the pomp of the Funeral being fully compleated with the People tears and Lamentations But the King though he could not but be troubled to lose so near a part of himself looked over all these Mists and like the Sun dispelled all these Clouds and Vapours commanding no man should appear in the Court in mourning he would have nothing in his Eye to bring so sad a Message to his Heart The jollity feasting and magnificence of Christmas must not be laid down There were Princes and Nobles
that came out of Germany with the prince Elector that must see the Glory of the English Court which was presented with so much eminency in gorgeous Apparel that the precedent mourning was but as a sable foyl the better to illustrute it The Prince Elector Palatine and Maurice Prince of Orange were made Knights of the Garter Lodowick Count of Orange being Maurice's Deputy and Prince Maurice took it as a great honour to be admitted into the fraternity of that Order and wore it constantly Till afterwards some Villains at the Hague that met the Reward of their Demerit one of them a French man being Groom of the Princes Chamber robbed a Ieweller of Amsterdam that brought Iewels to the Prince this Groom tempting him into his Chamber to see some Iewelr and there with his Confederates they strangled the man with one of the Princes blew Ribonds which being after discovered the Prince would never suffer so fatal an Instrument to come about his Neck In February following the Prince Palatine and that lovely Princess the Lady Elizabeth were married on Bishop Valentines Day in all the Pomp and Glory that so much Grandure could express Her Vestments were white the Emblem of Innocency her hair dishevil'd hanging down her back at length an Ornament of Virginity a Crown of pure Gold upon her head the Cognizance of Majesty being all over beset with pretious gems shining like a Constellation her Train supported by twelve young Ladies in white Garments so adorned with Iewels that her Passage looked like a milky way She was led to Church by her Brother Prince Charles and the Earl of Northampton the Young Batchelor on the right hand and the Old on the left And while the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was solemnizing the Marriage some eruscations and lightnings of joy appeared in her Countenance that expressed more than an ordinary smile being almost elated to a laughter which could not clear the Air of her Fate but was rather a fore-runner of more sad and dire Events Which shews how slippery Nature is to tole us along to those things that bring danger yea sometimes destruction with them She returned from the Chappel between the Duke of Lenox and the Earl of Notingham Lord High Admiral two married Men. The Feastings Maskings and other Royal Formalities were as troublesome 't is presum'd to the Lovers as the Relation of them here may be to the Readers For such splendor and gayety are fitter to appear in Princes Courts than in Histories GUILIELMUS LUDOVIC COMES A NASSAU CATZENELNB VIANDEN ET DIE But tired with Feasting and Jollity about the middle of April when the beauties of the Spring were enticing enough to beguile the tediousness of the way the Prince Elector willing to review and the Princess to see what she was to injoy After all the caresses and sweet embraces that could be between the King Queen and Princes that were to be separated so long and at such a distance And after all the Shews Pastimes Fire-works and other Artifices that could be devised and manifested they parted at Rochester The Lord Admiral being ready with a Royal Navy in the Downs for their passage and conduct The season smiled on them and they arrived the nine and twentieth of the Moneth in Flushing The Duke of Lenox the Earl of Arundel the Viscount Lisle and the Lord Harington with divers Ladies and persons of Quality attended them to Heydelburgh Their entertainment was great and magnificent in the Low-Countries not only suitable to the Persons but the place from whence they came The English having been ever a Bulwark to the Netherlands and now they were in full peace with Spain which gave the better rellish to their Banquetings And in every eminent Town in Germany as they passed they found that welcom which prolonged their time but made their travel the less so that with much ado they reached Heydelburgh And after some time spent there to see the beauties and delights of that Court and Country which were extended and put forth to the uttermost the Nobility and Ladies of England returned home only they left the Lord Harington behind them who dyed by the way A Gentleman much lamented in his own person but much more in his Sons who not long after survived him with whom were buried not only those excellent indowments that make Noble-men great indeed but the memory of a noble Posterity which makes them little or indeed nothing at all HENRY HOWARD End of Northampton From an Original Picture in the Collection of Mr. Harding The liuely Portraiture of the worthy Knight Sir William Wadd late Lieutenant of the Tower c. About the same time the King thinking fit to send an Ambassador into Flanders to the Arch-Duke some say into France the Viscount recommended Sir Thomas Overbury to the King for that Service extolling his abilities and fitness for the same publickly that more notice might be taken of the affront and the King made choice of him for that Imployment Which done the Viscount under the shadow of friendship imparts to Overbury what intentions the King had towards him but he thought it would not be so convenient for him to accept of it because he should not only lose his converse and company by such an alienation which he highly valued but many a fair opportunity of improving his respects to him in some better way of advancement Overbury had not been so little a Courtier or a man of so mean Reason but that he was sensible what displeasure he should pull upon himself by refusing the Kings Commands And therefore he told the Viscount that betwixt the Kings favours and his friendship he had a great conflict in his spirit being willing to retain both but how he should refuse the Kings commands with safety he knew not But the Viscount with fair promises prevailed with him to set up his rest at home upon higher expectations such a sweet bait is Ambition protesting to take off the asperity of the Kings anger from him and smooth his way so as should be for his better advantage When he had wrought Overbury in this forge he goes to the King and blows the fire incensing him with all the aggravations he could so that the poor Gentleman for his contempt was forthwith committed to the Tower And to prepare all things for his reception there Sir William Wade the late Lieutenant was removed and Sir Iervis Ellowis a Person more ambitious than indigent having made his way by money the common merit was admitted to the place Now the Countess like another Alecto drove furiously her Chariot having two wheels which ran over all impediments One was to sue a Divorce betwixt her and her Husband that she might marry the Viscount The other was to take away Overbury the blemish in her Eye and that laid such a stain upon her that nothing but his blood could expiate For these she hath several Engins the one must be
up to three hundred pounds a piece But now again the poor Courtiers were so indigent that sixty pounds would purchase a Knighthood the King wanting other means to gratifie his Servants Yet he was of so free a Nature and careless of Money when he had it though solicitous to get it that he batled in his own bounty For being one day in the Gallery at White-hall and none with him but Sir Henry Rich who was second Son to the Earl of Warwick afterwards Earl of Holland a Gentleman of excellent Natural Parts but youthfully expensive and Iames Maxwel one of his Bed Chamber some Porters past by them with three thousand pounds going to the Privy Purse Sir Henry Rich whispering Maxwel the King turned upon them and asked Maxwel what says he what says he Maxwel told him he wisht he had so much money Marry shalt thou Harry saith the King and presently commanded the Porters to carry it to his Lodging with this Expression You think now you have a great Purchase but I am more delighted to think how much I have pleasured you in giving this money than you can be in receiving it This Story intervenes to shew the Temper of his Mind About this time also Gold was raised to two shillings in the pound occasioned from the high value set upon it abroad which made the Merchant transport it But the first Inhancers can make their Markets by ingrossing great Sums especially the Payments of those times and all this Kings Reign being for the most part in Gold so that it might be called the Golden Age that it is a wonder now what gulf hath swallowed those great sums if their golden wings be not flown to the Sun-rising But these little projects will bring in but small store of money to maintain the Work many such Materials must go to make up a Royal Building and little Streams will not easily fill a Cistern that hath many Issues A Parliament can furnish all but who dare venture on such Refractory Spirits Yet there was a generation about the Court that to please and humour Greatness undertook a Parliament as men presuming to have Friends in every County and Borough who by their Power among the People would make Election of such Members for Knights and Burgesses as should comply solely to the Kings desires and Somerset is the Head and Chief of these Vndertakers But this was but an Embrion and became an Abortive The English Freedom cannot be lost by a few base and tame spirits that would unmake themselves and their Posterity to ingrandize one Man For the Parliament meeting according to their Summons such Faces appeared there as made the Court droop who instead of Contributing to the Kings wants lay open his wasts especially upon the Scots with whom they desire medietatem linguae a share of favour The Bread by our Saviours rule properly belonging to the Children of the Kingdom And they beseech His Majesty to stop the Current of future access of that Nation to make residence here having enough to eat up their own Crums They enquire into the Causes of the unexpected increase of Popish Recusants since the Gun-Powder Plot the detestation whereof they thought should have utterly extinguished them and they find it to the Admission of Popish Nobility into his Counsels the silencing of many watchful and diligent Ministers the divers Treaties his Majesty hath entertained not only for the Marriage of the deceased Prince Henry but for Prince Charles that now liveth with the Daughters of Popish Princes which dis-heartneth the Protestant and encourageth the Recusant laying open with these many other miscarriages in Government which the King willing to have concealed stopt them in their Course dissolving the Parliament and committing to the Tower and other Princes the beginning of incroachment upon the publick liberties such as were most active for the Common good These fair Blossoms not producing the hoped-for fruit they find out new Projects to manure the People different much in name and nature a Benevolence extorted a Free-gift against their wills was urged upon them and they that did not give in their money must give in their names which carried a kind of fright with it But the most knowing men like so many Pillars to the Kingdoms liberties supported their Neighbours tottering Resolutions with assuring them that these kind of Benevolences were against Law Reason and Religion First against Law being prohibited by divers Acts of Parliament and a Curse pronounced against the infringers of them Secondly against Reason that a particular man should oppose his judgment and discretion to the wisdom and judgment of the King assembled in Parliament who have there denyed any such aid Thirdly against Religion That a King violating his Oath taken at his Coronation for maintaining the Laws Liberties and Customs of the Realm should be assisted by the people in an Act of so much Injustice and Impiety These and many other Arguments instilled into the people by some good Patriots were great impediments to the Benevolence So that they got but little money and lost a great deal of love For no Levies do so much decline and abase the love and spirits of the people as unjust Levies Subsidies get more of their money but Exactions enslave the mind for they either raise them above or depress them beneath their sufferings which are equally mischievous and to be avoided This Summer the King of Denmark revisited his Sister the Queen of England with some forty Lords Gentlemen and others in his Train landing at Yarmouth and passing directly to London took up his Lodging in our Common Inns and was not known but for some Outlandish Nobleman till he came to the Queens Palace in the Strand where she was surprized with the unexpected joy of a Brothers company distanced from her by the interest of his people the great Bar that hinders Princes the common civilities and happiness of their Inferiors But the joy continued not long for after some fourteen days interview they parted again But those days had such a plenitude of all those delights that contend to satisfaction as if a great deal of more time had been involved and contracted in them VERA EFFIGIES FRANCISCAE COMITISSAE SOMERSETIAE VICECOM ROFFEN ETc The lively portraict of the Lady Francis Countesse of Somerset Sir Ralph Winwood who had been Lieger-Ambassador with the States in the Netherlands for his abilities and good service had merited so much from the King that he made him Secretary of State The Queen closes with him the better to discover Somersets miscarriages and he was ready enough to oblige her for Somerset made him but an Vnderling grasping all Publick imployments into his own hand not caring whom he disobliged or what Malice he pulled upon himself for like a Coloss he stood the brunt of all the Tempests of Envy making those that carried the greatest sail to strike and come under him Nor would he suffer any
easily committed and concealed It is an offence that is Tanquam sagitta nocte volans it is the Arrow that flies by night it discerns not whom it hits for many times the poyson is laid for one and another takes it As in Sanders case where the poysoned Apple was laid for the Mother and the Child eat it And so in that notorious Case whereupon the Statute of 22 Hen. 8. cap. 9. was made where the intent being but to poyson one or two poyson was put in a little Vessel of Barm that stood in the Kitchen at the Bishop of Rochesters house of which Barm Pottage or Grewel was made wherewith seventeen of the Bishops Family were poysoned nay divers of the poor that came to the Bishops-gate and had the Pottage in Alms were likewise poysoned Here is great talk of Impoysonment I hope I am safe I have no enemies nor any thing men can long for that is all one for he may sit at the Table by one for whom poyson is prepared and have a drench of his Cup or of his Pottage and so as the Poet saith Concidit infelix alieno vulnere he may die another mans death and therefore it was most gravely judiciously and properly provided by that Statute that Impoysonment should be High-Treason because whatsoever offence tendeth to the utter subversion and dissolution of Human Society is in the nature of High-Treason But it is an offence that I may truly say of it Non est nostri generis nec sanguinis It is thanks be to God rare in the Isle of Britain It is neither of our Country nor of our Church You may find it in Rome and Italy there is a Religion for it if it should come among us it were better living in a Wilderness than in a Court. For the particular fact upon Overbury I knew the Gentleman it is true his mind was great but it moved not in any great good order yet certainly it did commonly fly at good things and the greatest fault that ever I heard by him was That he made his Friend his Idol But take him as he was the Kings Prisoner in the Tower and then see how the Case stands In that place the State is as it were a Respondent to make good the Body of the Prisoner and if any thing happen to him there it may though not in this Case yet in some others make an aspersion and reflexion upon the State it self For the person is utterly void of his own defence his own care and providence can serve him to nothing He is in the custody and preservation of Law and we have a Maxim in our Law that when a State is in preservation of Law nothing can destroy it or hurt it and God forbid but the like should be in Persons and therefore this was a circumstance of great aggravation Lastly To have a man chased to death in a manner as it appears now by matter of Record for other privacy of Cause I know not by poyson after poyson First Rosaker then Arsnick then Mercury sublimate then sublimate again it is a thing would astonish mans nature to hear it The Poets feign that the Furies had Whips and that they were corded with poysoned Snakes and a man would think that this subject were the very Case To have a man tied to a post and to scourge him to death with Serpents for so truly may diversity of poysons be termed It pleased my Lord Chief Justice to let me know that which I heard with great comfort which was the charge that his Majesty gave to himself and the rest of the Commissioners in this Case worthy to be written in Letters of Gold That the business should be carried without touch to any that was innocent not only without impeachment but without aspersion which was a most Noble and Princely caution for mens Reputations are tender things and ought to be like Christs Coat without seam And it was more to be respected in this Case because it met with two great Persons A Nobleman that his Majesty had favoured and advanced and his Lady being of a great and Honourable House though I think it be true that the Writers say that there is no Pomegranate so fair or so sound but may have a perished Kernel Nay I see plainly in those excellent Papers of his Majesties own hand-writing as so many beams of Iustice issuing from that Vertue which so much doth shine in him the business so evenly carried without prejudice whether it were a true Accusation on the one part or a practice or false Accusation on the other as shewed plainly that his Majesties judgment was Tanquam tabula rasa as a clean pair of Tables and his ears Tanquam janua aperta as a gate not side open but wide open to the Truth as it should be discovered And I may truly affirm that there was never in this Kingdom nor in any other the blood of a private Gentleman vindicated Cum tanto motu Regni or to say better Cum tanto plausu Regni If it had concerned the King or Prince there could not have been greater or better Commissioners The term hath been almost turned into a Iustium or Vacancy the people being more willing to be lookers on in this business than proceeders in their own There hath been no care of discovery omitted no moment of time lost and therefore I will conclude with the saying of Solomon this part of my Speech Gloria Deicelare rem and gloria Regis scrutari rem It is the glory of God to conceal a thing and it is the glory of the King to find it out And his Majesties honor is the greater for that he shewed to the World this business as it hath relation to my Lord of Somerset whose Case in no sort I do fore-judg being ignorant of the secrets of the cause but take him as the Law takes him hitherto for a suspect I say the King hath to his great honor shewed That were any man in such a case of blood as the Signet of his right-hand as the Scripture saith he would put him off Now will I come to the particular Charge of these Gentlemen And first I will by way of Narrative relate the Fact with the occasion of it This wretched man Weston who was the Actor or Mechanical party in this Impoysonment the first day being indicted by a very substantial Iury of selected Citizens to the number of nineteen who found Billa vera yet nevertheless at the first stood mute But after some days intermission it pleased God to cast out the Dumb Devil and he put himself upon his Trial and was by a Iury of great value upon his own Confessions and other testimonies found guilty So as thirty and one sufficient Iurors have past upon him and he had also his Judgment and Execution awarded After this being in preparation for another World he sent for Sir Overbury's Father and falling down upon his knees with great remorse
and compunction asked him forgiveness and afterwards again of his own motion desired to have his like prayer of forgiveness recommended to his Mother who was absent And at both times out of the abundance of his heart confessed that he was to die justly and that he was worthy of death And after again at his Execution which is a kind of sealing time of Confessions even at the point of death though there were Tempers about him he did again confirm publickly that his Examinations were true and that he had been justly and honourably dealt with So here is a period of this man which was the subject of this calumny or affront of Iustice. Wherein Mr. Lumsden plays his part first who in the time between Westons standing mute and his Tryal frames a most odious and libellous Relation containing as many untruths as lines sets it down in writing with his own hand and delivers it to one of the Bedchamber to be put into the Kings hands falsifying all that was done the first day of Westons Arraignment turning the pike and point of his imputations upon the Lord Chief Justice of England whose name thus occurring I cannot pass by and yet I cannot skill of this same Flattery or vulgar Attribute but this I will say of him and I would say as much to Ages That never mans person and his place were better met in a business than my Lord Cook and my Lord Chief Iustice in the Cause of Overbury Now for the person of Master Lumsden I know he is a Scotch Gentleman and thereby more ignorant of our Laws but I cannot tell whether this doth extenuate his fault or increase it for as it may extenuate it in respect of ignorance so it doth aggravate it much in respect of presumption to meddle in that he understood not unless some other mans cunning wrought upon this mans boldness The infusion of a slander into a Kings ear is of all forms of Libels and Slanders the worst It is true that Kings may keep secret their information and then no man can enquire after them while they are shrined in their Breast but where a King is pleased that a man shall answer for his false information divers precedents of slanderous Petitions have been as severly punished as slanderous Libels For the Offence of Sir Iohn Wentworth and Sir Iohn Hollis which was to scandalize the Iustice already past or to cut off the thread of something that is to come these two Gentlemen came mounted on Horseback and in a ruffling and facing manner presumed to Examin Weston whether he did poyson Overbury or no directly cross to that which had been tried and judged For what was the Point tried That Weston had poysoned Overbury And Sir Wentworth's question was whether he did poyson him A direct Contradictory Whereupon Weston answered that he did him wrong and turning to the Sheriff said You promised me I should not be troubled at this time and yet nevertheless Wentworth prest him to answer that he might pray with him l know not that Sir Iohn Wentworth is an Ecclesiastick that he should cut any man from communion of Prayer and for all this vexing of the spirit of a poor man now in the gate of death Weston stood constant and said I die not unworthily my Lord Chief Iustice hath my mind under his hand and he is an honourable and just Iudg. Sir Iohn Hollis was not so much a Questionist but wrought upon the other Questions and like a Counsellor wisht him to discharge his Conscience and to satisfie the World What World I marvel It was the World at Tyburn For the World at Guildhall and the World at London were satisfied before Teste the Bels that rang every where But men have got a fashion now a-days that two or three busie bodies will take upon them the name of the World and broach their own conceit as if it were a general opinion Well what more When they could not work upon Weston Sir Iohn Hollis in an indignation turned about his horse as the other was turning to his death and said he was sorry of such a Conclusion That was to have the State honoured or justified Sir Iohn Hollis offence hath another Appendix before this in time which was at the day of the Tryal He presumed to give his Verdict openly That if he were of the Iury he would not doubt what to do Marry he saith he cannot well tell whether he spoke this before the Iury had given up their Verdict or after Wherein there is little gained for whether he were a Praejuror or a Postjuror the one was to prejudice the Iury the other was to attaint them The offence of these Gentlemen is greater and more dangerous than is conceived We have no Spanish Inquisition no Iustice in a corner no gagging of mens mouths at their death but they may speak freely to the last but then it must come from the free motion of the party not by tempting of Questions The Questions that are asked ought to tend to further revealing of their own or others guiltiness But to use a Question in the nature of a cross interrogatory to falsifie that which is Res judicata is intolerable That were to erect a Court or Commission of review at Tyburn against the Court of Westminster For if the Answer be according to the Judgment past it adds credit to Iustice if it be contrary it derogateth nothing yet it subjecteth the Majesty of Iustice to a popular vulgar talk and opinion My Lords these are great and dangerous offences for if we do not maintain Iustice Iustice will not maintain us Then the Examinations being read and further aggravated against these three Gentlemen there passed Judgment upon them of Fine and lmprisonment Sir Thomas Monson another of the Countesses Agents in this poysoning contrivance had past one days Tryal at Guildhall But the Lord Chief Justice Cook in his Rhetorical Flourishes at his Arraignment vented some expressions which he either deduced from Northamptons assuring the Lieutenant of the Tower that the making away of Sir Thomas Overbury would be acceptable to the King or from some other secret hint received as if he could discover more than the death of a private person intimating though not plainly that Overburies untimely remove had something in it of retaliation as if he had been guilty of the same Crime against Prince Henry blessing himself with admiration at the horror of such actions In which he flew so high a pitch that he was taken down by a Court Lure Sir Thomas Monsons Tryal laid aside and he soon after set at liberty and the Lord Chief Justices wings were clipt for it ever after And it was rumor'd that the King heightned to so much passion by this eruption of Sir Edward Cooks went to the Council Table and kneeling down there desired God to lay a Curse upon him and his posterity for ever if he were consenting to Overburies death But this
cannot be asserted being above our Sphere yet as Mathematicians do propose to themselves imaginary Circles for the several motions in the Heavens and though there be none discovered yet they find the effects of what they apprehend So the sudden stopping of Monsons Tryal put strange imaginations into mens heads and those seconded by Reports too high for private discovery their operation only falling under the common notion But the Lord Chief Justice was blamed for flying out of his way that having enough to prosecute the business he would grasp after more till he lost all For this Crime was thought second to none but the Gunpowder-plot that would have blown up all indeed at a blow a merciful cruelty this would have done the same by degrees a lingring but as sure a way one by one might have been culled out till all opposers had been removed Besides the other Plot was scandalous to Rome making Popery odious this was scandalous to the Gospel ever since the first Nullity The Devil could not have invented a more mischievous practice to Church and State William Seymour Marquis and Earle of Hartford and Baron Beauchamp GRAUE PONDUS ILLA MAXIMA NOBILITAS PREMIT Anno 1619. And now the Temples of Ianus being shut Warlike Abilliaments grew rusty and Bellona put on Masking-attire for Scotland bought her Peace at a good rate and Ireland found the fruits of hers growing up to her hand Those Irish that had great Estates though rude enough the King suppled and tamed with Honours and they that had little were content calmly to suck in what they had and battel'd by it so that they wanted nothing but moderation to make them happy These Halcion days shined round about us The influence of our Kings peaceable mind had almost an universal operation Spains ambition was contented to be bounded by the Pirene Hills and the Atlantick Ocean sucking in the fruits of Italy and Sicily and hoarding up the Treasures of the Indies willingly singing a Requiem to the Netherlands France wanting Exercise surfeited with diseases at home which by fits broke out into Tumors among themselves The Germans swelled into a Dropsie of Voluptuousness by Plenty and the sweets of Peace Politick Bodies are like Natural Full feeding contracts gross humors which will have vent Only such Exercise as may refine and keep the spirits active and digest the grosser and fulginous matter strengthens the Nerves of a Kingdom or Republick Nothing now but bravery and feasting the Parents of Debauchery and Riot flourished among us There is no Theam for History when men spill more drink than blood when plots and contrivances for Lust acted in dark corners are more practised than Stratagems in War and when the Stages with silken Pageants and Poppets that slacken the sinews are more frequented than those Theaters of Honor where Industry brawns and hardens the Arms Peace is a great Blessing if it bring not a Curse with it but War is more happy in its effects than it especially if it takes away the distemper that grows by long surfets without destroying the Body But since these buskind ornaments are wanting we must imbellish our Discourses with such passages as paced up and down in the sock of Peace There had been in Prince Henries time a Treaty of Marriage betwixt him and a Daughter of Spain which took no effect Our King was real in his intentions not willing to have his Sons Beams to display themselves but in a Royal Horizon The Spanish policy clouded the business with delays whether from the old grudg that was betwixt Queen Katharine and Henry the eighth or the difference between the Nations in Religion But the Spanish Courtesie being loth directly and point blank to tell our King he liked not the Conjunction went with a slow-paced Gravity such as he thought befitted the Civility of Princes and gave a little light to hope that it might be accomplished But Salisbury and others that managed those great affairs then did at this chink discover that their formalities were but Spanish Complements which like the air that gave them being soon vanished away After this our Kings thoughts cast about how he might provide a fit match for Prince Charles who shined in the same sphere of Honor that his Brother left for a better but not so much inlightned with the peoples love being less active and splendid and that I may not call it sullenness more reserved The German Dames were discoursed on where his Sister shined in her Glory as being of the same Religion and more suitable in Christian Policy but they were in a manner Subjects to the Emperor and that would give an allay to the Super-elementary extraction of Kings which should be of a higher Origine to amuse and that they might be the more admired by their people and therefore not so fitting in State-Policy And seeing there were small hopes expected from Spain a Daughter to Henry the great late King of France was aimed at and Sir Thomas Edmonds our Kings Lieger Ambassador had long before this time made his little addresses superficially and founded the Chanel but he met some Rocks and Remoras in the way so that he could not discover clearly their intentions and the King was loth to express himself plainly lest he should receive an affront And now sending as he thought it civilly necessary an Extraordinary Ambassador to congratulate the King of France his Marriage with Anna the Infanta of Spain he thought it good policy to take this occasion to make a stricter scrutiny whether there were any ground to rest upon for matching his Son And who is fitter for that employment being only for Courtship and Bravery than the Lord Hayes a Gentleman whose Composition of mind tended that way He was born in Scotland where bravery was in no superfluity bred up in France where he could not have it in extravagancy but he found it in England and made it his vanity The King had a large hand and he had a large heart and though he were no great Favourite ever yet he was never but in favour He with a great Train of young Noblemen and other Courtiers of eminency suited themselves with all those ornaments that could give lustre to so dazelling an appearance as Love and the Congratulation of it carried with it All the study was who should be most glorious and he had the happiest fancy whose invention could express something Novel neat and unusual that others might admire So that Huntingtons Prophecy was fulfilled here when speaking of the time of the Scots Conquest of England he said Multimoda variatione vestium indumentorum designaretur I remember I saw one of the Lord Ambassadors Suits and pardon me that I take notice of such petty things the Cloak and Hose were made of very fine white Beaver imbroidered richly all over with Gold and Silver the Cloak almost to the Cape within and without having no lining but imbroidery The
design Weston being a kind of Papist and Conwey a Protestant the better to close up the breach between the Emperor and the King of Bohemia But Ferdinand being startled with the flaring Glory of this new King to cast a damp upon it and to terrifie him and his Adherents he caused this Proscription to be published against them WE Ferdinand c. To all Electors Princes c. but especially to the Subjects of Frederick Count Palatine of the Rhine Elector c. send greeting Because it is not known unto you how that Frederick Count Palatine of the Rhine c. hath made himself head of that persidious and rebellious crew of our Kingdom of Bohemia Wherefore we proclaim the said Frederick Count Palatine c. Guilty of High Treason and iterate Proscription and of all the Penalties which by Law and Custom are depending thereon We conclude him out of Our and the Imperial Peace and are firmly resolved solved to execute the said Penalties against the said Frederick which calleth himself Count Palatine of the Rhine as against one publickly proscribed an Enemy and Adversary to us and to the Empire and as one which hath suffered himself to be made a Head of our disobedient and perfidious Rebels who is a Contemner and Oppugner of our Imperial Authority and Majesty who is an Infringer of Publick Peace and Tranquillity and of other Ordinances and Laws of the Empire Commanding you under pain of Life that in no way you give any aid succour assistance neither in Money Provision Munition nor any way else neither openly nor covertly under what colour or pretext soever to the said Frederick who calleth himself Count Palatine of the Rhine And if one or more of you should serve or be in pay of the said Frederick his Complices or Helpers We command him or them to forsake the Service of the said proscribed Frederick and of his Helpers And we command you the Estates Dependents Alliances Subjects and Vassals of the said proscribed Frederick that henceforth you yield unto him no obedience help nor aid in assisting him any further nor partake of his Rebellion Disobedience and Crime but utterly to forsake him in it and to assist us with true and faithful aid and succour to reduce the disobedient disloyal rebellious proscribed Frederick and his Helpers to due Obedience any Treaty Confederacy Amity and Alliance notwithstanding And we absolve you that are Vassals of the said proscribed Frederick or which are in his Protection or which are his Natural Subjects or Strangers from all your Oaths and Duties promising to all those which shall be obedient unto this our Mandate all Imperial favour grace and security We will likewise that none shall protect defend or secure the said banished Frederick and his Helpers and Assistants in nothing that may be profitable to them For we exclude the said banished Frederick together with his Adherents from all favour liberties promises security publick peace confederacies alliances laws privileges immunities and customs heretofore given unto him and them by our Ancestors the Roman Emperors But he that shall be disobedient unto this our Will and Command and shall assist take part or aid in any sort either privately or publickly under what colour soever the said Frederick who calleth himself Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria We declare by these Presents guilty of high Troason and iterate Proscription no less than himself And this let every one take notice of to keep themselves from danger Given in our City of Vienna c. CHRISTIANVS II. DVX SAXONIAE ETC. SEPTEMVIRATVS CAES. CREAN HAERES ANNO MDCIX VIRTVTE CHRISTI ANA While they were thus grappling in Bohemia the Marquess Spinola was forming an Army in Flanders and the Protestant Princes of Germany Consederates to the Palatine calling themselves the Princes of the Union raised Forces for the defence of the Palatinate and their own Interest under the Command of the Marquess of Ansbach But our King made no Preparations yet he sent to his Ambassador at Bruxels commanding him to enquire for what purpose Spinola's Army was called together the Truce continuing betwixt Spain and the Low-Countries but the Ambassador could receive little satisfaction the Spanish subtilty having sealed up Spinola's Commission which he was not to open till the Army were ready to march But men of ordinary understanding might apprehend that an Army of six and twenty thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with all Military Provisions were not to lye still and though our King had divers Arguments presented to him that did assure him that Army was intended for the Palatinate yet would not his Spirit be set on work to preserve his Childrens Patrimony So odious was the name of War to him But at length with much ado one Regiment of Foot to joyn with the Princes of the Union and make a little noise and bustle was extorted from him by importunities This Regiment was the gallantest for the Persons and outward presence of men that in many Ages I think hath appeared either at home or abroad It consisted of two and twenty hundred compleat the chief Commander Sir Horatio Vere who was after Baron of Tilbery a Person bred up in the School of War and a known Master in the Art of Victory He was accompanied with the Earls of Oxford and Essex young and daring Spirits whose honour not only descended from a long Series of Noble Progenitors but they made it their own And out of respect to them as well as love to the Service this Regiment was almost furnished with Gentlemen who went to make themselves capable of better imployment the English for many years having been truants in that Art The two Earls had two hundred and fifty men apiece piece in each Company and so many flocked to Essex out of love and he loth to put them off that he carried 300 men into the Palatinate paying fifty of them with his own Money The King being drawn to consent that two Regiments more should follow for these two Noblemen which gave the more encouragement to this petty Enterprize The English followed Spinola but at a distance for he being nearer to the Palatinate got much the start of them though they went out of England before he presented the Arch-Dukes with the civilities of his Departure which was upon the eighth of August And upon the last of the same month by the Assistance of Maurice Prince of Orange and the benefit of a Bridge of boats a little below Weasel they past the Rhine under the Conduct of Prince Henry of Nassau who with two thousand Horse and four hundred Musqueteers taken out of Gulick and the adjacent Garrisons cleared the Countrey before them marching through Gulickland and the barren Mountains of Collenland till they came near to Coblentz which Town stands upon the Center of two Rivers the Rhine and Mosell Giving out in the march as if the Army intended to pass
the Mosell but the Prince to divert the Enemies intelligence upon the sixteenth of September drew two miles back from Coblentz and past the Rhine in Punts a kind of Liter advancing forward on the other side of the River three English miles that night to a Village called Hembach where the Foot stayed till the Horse past the River And this sudden change of resolution was one of Prince Henry's Master-pieces for he knew from Collen Spinola would have intelligence by Curriers which way the bent of their march tended and they had the Mosell in their eye all the way but the Rhine in intention In the Halt before Coblentz one bullet among others from the Town past between General Vere and the Earl of Essex standing together and hit a Gentleman called Flood on the elbow The cause of shooting from thence as was conceived proceeded from a Skirmish the night before that happened betwixt some English and the Country People of an adjoyning Village on the Mosell for Captain Fairfax being sent with a Squadron to them in a peaceable manner to desire the accommodation of bread and wine for Money the Bores shot at him and hurt some of his men but he stoutly advancing to them they took their Boats and hasted down to Coblentz Some of the Bores were reported to be slain for which Fairfax upon the Prince's complaint was committed to give the Country satisfaction but the next day released MAURITS PRINS VAN ORANJE Benssheim Spinola finding himself deluded on one side of the Rhine past the River Main with all his Horse and four thousand Foot intending to snap them on the other but the stream being too high his Waggons with Munition took wet and some Field-peices miscarried which could not be recovered with the loss of some of his men which disasters happening they admonished him to a retreat otherwise in all probability he had cut off those Forces before they could have joyned with the Princes of the Union The 24 of September Prince Henry with his Horse and General Vere with the Foot past the River Main at a Ford not far from Frankford the Foot for the most part marching up to the middle through the stream and that night they stood in Arms having two Alarums of Spinola's approach not hearing yet he was retired The next day they had a long march to recover Darmstat one half of which Town belongs to the King of Bohemia the other part to the Landsgrave of Hessen There Prince Henry and the Dutch Companies left the English and returned into the Netherlands again and fifteen hundred German Horse commanded by Colonel Megan met them by order from the Princes of the Union The 27 of September they came to Beinsheim being the first intire Town in the Palatinate they arrived at and upon the first of October past over the Rhine by Worms upon a Bridge of Boats and that day were met by the Marquess of Ansbach and some others of the Princes of the Union who stayed to see them march by wondering at the gallantry of such Foot who were with them the meanest of the people After two days rest the Princes with part of their Army being 4000 Horse and 6000 Foot joyned with the English and together marched towards Altzi a Town in the Palatinate that the Enemy had taken in which they intended to surprize But hearing by their Scouts that the Enemy had quitted the Town as not tenable and that Spinola with his whole Army was marching towards them they faced about to make his way the shorter and within three hours their Scouts and the Enemies were in Skirmish but the German Princes not having their whole Army were not forward to engage Spinola seeing them march towards him being as weary as they took the advantage of a Hill and forced their Horse with his Cannon to retreat but the Princes drew their Cannon up another Hill on the right hand of the Enemy there being a large bottom and a hill of Vineyards betwixt the two Armies which were not visible but from thence for the one Hill drowned the other to them in the bottom As soon as they saw how the Enemy strove to secure himself and that he was loth to come on they judged their strength not to be great and therefore took a resolution to set upon them The Dutch in curtesie yielded the Vanguard to the English which before they stood upon as a Punctilio of honor The English General drew out of every Division fourscore Musqueteers to give the On-set who were incouraged by that Reverend Divine Doctor Burges of whom mention is formerly made who accompanied the General from England and was an instrument of much good to that Regiment though they needed no incouragement at that time being spirits willingly prepared for such enterprises AMBROSIVS SPINOLA DVX S. SEVERINO PRINC SARLVAL MARCH BENAFRO The next day they marched to Quarters again where the Soldiers found the Country Roots Fruits and Wine in the Must no good preservatives But after they had stayed by it seven or eight days Spinola led them a dance for digestion pretending for Keisars Luther a Town in the borders of the Palatinate which made the Princes advance their whole body to attend him but as they drew near he retreated so that they sported with one another as children at Seek and Find though neither of their Armies could be much pleased with the sharp frosty nights those desolate and naked Hills exposed them to upon the top of one of them the English Commanders one night burnt a great many of their Wagons to warm them the Frost was so violent and the Soldiers lay in heaps upon the ground close together like sheep cover'd as it were with a sheet of snow Yet they spent the time thus till their Stoves summon'd them to warmer lodging And the English Regiment was disposed into three principal Garrisons General Vere commanded in Manheim Sir Gerard Herbert in Heidelburgh and Serjeant-Major Burrows in Frankindale imprisoning themselves in Walls while the Enemy romed round about them and they had only power to preserve themselves For the Princes of the Unions Forces were garrison'd in their several Countries I have the more particularly described this Expedition because I was an eye-witness of what passed and if we had not had an allay of Dutch dulness the Spaniard could not have carved to himself so great a share in that Country and their opposers had not mouldred away their Forces as they did afterwards which makes this Relation harsh and unpleasing But there was a Divine Fate attended not only this Country but all Germany For the Almighty Wisdom that is the Author of all Revolutions in the World hath his set times for changes which often tends to the imbettering of it For all the Northern Conquests of the Goths Huns Vandals Scyths and other baâ—barous Nations were to corroborate the Southern bodies wasted with Ease and Luxury And now in Germany a
flood of Books that almost tended to an inundation overspread the World and was her great disease Besides the drunken Dropsie witness their monstrous swelling tuns and vessel In lieu of books War brings in barbarism which is the first-born before Plague or Famine These do not always kill but rectifie Full bodies are apt to fall sick and then they must be drawn very low often-times before they come to perfect health These Iudgments have faln heavy upon England we drink the dregs of the Cup one sin is not to be pointed at but all and though it hath been bitter to the taste yet He that knows the nature of the Ingredients may make it wholsom unto those that love him One thing both pitiful and remarkable that hapned in the Palatinate was almost omitted There was a Gentleman whose name was Duncomb that was a Soldier in the Earl of Oxford's company This young man left a Gentlewoman behind him in England to whom he had vowed his heart and promise of marriage but her fortune being not fit for his Father's humor he threatned to dis-inherit him if he married her and the better to alienate him from her he sent him so long a journey hoping time and absence might wear out those impressions that the present fancy had fixed upon him charging him at his departure never to think of her more lest with the thoughts of her he lost him for ever The young man being now long absent from her and having his heart full with the remembrance of her could not contain himself but let her know that no threats or anger of Parents should ever blot her memory out of his thoughts which was illustrated with many expressions of love and affection But the careless man writing at the same time to his Father superscribed his Father's Letter to his Mistris wherein he renounces her and his Mistresses Letter to his Father wherein he admires her The Father swoln with rage and anger against the Son sent him a bitter Letter back again full of menaces and whether that or shame for the mistake that she should see he renounced her whom he profest to love did overcome his Reason is not known but he killed himself to the great grief of all the English there And by this example Parents that are too rigid to their children may see what Murderers they are For it was not the young man's hand but the old man's hard heart that killed him CAROLVS ALBERTVS DE LONGVEVAL COMES DE BVQVOY ET DE GRATZEN BARO DE VAVX ET DE ROSEN BERGHE COMIT HANNONLAE GVBERNATOR B. Moucornet CXCII This was a fair Spring-time the Battail being fought upon the tenth of March and might have inhanced the hopes of a good Autumn But in November following when the Princes of the Union and Spinola were hunting one another among the frosty Hills in the Palatinate the Duke of Bavaria coming with a great Army towards Prague and joyning Bucquoy and Tillie with all their Forces together like cruel Hunters meant either to catch a Prey or be a Prey Anhalt then had not so closed with Count Mansfeldt as to bring him up to him being pufft up with his last Victory and some of his Soldiers being discontented for want of Pay it abated the edge of their Courage yet he got with his Army betwixt the Imperialists and Prague and stood upon the advantage of Ground but all would not do a Hand went out that gave a Period to that Royalty for the Enemy breaking through them forced his way and put the Bohemians into such confusion that happy was he that could escape with his life The Prince of Anhalt and his Lieutenant General Holloc were the first that fled and brought the news of the defeat to the King at Prague who with his Queen astonished with the danger being in a City not very defensible among a wavering People and a Conquering Enemy in the Field took time by the fore-top and in this hurly burly the next morning being the 9 of Nov. left Prague taking with them their most portable things having load enough within them But the Queen the more Gallant and Royal Spirit carried it with most undauntedness the King suffered doubly as he went being blamed for keeping his Soldiers without pay having such a masse of money by him which he was forced to leave behind to his Enemies and the imputation stuck upon him but flying upon the Wings of common Fame I shall not lure it into this Relation as a known Truth But by a sad Accident that some years after happened to this unfortunate King it was obvious that he left not all behind him for going to visit the Bankers of Amsterdam where his Treasure lay brooding and passing in the night over Harlem mere the winds and darkness in a conspiracy made a cross Hoigh to run against the King's and bulged it in the Sea but before it sunk the King and others got to the Mastring Vessel and saved themselves But the Prince his Son being of a pregnant hopeful puberty with too severe a fate was left to the broken Boat which they durst not approach again though they heard his cries so that he was abandoned to be tormented to death which was more grievous than death it self for the Waters being shallow and the Hoigh sinking not far the next day they found him frozen to the Mast embracing it as his last Refuge his Body half above half under the water This Story melting with Pity is here inserted because the glory of this King expires And since there will be occasion to mention him no more because his Actions afterwards never mounted up one Story high Take this brief Character of him He was a comely Personage for body of a good stature his complexion of a duskish melancholy the constitution of his mind rather fitted for those little besoignes of Accounts and Reckonings than any vigorous or masculine heat to solder up the crackt Title of a Crown He was a handsom well-built but slight Edifice set on an ill Foundation that could not stand long The King of great Britain that the Bohemians built upon was not of so firm a temper as to support a Fortress weakly made that must endure the Rigorous Shock of War which made it at the first or second Assault thus totter and fall The two English Ambassadors Weston and Conwey which our King sent to mediate for the Bohemians could make little use of their Oratory being scattered with the rest in the Cloud of this Confusion But they brought the King and Queen to Limburgh the first days journey and after they were gone towards the Netherlands the Ambassadors procured a safe Conduct from the Duke of Bavaria to return to Prague But there they could find no words so prevalent and penetrable as the steel of a Conquering Enemy and so they returned home re infecta no wiser than they went out This Defeat coming to
unto your Lordships I hope I may say and justifie with Iob in these words I have not hid my sin as did Adam nor concealed my faults in my bosom This is the only justification which I will use It resteth therefore that without Fig-leaves I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge that having understood the Particulars of the Charge not formally from the House but enough to inform my conscience and memory I find matter sufficient and full both to move me to desert my defence and to move your Lordships to condemn and censure me Neither will I trouble your Lordships by singling those Particulars which I think might fall off Quid te exempla juvant spinis de pluribus Uva Neither will I prompt your Lordships to observe upon the proofs where they come not home or the scruple touching the credits of the Witnesses Neither will I represent to your Lordships how far a defence might in divers things extenuate the offence in respect of the time and manner of the guilt or the like circumstances But only leave these things to spring out of your more noble thoughts and observations of the Evidence and examinations themselves and charitably to wind about the Particulars of the Charge here and there as God shall put into your minds and so submit my self wholly to your piety and grace And now I have spoken to your Lordships as Iudges I shall say a few words unto you as Peers and Prelates humbly commending my Cause to your noble minds and magnanimous affections Your Lordships are not simply Iudges but Parliamentary Iudges you have a further extent of Arbitrary Power than other Courts and if you be not tied by ordinary course of Courts or Precedents in Points of strictnâ—ss and severity much less in Points of mercy and mitigation And yet if any thing which I shall move might be contrary to your honourable and worthy end the introducing a Reformation I should not seek it but herein I besech your Lordships to give me leave to tell you a Story Titus Manlius took his Son's life for giving Battail against the prohibition of his General Not many years after the lâ—ke severity was pursued by Papirius Cursor the Dictator against Quintus Maximus who being upon the point to be sentenced was by the intercession of some particular persons of the Senate spared Whereupon Livy maketh this grave and gracious observation Neque minùs firmata est Disciplina Militaris periculo Quinti Maximi quà m miserabili supplicio Titi Manlii The Discipline of War was no less established by the questioning of Quintus Maximus than by the punishment of Titus Manlius And the same reason is in the Reformation of Iustice For the questioning of men in eminent Places hath the same terrour though not the same rigour with the punishment But my Cause stays not there for my humble desire is that his Majesty would take the Seal into his hands which is a great downfall and may serve I hope in it self for an expiation of my faults Therefore if mercy and mitigation be in your Lordships power and no way cross your Ends why should I nâ—t hope of your favour and commiseration Your Lordships will be pleased to behold your chief pattern the King our Soveraign a King of incomparable clemency and whose heart is inscrutable for wisdom and goodness And your Lordships will remember there sate not these hundred years before a Prince in your House and never such a Prince whose presence deserveth to be made memorable by Records Acts mixt of mercy and justice Your selves are either Nobles and Compassion ever beateth in the veins of noble blood or Reverend Prelates who are the Servants of him that would not breâ—k the bruised Reed nor quench the smoking Flax. You all sit upon a high Stage and therefore cannot but be sensible of the changes of humane conditions and of the fall of any from high place Neither will your Lordships forget that there are Vitia Temporis as well as Vitia Hominis and the beginning of Reformation hath the contrary power to the pool of Bethesda for that had strength to cure him only that was first cast in and this hath strength to hurt him only that is first cast in And for my part I wish it may stay there and go no further Lastly I assure my self your Lordships have a noble feeling of me as a Member of your own Body and one that in this very Session had some taste of your loving Affections which I hope was not a lightning before the death of them but rather a spark of that Grace which now in the Conclusion will more appear And therefore my humble sute to your Lordships is That my penitent submission may be my sentence the loss of my Seal my punishment and that your Lordships would recommend me to his Majestie 's Grace and Pardon for all that is past God's holy Spirit be among you Your Lordships humble servant and suppliant Fran. St. Albans Can. April 22. 1621. Thus was his great spirit brought low and this humiliation might have raised him up again if his offences had not been so weighty as to keep him down He lost his Peerage and Seal and the Scale was wavering whether he should carry the Title of Viscount St. Albans to his grave and that was all he did having only left a poor empty being which lasted not long with him his honor dying before him And to heighten his misery the more many others were crushed to pieces by his fall for he had a vast debt lay upon him which they were forced to pay and though he had a Pension allowed him by the King he wanted to his last living obscurely in his Lodgings at Grays-Inn where his loneness and desolate condition wrought upon his ingenious and therefore then more melancholy temper that he pined away And had this unhappiness after all his height of plenitude to be denied Beer to quench his thirst For having a sickly taste he did not like the Beer of the house but sent to Sir Fulk Grevil Lord Brook in neighborhood now and then for a bottle of his Beer and after some grumbling the Butler had order to deny him So sordid was the one that advanced himself to be called Sir Sidnie's friend and so friendless was the other after he had dejected himself from what he was He was of a midling stature his countenance had indented with Age before he was old his Presence grave and comely of a high-flying and lively Wit striving in some things to be rather admired than understood yet so quick and easie where he would express himself and his Memory so strong and active that he appeared the Master of a large and plenteous store-house of Knowledge being as it were Nature's Midwife stripping her Callow-brood and clothing them in new Attire His Wit was quick to the last for Gondemar meeting him the Lent before his Censure and hearing of his Miscarriages thought to
pay him with his Spanish Sarcasms and Scoffs saying My Lord I wish you a good Easter And you my Lord replied the Chancellor a good Passover For he could neither close with his English Buffoonry nor his Spanish Treaty which Gondemar knew though he was so wise as publickly to oppose neither In fine he was a fit Iewel to have beautified and adorned a flourishing Kingdom if his flaws had not disgraced the lustre that should have set him off William Viscount Sayand Sealem of the Court of Wardes etc Are to be sould by Iohn Hinde In this very time of Parliament when the King carried all things with a full sail the Pilots of the Commonwealth had an eye to the dangers that lay in the way for in both Houses the King had a strong Party especially in the House of Lords All the Courtiers and most of the Bishops steer'd by his Compass and the Princes presence who was a constant Member did cast an awe among many of them yet there were some gallant Spirits that aimed at the publick Liberty more then their own interest If any thing were spoken in the House that did in the least reflect upon the Government or touch as the Courtiers thought that Noli me tangere the Prerogative those that moved in it were snapt up by them though many times they met with stout encounters at their own Weapon among which the Principal were Henry Earl of Oxford Henry Earl of Southampton Robert Earl of Essex Robert Earl of Warwick the Lord Say the Lord Spencer and divers others that supported the Old English Honour and would not let it fall to the ground Oxford was of no reputation in his youth being very debauched and riotous and having no means maintained it by fordid and unworthy ways for his Father hopeless of Heirs in discontent with his Wife squandred away a Princely Estate but when she and his great Fortune were both gone he married a young Lady of the ancient family of the Trenthams by whom he had this young Lord and two Daughters she having a fortune of her own and industry with it after her Husband's death married her Daughters into two noble Families the Earl of Mountgomery married the one and the Lord Norris after Earl of Berk-shire married the other And finding her Son hopeless let him run his swing till he grew weary of it and thinking he could not be worse in other Countries than he had been in his own she sent him to travel to try if change of Air would change his Humour He was not abroad in France and Italy above three years and the freedoms and extravagancies there that are able to betray and insnare the greatest modesties put such a Bridle upon his inordinateness that look how much before he was decried for a mean and poor spirit so much had his noble and gallant comportment there gained that he came over refined in every esteem and such a Valuation was set upon his parts and merit that he married the Lady Diana Cecil Daughter to the Earl of Exeter one of the most eminent Beauties and Fortunes of the time Southampton though he were one of the King 's Privy Councel yet was he no great Courtier Salisbury kept him at a bay pinched him so by reason of his relation to old Essex that he never flourished much in his time nor was his spirit after him so smooth shod as to go always the Court pace but that now and then he would make a Carrier that was not very acceptable to them for he carried his business closely and slily and was rather an Adviser than an Actor Essex had ever an honest Heart and though Nature had not given him Eloquence he had a strong reason that did express him better his Countenance to those that knew him not appeared somewhat stern and solemn to intimates affable and gentle to the Females obligingly courteous and though unfortunate in some yet highly respected of most happily to vindicate the Vertue of the Sex The King never affected him whether from the bent of his Natural inclination to effeminate faces or whether from that instinct or secret Prediction that Divine fate often imprints in the apprehension whereby he did fore-see in him as it were a hand raised up against his Posterity may be a Notation not a determination But the King never liked him nor could he close with the Court. Warwick though he had all those excellent indowments of Body and fortune that gives splendor to a glorious Court yet he used it but as his Recreation for his Spirit aimed at more publick adventures planting Colonies in the Western World rather than himself in the King's favour his Brother Sir Henry Rich about this time made Baâ—on of Kensington and he had been in their youths two emulous Corrivals in the publick affections the one's browness being accounted a lovely sweetness transcending most men the other 's features and pleasant aspect equalled the most beautiful Women the younger having all the Dimensions of a Courtier laid all the Stock of his Fortune upon that Soil which after some years Patience came up with increase but the Elder could not so stoop to observances and thereby became his own Supporter Saye and Seale was a seriously subtil Peece and always averse to the Court ways something out of pertinaciousness his Temper and Constitution ballancing him altogether on that Side which was contrary to the Wind so that he seldom tackt about or went upright though he kept his Course steady in his own way a long time yet it appeared afterwards when the harshness of the humour was a little allayed by the sweet Refreshments of Court favours that those stern Comportments supposed natural might be mitigated and that indomitable Spirits by gentle usage may be tamed and brought to obedience Robert Earle of Warwicke and Lord Rich of Leeze etc. Henry Earle of Holland Baron of Kensington etc. â—â—ulâ— by Ruâ—â—â—â— Pâ—ake There were many other noble Patriots concentrique with these which like Jewels should be preserved and kept in the Cabinet of every man's memory being Ornaments for Posterity to put on but their Characters would make the line too long and the Bracelet too big to adorn this Story About this time Spencer was speaking something in the House that their great Ancestors did which displeased Arundel and he cuts him off short saying My Lord when these things you speak of were doing your Ancestors were keeping sheep twitting him with his Flocks which he took delight in Spencer instantly replied When my Ancestors as you say were keeping sheep your Ancestors were plotting Treason This hit Arundel home and it grew to some heat in the House whereupon they were separated and commanded both out of the House and the Lords began to consider of the offence There was much bandying by the Court Party to excuse the Earl of Arundel but the heat and rash part of it beginning with him laying such a brand upon a
command me to give you an account of my last Foreign Negotiation with the Emperour who you know being much exasperated with the invasion of Bohemia to which the King never gave incouragement in the attempt nor countenance in the Prosecution hath upon the advantage of his fortunate success there invaded into the inheritance of his Son the Palatine Whereupon I was directed by his Majestie 's Commission to treat if Peace might be compassed with fair endeavours to which the Emperour seemed very inclinable Albeit slow in giving Audience by reason that the Diet in Germany was deferred and he depended upon some answer from the Princes But in conclusion I received such satisfaction as promised Restitution of the Palatinate which only was granted by Commission to the Duke of Bavaria until it was setled by absolute Peace or further War And being addressed by the Emperour with Letters to the Duke of Bavaria wherein he wished his tractable condescent to all good Terms of Peace Upon which occasion I urged that I had Authority from the Count Palatinâ—e to cause the Count Mansfield to desist from War and likewise from the King to his Body of War under the Government of Sir Horatio Vere The Duke of Bavaria replied That he had becalmed Mansfield with great sums of money and when he is quiet my Peace is made To which scornful and slight reply somthing I answered and departed to the Infanta to Bruxels who seemed to understand by the Emperour's Letters that he did rather prepare for War then Peace and would give no direct answer till she heard from the King of Spain who I must ingenuously confess hath stood clear a Neutral according to his promise Yet is he now so strong prepared for War having at this instant five great Armies in motion that it will not mis-become the wisdom of the State to fear the worst And to conclude such hath been the care of the King for his own Honour and Son 's Right that he presumes you will cheerfully apply your selves to the necessity of the Times and this occasion and not only afford him aid for his present support but such further supply as may help to re-invest his Son into his inheritance Which Relation of Digbie's being seconded by some of the King 's great Minister of State who had instructions suitable to their Errand they let the Parliament know how justly and necessary it was and how forward the King would be to accomplish that by War which he could not recover by Peace and they set it off with all the slippery Oratory they could to draw in money for that being the main ingredient if that were provided the rest of the simples would easily be purchased to make up the Composition Thus the Kings suits and intreaties were slighted and disregarded abroad and his intentions suspected and feared at home Princes that do grasp Possessions with iron hands will not be smoothed out of them by fair words the Sword as it is the best determiner so it is the most honourable Treater And though the King incited the Parliament by these his Ministers to contribute towards a War yet they found his inclination bent towards Peace both in respect of Gondemar's power with him upon whose sandy promises he built a good Foundation of Hope and in regard of some Letters which the King had lately written to the King of Spain wherein great indulgencies were promised to the Papists whereby they saw he was too much transported with a desire to the Match And the King finding Digbie's indeavours fruitless in Germany intended to send him into Spain extraordinary Ambassador to that King whom he looked upon as the great Wheel that moved the others which way he pleased For he was resolved to close some way with the House of Austria either by Marriage or intreaty to peece and make up the Breach the War had made But the King had to do with cunning Gamesters that smiled to see how earnest he was at it for they had the sign given out of his hand and saw all the Game he played so faithless was the Councel about him The English in general except Papists were averse to this Match as boding some evil event because the Papists did prune themselves flutter up and down and spread their Trains so publickly This almost universal aversation of the people had a natural influence upon the Representative the Parliament who considering that the King by Digby and others did inform them how formidable the King of Spain was and did require them to apply themselves to the necessity of the Times and further him with help to re-invest his Son in his Inheritance thought there was no better means to be used than to try effectually the King's Spirit and stir him up to a war for so they should know which way their Money went at leastwise his mind before they tamely parted with it And therefore like wise Physicians that never prescribe letting blood but when it tends to the health of the Body first they shew the Causes of the Distempers and Evils that were to be feared Secondly what effects they were likely to produce And lastly the Remedies to prevent them in this Petition and Remonstrance Most Gracious and dread Soveraign VVE your Majestie 's most humble and loyal Subjects the Knights Citizens and Burgesses now assembled in Parliament who represent the Commons of your Realm full of hearty sorrow to be deprived of the Comfort of your Royal Presence the rather for that it proceeds from the want of your health wherein We all unfainedly do suffer In all humble manner calling to mind your gracious answer to our former Petition concerning Religion which notwithstanding your Majesties pious and princely intentions hath not produced that good effect which the danger of these Times doth seem to us to require And finding how ill your Majesties goodness hath been requited by Princes of different Religion who even in time of Treaty have taken opportunity to advance their own Ends tending to the Subversion of Religion and disadvantage of your affairs and the Estate of your Children By reason whereof your ill-affected Subjects at home the Popish Recusants have taken too much incouragement and are dangerously increased in their Number and in their insolencies We cannot but be sensible thereof And thereof humbly represent what we conceive to be the Causes of so great and growing Mischiefs and what be the Remedies 1. The Vigilancy and Ambition of the Pope of Rome and his dearest Son the one aiming at as large a Temporal Monarchy as the other at a Spiritual Supremacy 2. The Devillish Positions and Doctrines whereon Popery is built and taught with authority to their Followers for advancement of their Temporal Ends. 3. The distressed and miserable Estate of the Professors of true Religion in Foreign parts 4. The disastrous Accidents to your Majesties Children abroad expressed with rejoycing and even with contempt of their Persons 5.
The strange Confederacy of the Princes of the Popish Religion aiming mainly at the advancement of theirs and subverting Ours and taking the advantages conducing to that End upon all Occasions 6. The great and many Armies raised and maintained at the charge of the King of Spain the chief of that League 7. The expectation of the Popish Recusants of the Match with Spain and feeding themselves with great hopes of the consequences thereof 8. The interposing of Foreign Princes and their Agents in the behalf of Popish Recusants for connivence and favour unto them 9. Their open and usual Resort to the Houses and which is worse to the Chappels of Foreign Ambassadors 10. Their more than usual concourse to the City and their frequent Conventicles and Conferences there 11. The education of their Children in many several Seminaries and Houses of their Religion in Foreign parts appropriated only to the English Fugitives 12. The Grants of their just forfeitures intended by your Majesty as a reward of service to the Grantees but beyond your Majesties intention transferred or compounded for at such mean rates as will amount to little less than a Toleration 13. The licentious printing and dispersing of Popish and seditious Books even in the time of Parliament 14. The Swarms of Priests and Jesuits the common Incendiaries of all Christendom dispersed in all parts of your Kingdom And from these Causes as bitter Roots we humbly offer to your Majesty that we foresee and fear there will necessarily follow very dangerous effects both to Church and State For 1. The Popish Religion is incompatible with Ours in respect of their Positions 2. It draweth with it an unavoidable Dependency on foreign Princes 3. It openeth too wide a Gap for Popularity to any who shall draw too great a Party 4. It hath a restless Spirit and will strive by these Gradations if it once get but a Connivence it will press for a Toleration if that should be obtained they must have an equality from thence they will aspire to Superiority And will never rest till they get a Subversion of the true Religion The Remedies against these growing Evils which in all humbleness we offer to your most excellent Majesty are these 1. That seeing this inevitable Necessity is faln upon your Majesty which no wisdom or providence of a peaceable and pious King can avoid your Majesty would not omit this just occasion speedily and effectually to take your Sword into your hand 2. That once undertaken upon so Honourable and just grounds your Majesty would resolve to persue and more publickly avow the aiding of those of our Religion in foreign parts which doubtless would reunite the Princes and States of the Union by these disasters disheartned and disbanded 3. That your Majesty would propose to your self to manage this War with the best advantage by a Diversion or otherwise as in your deep judgment shall be found fittest and not to rest upon a War in these parts only which will consume your Treasure and discourage your people 4. That the bent of this War and point of your Sword may be against that Prince whatsoever Opinion of Potency he hath whose Armies and Treasures have first diverted and since maintained the War in the Palatinate 5. That for securing of our peace at home your Majesty will be pleased to review the parts of our Petition formerly delivered unto your Majesty and hereunto annexed and to put it in execution by the care of choice Commissioners to be there unto especially appointed the Laws already and hereafter to be made for preventing of Dangers by Popish Recusants and their wonted evasions 6. That to frustrate their hopes for a future Age our most Noble Prince may be timely and happily married to one of our own Religion 7. That the Children of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom and of others ill affected and suspected in their Religion now beyond the Seas may be forthwith called home by your means and at the charge of their Parents or Governours 8. That the Children of Popish Recusants or such whose wives are Popish Recusants be brought up during their minority with Protestant Schoolmasters and Teachers who may sow in their tender years the seeds of true Religion 9. That your Majesty will be pleased speedily to revoke all former Licences for such Children and youth to travel beyond the Seas and not grant any such licence hereafter 10. That your Majesties learned Councel may receive commandment from your Highness carefully to look into former Grants of Recusants lands and to avoid them if by Law they can and that your Majesty will stay your hand from passing any such Grants hereafter This is the sum and effect of our Humble Declaration which we no ways intending to press upon your Majesties undoubted and Regal Prerogative do with the fulness of our Duty and Obedience humbly submit to your most Princely consideration the Glory of God whose Cause it is the Zeal of our true Religion in which we have been born and wherein by God's grace we are resolved to die the safety of your Majesties person who is the very life of your people the happiness of your Children and Posterity the Honour and good of the Church and State dearer unto us then our own lives having kindled these Affections truly devoted to your Majesty And seeing out of our Duty to your Majesty we have already resolved to give at the end of this Session one entire Subsidy for the present relief of the Palatinate only to be paid in the end of February next which cannot well be effected but by passing a Bill in a Parliamentary course before Christmas We most humbly beseech your Majesty as our assured hope is that you will then also vouchsafe to give life by your Royal assent to such Bills as before that time shall be prepared for your Majesties Honour and the general good of your People And that such Bills may be also accompanied as hath been accustomed with your Majestie 's gracious Pardon which proceeding from your own meer Grace may by your Highness direction be drawn to that latitude and extent as may best sort with your Majesties Bounty and Goodness And that not only Fellons and criminal offenders may take benefit thereof but that your good Subjects may receive ease thereby And if it shall so stand with your good pleasure that it may extend to the relief of the old Debts and Duties to the Crown before the first year of your Majesties raign to the discharge of Alienations without licence and misusing of Liveries and Oustre le main before the first summons of this Parliament and of concealed Wardships and not suing of Liveries and Oustre le mains before the twelfth year of your Majesties Reign Which gracious favour would much comfort your good Subjects and ease them from Vexation with little loss or prejudice to your own profit And we by our daily and devout prayers to the Almighty the great King of
Kings shall contend for a blessing upon our endeavours and for your Majesties long and happy Reign over Us And for your Childrens children after you for many and many Generations The King hearing that the House of Commons were hammering upon this Remonstrance went to Newmarket a cold and bleak Air in as cold and bleak a season pretending his Health but indeed to be further from the sound of that noise which perpetually possessed his Ears of the discontent of the Commons for the intended Match with Spain And as the Business grew up he had intimation of it from his creatures in the House for it vext his Popish Secretary Sir George Calvert Weston and others to find the House so bitter against their Profession though they were cunning Underminers and put on a smooth face there yet they aggravated the matter to the King with all the Acrimony they could so far as to reflect upon particular persons that were the most Active instruments in it And what is there in this Remonstrance at such a time when the Protestant Religion was in danger of being extirpated that put on so horrid a Vizard as to affright or exasperate the King The Emperor had prevailed in Germany the Protestant Princes either subdued or acquiesced and laid down their necks to the Yoak The Protestants were persecuted in France besieged and ruined by the youthful fury of Lewis the 13. And notwithstanding Our King's solicitations by Sir Edward Herbert since Baron of Cherbery his Resident Ambassador there who after his conflict with Luynes the youthful Constable of France and Favourite to that King being sent for home the Viscount Doncaster was sent again into France upon one of his mediating imployments who also followed that King from Camp to City and from City to Camp with as little success this being no journey of Bravery for it almost cost him his life there by a tedious sickness Rochel and Montaban were besieged at one time this very year Rochel by the Count of Soissons and the Duke of Guise and Montaban by the King a great distance one from another but Doncaster could prevail for neither yet the French King did not do his work When man hath vented all his malice he can go no further than the line God hath set him One sad story intervenes which had a various Countenance mixt with Bravery and Baseness so that it was doubtful which was most prevalent One Hicks an English-man undertook to carry a Letter from Rochel to Montaban through both Armies to let them know the good State and Condition of the Rochellers were in maugre the fury and violence of their Enemies that those of Montaban might be encouraged to hold out against the King's assaults Hicks makes a clear passage through the Army before Rochell and came to Thoulouse where the Viscount Doncaster was there he consorted with the English insinuating with a young Gentlemen one Fairfax of that noble Family in York-shire who was for that journey one of the Lord Ambassador's Train and Hicks finding him willing being a young and gallant Spirit to see the Kings Leagure at Montaban they rode thither together and under the notion of being of the Ambassador's retinue they had free admittance to view all the Works and Avenues Hicks whose eye was fixt upon his opportunity to fly into the Town made use of Fairfax to take his advantage with the least Suspicion and in the instant of time puts Spurs to his Horse and got into the Town through a Shower of Bullets leaving Fairfax astonish'd at the attempt to be wrackt and tormented to death as he was by the French fury to confess what he never knew so that Hicks his Braveâ—y deserves a Brand of Infamy and Fairfax his Innocency a memorial of pity A noble Spirit must not dare to do a gallant action an unworthy way UIUA EFFIGIES GENEROS I s siMI GULIELMI FAIRFAX PREFECTI To Frankenthal when seige Cordoua loyde Soe â—as our Britishe King craft ouerknau'd By Gondomeâ— as in it Martix made This honorable Cadet 3 and soe stau'd Of all reâ—reuts that Burroughs there comander Our glorious Burrougâ—s was compell'd to render THOVLOVSE But when this Remonstrance was brought to perfection the King had a Copy of it before the House had time to send their Messengers with it in which something so highly displeased him that he instantly dispatched a Letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons to forbid the sending of it To Our Trusty and Wellbeloved Sir Thomas Richardson Knight Speaker of the House of Commons Mr. Speaker WE have heard by divers Reports to our great grief that Our distance from the Houses of Parliament caused by Our indisposition of health hath imboldned some fiery and Popular Spirits of some of the House of Commons to argue and debate publickly of Matters far above their reach and capacity tending to Our high dishonour and breach of Prerogative Royal. These are therefore to command you to make known in Our Name unto the House that none therein shall presume henceforth to meddle with any thing concerning Our Government or deep Matters of State and namely not to deal with our dearest Son's Match with the Daughter of Spain nor to touch the Honour of that King or any other our Friends or Confederates And also not to meddle with any mans particulars which have their due motion in our ordinary Courts of Justice And whereas we hear they have sent a Message to Sir Edwin Sandis to know the Reasons of his late restraint you shall in Our Name resolve them that it was not for any misdemeanor of his in Parliament But to put them out of doubt of any question of that Nature that may arise among them hereafter you shall resolve them in Our Name That We think Our self very free and able to punish any man's misdemeanors in Parliament as well during their sitting as after which we mean not to spare hereafter upon any occasion of any man's insolent Behaviour there that shall be ministred unto Us. And if they have already touched any of these points which We have here forbidden in any Petition of theirs which is to be sent unto Us it is our pleasure that you shall tell them that except they reform it before it come to our hands We will not deign the hearing nor answering of it This was the effect of the Letter Dated at Newmarket Decem. 3. 1621. When the House had duly and weightily considered the just Reasons they had to draw up this Remonstrance in discharge of their Consciences and duties to God and the King and found how fruitless their labours were Having as it were cast out one Anchor in a tempestuous season which would take no hold they were forced to cast out another that both together might better fasten on the King 's good affections Therefore they framed this following Petition and sent the Remonstrance with it hoping yet to save the beaten Bark of the
Common-wealth from ruin in so great a time of danger And thus they address themselves to their great Pilot. Most dread and gracious Soveraign WE your most humble and loyal Subjects the Knights Citizens and Burgesses assembled in the Commons House of Parliament full of grief and unspeakable sorrow through the true sence of your Majesties displeasure expressed by your Letter lately sent to Our Speaker and by him related and read unto Us Yet comforted again with the assurance of your Grace and Goodness and of the sincerity of our own intentions and proceedings whereon with confidence we can rely in all humbleness beseech your most excellent Majesty that the Loyalty and Dutifulness of as faithful and loving Subjects as ever served or lived under a gracious Soveraign may not undeservedly suffer by the mis-information of partial and uncertain Reports which are ever unfaithful Intelligencers but that your Majesty would in the clearness of your own Judgment first vouchsase to understand from Our selves and not from others what our humble Declaration and Petition resolved upon by the Universal Voice of the House and proposed with your Gracious favour to be presented unto your Sacred Majesty doth contain Upon what Occasion we entred into Consideration of those things which are therein contained with what dutiful respect to your Majesty and your Service we did consider thereof and what was our true intention thereby And that when your Majesty shall thereby truly discern our dutiful Affections you will in your Royal judgment free us from those heavy Charges wherewith some of our Members are burthened and wherein the whole House is involved And we humbly beseech your Majesty that you will not hereafter give Credit to private Reports against all or any of the Members of our House whom the whole have not censured until your Majesty have been truly informed thereof from our selves and that in the mean time and ever we may stand upright in your Majesties Grace and good Opinion than which no worldly consideration is or can be dearer unto us When your Majesty had reassembled us in Parliament by your Royal Commandment sooner than we expected and did vouchsafe by the mouths of three honourable Lords to impart unto us the weighty occasions moving your Majesty thereunto And from them we did understand these particulars That notwithstanding your Princely and Pious indeavours to procure Peace the time is now come that Janus Temple must be opened That the Voice of Bellona must be heard and not the Voice of the Turtle That there was no hope of Peace nor any Truce to be obtained no not for a few days That your Majesty must either abandon your own Children or ingage your self in a war wherein Consideration is to be had what foot what horse what money would be sufficient That the Lower Palatinate was seized upon by the Army of the King of Spain as Executor of the Ban there in quality of Duke of Burgundy as the Upper Palatinate was by the Duke of Bavaria That the King of Spain at his own Charge had now at least five several Armies on foot That the Princes of the Union were disbanded but the Catholick league remained firm whereby those Princes so dissevered were in danger one by one to be ruined That the Estate of those of the Religion in Foreign parts was miserable And That out of these Considerations we were called to a war and forthwith to advise for a Supply for keeping the forces in the Palatinate from disbanding and to fore-see the means for raising and maintaining the body of an Army for the war against the Spring We therefore out of our Zeal to your Majesty and your Posterity with more alacrity and colerity than ever was precedented in Parliament did address our selves to the Service commended unto Us. And although we cannot conceive that the honor and safety of your Majesty and your posterity the patrimony of your Children invaded and possessed by their Enemies the welfare of Religion and State of your Kingdom are matters at any time unfit for our deepest consideration in time of Parliament And though before this time we were in some of these points silent yet being now invited thereunto and led on by so just an occasion we thought it Our Duties to provide for the present supply thereof and not only to turn our eyes on a war abroad but to take care for the securing of our peace at home which the dangerous increase and insolency of Popish Recusants apparently visibly and sensibly did lead us unto The consideration whereof did necessarily draw us truly to represent unto your Majesty what we conceive to be the Causes what we feared would be the effects and what we hoped might be the remedies of these growing Evils Among which as incident and unavoidable we fell upon some things which seem to touch upon the King of Spain as they have relation to Popish Recusants at home to the Wars by him maintained in the Palatinate against your Majestie 's Children and to his several Armies now on foot yet as we conceived without touch of dishonour to that King or any other Prince your Majestie 's Consederate In the discourse whereof we did not assume to our selves any power to determin of any part thereof nor intend to incroach or intrude upon the Sacred bounds of your Royal Authority to whom and to whom only we acknowledg it doth belong to resolve of Peace and War and of the Marriage of the most noble Prince your Son But as your most Loyal and humble Subjects and Servants representing the whole Commons of your Kingdom who have a large interest in the happy and prosperous estate of your Majesty and your Royal Posterity and of the flourishing Estate of our Church and Common-wealth did resolve out of our Cares and Fears truly and plainly to demonstrate these things to your Majesty which we were not assured could otherwise come so fully and clearly to your knowledg and that being done to lay the same down at your Majesties feet without expectation of any other answer of your Majesty touching these higher points than what at your good pleasure and in your own time should be held fit This being the effect of that we had formerly resolved upon and these the occasions and reasons inducing the same our humble suit to your Majesty and confidence is that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to receive at the hands of these our Messengers our former humble Declaration and Petition and to vouchsafe to read and favourably to interpret the same And that to so much thereof as containeth our humble Petition concerning Jesuits Priests and Popish Recusants the passage of Bills and granting your Royal Pardon you will vouchsafe an answer unto us And whereas your Majesty by the general words of your Letter seemeth to restrain us from intermedling with matters of Government or particulars which have their motion in the Courts of Justice the generality of which words
press upon our most undoubted and Regal Prerogative as if the petitioning of Us in matters that your selves confess ye ought not to meddle with were not a medling with them And whereas ye pretend that ye were invited to this course by the Speeches of three honourable Lords ye thy so much as your selves repeat of the Speeches nothing can be concluded but that We were resolved by War to regain the Palatinate if otherwise We could not attain unto it And you were invited to advise forthwith upon a Supply for keeping the Forces in the Palatinate from disbanding and to fore-see the means for the raising and maintaining of the Body of an Army for that War against the Spring Now what inference can be made upon this That therefore we must presently denounce War against the King of Spain break our dearest Son's Match and Match him to one of Our Religion Let the world judge The difference is no greater than if we would tell a Merchant that We had great need to borrow money from him for raising an Army that thereupon it should follow that We were bound to follow his advice in the Directions of the War and all things depending thereupon But yet not contenting your Selves with this excuse of yours which indeed cannot hold water ye come after to a direct contradiction to the conclusion of your former Petition saying that the Honor and Safety of Us and Our posterity and the patrimony of our Children invaded and possessed by their Enemies the welfare of Religion and State of Our Kingdom are matters at any time not unfit for your deepest considerations in Parliament To this generality We answer with the Logicians That where all things are contained nothing is omitted So as this plenipotency of yours invests you in all power upon Earth lacking nothing but the Popes to have the Keyes also both of Heaven ahd Purgatory And to this vast generality of yours we can give no other Answer for it will trouble all the best Lawyers in the House to make a good Commentary upon it For so did the Puritan Ministers in Scotland bring all kind of Causes within the compass of their Jurisdiction saying That it was the Churches Office to judge of Slander and there could no kind of crime or fault be committed but there was a slander in it either against God the King or their Neighbour and by this means they hooked into themselves the too fair a ground and opened them too Wide a Gate for Curbing and oppressing of many thousands of our Religion in divers parts of Christendom And whereas you excuse your touching upon the King of Spain upon occasion of the incidents by you repeated in that place and yet affirm that it is without any touch to his Honour We cannot wonder enough that ye are so forgetful both of your Words and Writs For in your former Petition ye plainly affirm that he affects the Temporal Monarchy of the whole Earth then which there can be no more malice uttered against any great King to make all other Princes and Potentates both envie and hate him But if ye list it may be easily tried whether that Speech touched him in Honour or not if we shall ask him the Question whether he means to assume to himself that Title or no For every King can best judge of his own Honour We omit the particular ejaculations of some foul mouthed Orators in your House against the Honour of his Crown and State And touching your excuse of not determining any thing concerning the Match of our dearest Son but only to tell your opinions and lay it down at Our feet First We desire to know how you could have presumed to determin in that point without Committing of high Treason And next you cannot deny but your talking of his Match after that manner was a direct breach of Our commandment and Declaration out of Our own mouth at the first sitting down of this Parliament where we plainly professed that we were in treaty of his Match with Spain and wished you to have that Confidence in our Religion and Wisdom that We would so manage it as Our Religion should receive no prejudice by it And the same We now repeat unto you professing that We are so far engaged in that March as we cannot in Honour go back except the King of Spain perform not such things as we expect at his hands And therefore We are sorry that ye should shew to have so great Distrust in Us or to conceive that We should be cold in our Religion otherwise We cannot imagine how Our former public Declaration should not have stopt your mouths in this point And as to your Request That We would now receive your former Petition We wonder what could make you presume that We would not receive it whereas in our former Letter We plainly declared the Contrary unto you and therefore we have justly rejected that suit of yours For what have you left un-attempted in the Highest points of Soveraignty in that Petition of yours except the striking of Coin For it contains the violation of Leagues the particular way how to govern a War and the Marriage of our dearest Son both Negative with Spain nay with any other Popish Princess And also Affirmatively as to the Matching with one of Our Religion which We confess is a strain beyond any Providence or Wisdom God hath given Us as things now stand These are unfit things to be handled in Parliament except your King should require it of you For who can have Wisdom to judge of things of that Nature but such as are daily acquainted with the particulars of Treaties and of the Variable or fixed Connexion of Affairs of State together with the knowledge of the secret ways ends and intentions of Princes in their several Negotiations otherwise a small mistaking in matters of this Nature may produce more effects than can be imagined And therefore Nesutor ultra crepidam And besides the intermedling in Parliament with matters of Peace or War and Marriage of Our dearest Son would be such a diminution to Us and to Our Crown in forraign Countries as would make any Prince neglect to treat with Us either in matters of Peace or Marriage except they might be assured by the assent of Parliament And so it proved long ago with a King of France who upon a trick procuring his States to dissent from some Treaty which before he had made was after refused treating with any other Princes to his great reproach unless he would first procure the Assent of his Estates to their Proposition And will you cast your eyes upon the late Times you shall find that the late Queen of Famous memory was humbly petitioned by a Parliament to be pleased to marry But her Answer was that she liked their petition well because it was simple not limiting her to place or person as not besitting her liking to their Fancies and if they had done otherwise she would
hot and intemperate Region to soom cool Considerations If he should yield by Silence or Connivence to this Protestation it would remain as an impregnable Bulwark for the people to Posterity And what is this terrible thing their just Liberties If he should oppose it with Rigor it might produce such an intestine Division at home as with all industry he strove to prevent abroad Break the Treaty with Spain he would not his Heart was too much set upon it for he could find no Protestant Princess good enough the high and elated Extraction of Kings will raise the people up to a kind of Adoration as the old Heathens did the Race of their Gods and Heroes Whereas true Honesty and piety finds out such matches as may as well bring Glory to God as to man not worldly Blessings only but heavenly also Lose the love of the people he was loth for he thought his peaceable Reign gained upon them and that no King had ever deserved better of a People than he But Peace is a kind of Soft Rayment or Masking-dress not always to be worn Standing lakes beget Corruption The Pool of Bethesda had no Virtue till it was stirred War is necessary as Physick for unsound Bodies Iustum id bellum quibus necessarium When the King had weighed every particular scruple by the Ballance of his own Reason and Councel about him he took a Resolution to dissolve the Parliament which he did by Proclamation the sixth of Ianuary being fifteen days after the Protestation was made so much time he measured out by the Scale of consideration before he would pull down such a Structure of Love as never was built by the people for any of his Predecessors which he implies in his Proclamation laying there all the blame upon the House of Commons and not on them in general but on some ill-tempered Spirits as he called them that sowed Tares among the Corn and frustrated the Hopes of a plentiful Harvest Striving by these imputations to take away the Odium that such a Dissolution might produce The Parliament and consequently the Union between the King and People being thus dissolved every man's tongue is let loose to run Riot And though the King loved Hunting above all other exercises and had many good Hunters about him yet all those and the Strength of a Proclamation put out to forbid talking of State Affairs could not restrain them from mouthing out That Great Britain was become less than little England that they had lost strength by changing Sexes and that he was no King but a Fidler's Son otherwise he would not suffer such disorders at home and so much dishonour abroad So dangerous it is for Princes by a stegmatick remisseness to slacken the ligaments of the peoples tongues for such an overflux of bad Humor may bring their obedience to a Paralytick And the Story of David Ricius written by the King 's own Tutor Buchanan had died in every English Opinion if it had not had a new Impression by these miscarriages Edward Herbert Lord Herbert of Castle â—Land and Lord Hâ—rbert of Câ—â—erbery in England The Earl of Oxford was betrayed and accused by one White a Papist who was vulgarly called after in derision by the Name of Oxford-White to have spoken some words to the Dishonour of the King and disparagement of his Government and was committed to the Tower The Earl of Southampton was also committed to the Dean of Westminster Oxford lay by it a great while and being an Active man the King sent him at last to Sea to be one of Buckingham's Vice-Admirals for the English Coast while Sir Robert Mansell guarded the Coasts of Spain from being infested with the Turks of Algier and Sally Sir Edward Cook that was looked upon as one of the great incendiaries in the House of Commons is put from the Council Table with disgrace The King saying he was the fittest instrument for a Tyrant that ever was in England And yet in the House he called the King's Prerogative a great Over-grown Monster And how can these agree Unless because the King would not take his counsel he hanged himself on the other side But whether the King had cause to say the one I know not but he it seems found cause enough to say the other Sir Thomas Crew Sir Dudly Digges Sir Nathaniel Rich and Sir Iames Perrot men of great Repute and knowledge active in the House were sent into Ireland and joyned with others in commission to inquire into Misdemeanors committed there but it was thought as a punishment for what they had committed here for they were long detained from their own occasions under the colour of an honorable imployment And Sir Peter Hammon of Kent and others were sent into the Palatinate This kind of punishment beginning now to be in fashion and not long after this Sir Iohn Savile the Knight of York-shire that carried all the Country at a Beck and a powerful Man in the House is taken off by the King made Comptroler of his Household a Privy Councellor and not long after a Baron so the King found out two ways of silencing those that were able to do him mischief Active Spirits that come too near him must either come nearer to him or be sent further from him which he doubts not will take off the edge and bate the sharpness of the Humor another time And these preferments and punishments were also practised by his successor with this Experiment in both that the most popular men as soon as they wore the Court Livery lost the love of the people but those that suffered for them were the more beloved and admired by them The Commons of England having more than an ordinary Genius to support and strengthen the pillars of their Liberties And as these Troubles bred disturbance at home so they begot discredit abroad for now by this Breach they undervalued the King's power as much as they did before his Spirit yea even in the King of Spain's own Towns whilst this beloved Treaty was in heat they in their Comedies presented Messengers bringing News in haste That the Palatinate was like to have a very formidable Army shortly on foot For the King of Denmark would furnish him with a hundred thousand picked Herrings the Hollanders with a hundred thousand Butter-boxes and England with a hundred thousand Ambassadors And they picture the King in one place with a Scabberd without a Sword In another place with a Sword that no body could draw out though divers stand pulling at it At Bruxels they painted him with his pockets hanging out and never a penny in them nor in his purse turned upside down In Antwerâ— they pictured the Queen of Bohemia like a poor Irish Mantler with her hair hanging about her ears and her child at her back with the King her father carrying the Cradle after her and every one of these Pictures had several Motto's expressing their Malice Such
money from the people or for what other intention is unknown But the very next day he sends this further Direction by Endimion Porter RIght Trusty c. We have given you certain Instructions signed with Our hand to direct you how to express unto the King of Spain the feeling We have of the Dishonour put upon Us by the Emperour through Our Trust and Confidence in that King's Promises wherein you have Order to come away without further delay in case you receive not Satisfaction to your Demands in such sort as We have Commanded you to propound them Nevertheless We are to put you in remembrance of that which We have heretofore told you in case a Rupture happen between the King of Spain and Us that We would be glad to manage it at Our best advantage And therefore however you do not find the Satisfaction which We in those Instructions crave from the King of Spain and have Reason to expect yet would We not have your instantly come away upon it but advertise Us first letting Us know privately if you find such cause that there is no good to be done nor no Satisfaction as you judge intended Us though Publikely and Outwardly you give out the contrary that We may make use thereof with Our People in Parliament as We shall hold best for Our Service And this seâ— you do notwithstanding any thing in your other Instructions to the contrary Dated 4. Octob. 1622. The right Honorable John Digby Earle of Bristol Baron of Shirborne Vice Chamberlaine to his Mar. and one of the Lords of his Maiesties most Honorable privy Counsell and Embassador extraordinary to the high and Mightie Philip the fourth king of Spaine Are to be Souto by William Peake IOANNES THERCLAES Comes de Tilli While they were thus Wire-drawing time spun out Manheim the chief Strength and Fortress in the Palatinate was taken by Tilly the Emperour's General whereof Sir Horatio Vere was Commander surrendred upon honourable Conditions having neither strength of Men or means to resist an Enemy Heidelberg before it as the King expressed was taken by Assault Sir Gerard Herbert the Commander of the Castle slain after he had repulsed the Enemy from the Assault breaking six Pikes upon them with his own hand And now Tilly Winter comeing on greedy to finish his work sits down before Frankendale whereof Major Barrowes had the Command a man of as much valour and experience as Time the Director and Spirit the Actor could make a man capable of But all this and the Strength of the Town to boot could not have protected them their Wants being stronger than their Enemy if Tilly had not been drowned up in his Trenches which forced his remove And though Our King said in his last Answer to the Parliament's Petition That the Enemy would have swallowed up his Forces in the Palatinate in eight daies if my Lord Digby had not succoured it yet the weakest of the three Places which is Heidelberg was not taken in a moment for Tilly in Iune last set down before it and was constrained to raise his Siege being not strong enough and coming again with a greater Power in the end of Iuly following he was there above two moneths before he took so much as any of their Out-Works And Manheim and Frankendale are two such strong Holds that if they had been well furnished with Men and Provisions they might have stood out against Tilly nay the great Turk as well if not better than Vienna the Imperial City As soon as the King had notice of the taking of Manheim he gives Bristol intimation of it and was very well satisfied of the King of Spain's good intentions for the Relief of it though Order sent to the Infanta arrived not there till the Town was surrendred Which was the old Spanish plot of Philip the Second to get Portugal into his hand wherein he cheated the Pope himself delaying his solicitations by his Legate Cardinal Riario for Don Antonio Bastard of Portugal with specious and pleasing entertainments till he had gotten the Castle of St. Iulians the greatest strength of the Kingdom then besieged by him into his power And yet our King looked upon this Apparition as Real and thanked the King of Spain for the good he never intended And now the Articles of Marriage that had been long hatching flew up and down from hand to hand The French Historians mention them so doth Mr. Pryn in his hidden Works of darkness as they were found among the Lord Cottington's Papers These came to me from the Nest and I have kept them till this time and comparing them with other Copies there is scarce a feather amiss Nor should they have pestered this paper but to shew what great pains was taken to little purpose what Huge pretences shouldred in to make way for the Spanish Designs which at last dwindled to nothing The Articles are these 1. THat the Marriage be made by Dispensation of the Pope but that to be procured by the endeavour of the King of Spain 2. That the Marriage be once celebrated in Spain and Ratified in England in form following In the morning after the most gracious Infanta hath ended her Devotions in the Chappel She and the most excellent Prince Charles shall meet in the King's Chappel or in some other Room of the Palace where it shall seem most expedient and there shall be read all the Procurations by Virtue whereof the Marriage was celebrated in Spain And as well the most excellent Prince as the most excellent Infanta shall ratifie the said Marriage celebrated in Spain with all Solemnity necessary to such an Act so as no Ceremony or other thing intervene which shall be contrary to the Roman-Catholik-Apostolik-Religion 3. That the Gracious Infanta shall take with Her such Servants and Family as are convenient for her service which Family and all Persons to her belonging shall be chosen and nominated by the Catholik King so as he nominate no Servant which is Vassail to the King of Great Britain without his will and consent 4. That as well the most gracious Lady Infanta as all her Servants and Family shall have free use and publique exercise of the Roman Catholike Religion in manner and form as is beneath Capitulated 5. That she shall have an Oratory and decent Chappel in her Palace where at the pleasure of the most Gracious Infanta Masses may be celebrated which Oratory or Chappel shall be adorned with such decencie as shall seem convenient for the most gracious Infanta with a publike Church in London c. 6. That the Men-servants and Maid-servants of the most Gracious Infanta and their Servants Children and Descendents and all their Families of what sort soever serving her Highness may be freely Catholiks 7. That the most gracious Infanta her Servants and Family may be freely Catholiks in form following 8. That the most gracious Infanta may have in her Palace her Oratory and Chappel
which I would have you find out and I will make it good whatsoever it be But in all other things procure the satisfaction of the King of Great Britain who hath deserved much and it shall content me so it be not in the Match Thus was our King's plain heartedness deluded his Honour blemished his Love among his Subjects diminished the time for a positive answer for the Dispensation from Rome long expired and prolonged his Childrens Patrimony destroyed and he left so unsatisfied that the Prince himself and the Marquess of Buckingham must go into Spain to unfold this Riddle where they found it as full of Aenigma's as at first He that went to tye a knot there found it so intangled that he took some time there to clear it and when it was clear he thought it best Scindere nodum to cut that at last which he could not unloose at first The Marquess Spinola having long since left the Palatinate to the Imperials Generals with a great Army consisting of above Thirty thousand men the last Summer sits down before Berghen ap Zome a Town of very great Strength and Importance upon the Borders of Brabant and incloses himself with two strong Lines of Circumvallation notwithstanding all the Power the Town could oppose from within or Prince Maurice General of the States Army without And though he were well intrenched for his own Security yet the Works of the Town were so impregnable that he could find no way to gain it but by starving them and that could not be done but by commanding the River and those Batteries that he planted to hinder the access of Shipping with Relief into the Town were within reach of their Cannon so that he found there was little good to be done tending to the reducing of it This struck the Marquess to the Heart that he should bury his Honour as he had done a great part of his Army in those bloody Trenches and therefore he gave scope to his Resolution to make use of his time for he converted his intentions of Starving to Assaulting and his assaults were the more furious because he found they would not last long and Old Morgan that gallant Colonel with his English Brigade gave them their hands full the Scots did Gallant Service in the Town and their Colonel Hinderson was slain but many of the Enemy fell on every side for it is a great disadvantage for living Bodies to fight against dead Walls being so high and unassaultable A General that goes to besiege a City should have his access to it in his apprehension as plain as a Mathematician hath a Demonstration except it be upon some emergent cause otherwise there is an Error in his account and there cannot be two for the Honour dyes in the first which touched the Marquess near being his great trouble and made him and his enterprise both droop ERNESTUS D G COMES MANSFELDIAE MARCHIO CASTELINO VI ET BUTIGLIERAE NOB DNS IN HELD SUP DUX BELLIC ET HEROS FORT MARTE votens decus et dubijs siâ—sucia rebus ERNESTUS CAMPI VIR generosus nic est Qui genus illustri ducens à stirpe Parentum Auget honoratum per sua facta genus E. 〈◊〉 D.M.C.B. But with many Necessities in their March through Lorrain and Lutzenburgh they came to Fleury within eight miles of Namurs where Corduba with a Spanish Army strove to hinder their passage The Conflict was great betwixt them and many slain on both sides and both triumphed in the Victory For Corduba kept the Field and Mansfieldt kept his way But Mansfieldt's Victory was the compleatest because he attained to his End which was to break through Corduba But Corduba did not attain to his End which was to hinder Mansfieldt Yet the Spanish Bravery was highly exalted with Bonfires and rejoycings both at Madrid and Bruxels The Duke of Brunswicke lost his Bridle Arm in that service and many Gentlemen both English and Scots out of Love to the Queen of Bohemia behaved themselves gallantly and let the Spaniard know it was more than an ordinary shock they encountered with Among whom Sir Charles Rich brother to the E. of Warwick was a Principal person whose Voluntary Spirit not necessity made danger his Companion where Honour attended it Sir Iames Heyes Knevet Humes Heiborn and other Commanders striving for Corrivalship in Bravery Spinola hearing that Mansfieldt was broken through Corduba's Army and come into Brabant made the Court Splendor of Corduba's Conquest appear but Ignes fatui which also something extinguisht the glory of his own fame For he thought it good policy seeing he should be necessitated to leave the Siege of Berghen to do it at that time when there might be cause to think it occasioned by that Accident more than his default And therefore as soon as the Prince of Orange and Mansfieldt had joyned forces though Corduba came to him and reinforced his Army yet Winter drawing on and his Army almost wasted he trussed up his Baggage in haste set his Camp a-fire and departed leaving to his Hungry Enemies good store of Wine and other Provisions in his burning Quarters And thus stood the Ballance this year betwixt the King of Spain and the Netherlands But our King receiving so many delays and dissatisfactions from Spain and Rome they begot him so much trouble and Vexation that crowding into his thoughts prest upon his Natural Temper some fits of Melancholy which those about him with facetious Mirth would strive to Mitigate And having exhausted their inventions or not making use of such as were more pregnant the Marquess and his Mother instead of Mirth fell upon Prophaneness thinking with that to please him and perhaps they were only mistaken in the unseasonableness of the time being not then suitable to the Humor For they caus'd Mistris Aspernham a young Gentlewoman of the Kindred to dress a Pigg like a Child and the Old Countess like a Midwife brought it in to the King in a rich Mantle Turpin that married one of the Kindred whose name was renowned for a Bishop in the Romances of the Emperor Charlemain was drest like a Bishop in his Sattin Gown Lawn sleeves and other Pontifical Ornaments who with the Common Prayer book began the words of Baptism one attending with a silver Bason of Water for the Service the King hearing the Ceremonies of Baptism read and the squeeking noise of that Brute he most abhorred turned himself to see what Pageant it was and finding Turpin's face which he well knew drest like a Bishop and the Marquess whose face he most of all loved stand as a Godfather he cryed out away for shame what Blasphemy is this and turning aside with a frown he gave them cause to think that such ungodly Mirth would rather increase than cure his Melancholly Another time at Theobalds the King wanted some papers that had Relation to the Spanish Treaty so hot in Motion which raised him highly into the Passion of Anger
that he should not know what he had done with them being things so material and of such conoernment And calling his Memory to a strict account at last he discharged it upon Iohn Gib a Scotchman who was of his Bedchamber and had been an old Servant to him Gib is called for in haste and the King asks him for the Papers he gave him Gib collecting himself answered the King he received no papers from him The King broke into extream Rage as he would often when the Humor of Choler began to boil in him protesting he had them and reviling him exceedingly for denying them Gib threw himself at the King's feet protesting his innocency that he never received any and desired his life might make satisfaction for his fault if he were guilty This could not calm the King's Spirit tossed in this tempest of Passion and overcharged with it as he passed by Gib kneeling threw some of it upon him giving him a kick with his foot Which kick infected Gib and turned his humility into Anger for rising instantly he said Sir I have served you from my youth and you never found me unfaithful I have not deserved this from you nor can I live longer with you with this disgrace Fare ye well Sir I will never see your face more and away he goes from the King's presence took Horse and rode towards London Those about the King put on a sad countenance to see him displeased and every man was inquisitive to know the cause some said the King and Gib were faln out but about what some papers of the Spanish Treaty the King had given him cannot be found Endimion Porter hearing it said The King gave me those Papers went presently and brought them to the King who being becalmed and finding his Error called instantly for Gib Answer was made he was gone to London The King hearing it commanded with all expedition to send post after him to bring him back protesting never to Eat Drink or Sleep till he saw Gib's face The Messenger overtook him before he got to London and Gib hearing the Papers were found and that the King sent for him with much earnestness returned to the Court. And as he came into the King's Chamber the King kneeled down upon his Knees before Gib intreating his pardon with a sober and grave aspect protesting he would never rise till Gib had forgiven him and though Gibs modestly declined it with some humble excuses yet it would not satisfie the King till he heard the words of absolution pronounced So ingenious was he in this piece of Passion Which had its suddain variation from a stern and furious anger to a soft and melting affection which made Gib no loser by the bargain Thus the King 's Melancholy Cholerick and Sanguine constitution appeared But of all the Humors Flegm was now the most predominant which made him so tamely swallow those raw fruits of Spain that all his Exercise could not well digest In Ianuary this year the Diet which the Emperor had summoned contrary to his promise as our King intimates met at Ratisbone where the Electors and divers other Princes of Germany assembled either in their own persons or by their Deputies The Imperial design was to take off the edge of the Princes dissatisfaction for his harsh proceedings against the Prince Palatine wherein he makes him the ground work and cause of all the Wars and miseries that have hapned in the Empire And thinking no man as he said would take the boldness to mediate the Restitution of the proscribed Palatine into the Electoral College he could do no less than dispose of the Electorate now plenojure devolved unto him as Emperor which he had bestowed on the Duke of Bavaria for spending his Treasure and hazarding his Blood in his service against his own Nephew the expulsed Palatine Wherefore he requests the illustrious presence of Electors and Princes to give their opinions how the peace of the Empire may be established to prevent all commotions for the future The Princes took this Proposition of the Emperor into debate and the Protestant Princes desired Caesar to consider the importance of the Business That though his Imperial Majesty in his own judgment may have had Cause enough to publish the Ban against the Prince Palatine yet they are of Opinion that in his particular Cause which so neerly concerned the disposing of an Electorate of the Empire and so principal a Person of the Electoral College the suddain doing whereof might occasion long and tedious Wars dangerous to the Roman Empire that Caesar should not of himself have proceeded so rigorously nor without the advice and consent of all the rest of the Electors according as it was agreed upon in the Capitulation Royal which is holden for a fundamental Law of the Empire Which course of Caesar's even for the manner of proceeding in it was distasted by Divers because the Prince Palatinate had never been legally summoned but uncited and unheard without all knowledge of his Cause and contrary to all ordinary Course had been condemned and against all Equity oppressed by the Publication of that Imperial Ban. We purpose not to call the Power Imperial into question yet we cannot but remember your Majesty of that Promise made in your Capitulation unto the Electors and humbly We admonish Caesar to stand unto his own word and not to intermit the performance of it And as for the disposing of the Electorate we desire nothing more than that We could gratifie Caesar with Our Suffrages But perceiving so many and so great Difficulties in it We cannot but admonish your Majesty of the danger of it This being the Opinion of Our Electors that seeing your Majesty hath graciously called the Diet for restoring Peace in the Empire that it were altogether necessary first to remove the Obstacles of Peace And seeing that all the stirs began in Bohemia Caesar should do well to labour first for the quieting of that Kingdom and command a stay to be made of the severe Reformation and frequent Executions there That so the Hearts of your Subjects being overcome with Grace and Mercy might be sweetly joyned to you and all fear and distrust utterly taken away without which we see no hope either how your Majesty can sit sure upon your Imperial Throne or how the Electors and Princes can be freed of their fears being evident that the Bohemians and others made desperate by the Extremity of their sufferings will take any occasion to begin new troubles and to involve the Empire with new Dangers All the Lutheran States of the Empire likewise which follow the Augustan Confession have their Eyes upon this Bohemian Reformation which though it were given out to be for private Iustice yet it is so linkt with the publick cause that unless it be speedily ended and the two Churches at Prague granted by Rodolphus the second not in favour of some private men alone but of Christian Elector of
Saxony and which had continued free until of late were again opened and the free exercise of Religion generally permitted We see no sure Peace likely to be in the Empire but utter ruine rather and final desolation may every day be feared Seeing it was apparently known that it was not those that professed the Reformed Religion who begun these troubles but the Noblemen and great Officers whose designs the other were compelled to obey And for the Prince Palatine seeing he is already sufficiently punished it were far more commendable in your Majesty that now at last upon his submission you would be pleased to restore him to his Lands and Dignities otherwise there is no likelihood of Restoring Peace to the Empire And in the transferring of the Electorate this main thing were fit to be considered Whether the Prince Palatine excluded in his own person doth debar his Children who by the providence of their Ancestors had before this Act of their Father jus adquisitum an Hereditary Right unto the Electorate or the brother of the Prince Palatine who hath no way offended your Majesty nor by reason of his Minority could not Or others of the Kindred of the Prince Palatine should be or ought to be in this Case neglected If they be it will be hardly taken of other Electors and Princes and occasion various Distrusts betwixt the Head and the Members For the Princes allied unto the Prince Palatine who have been quiet hitherto upon Considence of Caesar's Clemency now perceiving all hope of that Dignity unto their Family taken away must needs have Recourse unto Arms and endeavour the Recovery of it by force And if Caesar should die this controversie being not compounded it may well be feared many inconveniences will fall out contrary to Caesar's desire For though upon the advantage of his Victories he hath had the Law in his own hand if the Wheel should turn that side which is lowest will get up again Therefore We hold it more Wisdom to advise Caesar not to proceed too suddenly but rather to accept the intercession of other Electors and Princes as in such Cases hath hitherto been done Considering the Prince Palatine was then but young abused by ill Councel and no ways the Author of those stirs in Bohemia they being in an uproar before his coming among them And if his Majesty would pardon the Prince Palatine he should ever oblige the whole Electoral College and all the Kings and Princes allied unto him and the Prince himself and all his posterity would be advised when they remember their Exile how they embroil themselves in such Business Whereas if he saw the door of Mercy quite shut and nothing left him but his life it would make both him and his desperate to attempt so as there would be no end of the Troubles in the Roman Empire Caesar therefore should do far righter if for his own Honour and the publick good he would prefer mercy before severity and not pursue these Extremities To these things the Catholick Princes said That Caesar had shown Causes enough which he had to deprive the Palatine and the Palatinate being devolved to him he might dispose of it without having regard to the Palatine line according to his own pleasure That his Majesty could not well hold any terms of Amity with him though he were restored and this impunity would give occasion unto others to offend As for the matter of Punishment there would be little difference between the Emperor and the Palatine seeing that his Majestie 's Lands and Dominions are no less wasted than the others and yet there is great difference in the cause for this fell out to Caesar without his Demerit and the Palatine did the other having no necessity to it That he had refused mercy in not acknowledging his fault nor seeking for favour And it is an unequal Request for Caesar to accept of any Reconciliation whilst his General Mansfield is yet in the field and prosecutes his cause by force of Arms. The safety of the Empire consisting in the filling up of the Electoral College Caesar hath done very well in a speedy resolving on it and other Emperors in the like causes have done the same before To which the other party answered That for the security of the Imperial Dignity and safety of the Empire there is no question but that it consisted in the Concord of the Electoral College with the Emperor And the Prince Palatine hath as you say done amiss yet if Caesar shall still use Rigor the Princes of the lower Saxony are of Opinion there can be no Peace established in the Empire the good of which being most worthy to be preferred Caesar should do wisely to suffer himself to be intreated and change Rigor into Clemency making the Empire by that means glad with a desired Peace otherwise new flames were likely to break out in those places which yet are preserved from burning That Caesar had now by the aid of the Electors and Princes recovered his lost Provinces and wanting nothing but quiet possession of them which this desired Reconciliation was the best means to effect The hand of War may be lifted up but who knows where the stroak will fall and Victory is so long uncertain as the adverse party hath power to reinforce his Arms. And for the renewing of the War there is yet a fair pretence left for that in bestowing the Electorate the Prince Palatine's sons and brother have been neglected and with these Principles are the minds of many of the Princes of the Empire already possessed The King of Great Britain besides could not but take it ill that he should now see all his endeavours take no good effect but his only daughter and her Children left in exile And as for the manner of this Reconciliation there might be a particular Treaty and Consultation wherein Caesar's Prerogative imperial being reserved all parties might receive Satisfaction and the Empire once again flourish in Peace If these Remedies be not applied it will produce ill blood yea Heart-burnings and distrusts in the Electoral College it self These several answers delivered to the Emperor the twentieth of Ianuary he replyed unto thanking them for their consultations And though some saith he have wisely heretofore resolved us that our proceedings in proscribing the Palatine was both legal and necessary yet now we perceive some of you are of opinion that according to our Capitulation Royal we ought not to have proceeded so far without the Knowledg and consent of the Electors But as we have no ways gone begond this our Capitulation but even before we set out the Ban punctually considered all that was necessary to be taken notice of so did we also desire nothing more then that a Diet might be convoked for the due treating and advising upon this Business which meeting being impeded by the prosecution of the War by the Palatine we could do no less to take down his courage than publish
the Ban against him which course of ours seeing it was never intended to be prosecuted to the prejudice of the Electoral College or against our own Capitulation we hope that the Electors will not take it otherwise being that we promise withal so to moderate it that no detriment or prejudice shall result thereby unto the Dignity Electoral As for the Translation of the Electorate and your advice for Restoring of the Palatinate there is I perceive some difference in your Opinions One part wisely and in favour of us affirming the great Reason we have to do it But for the other party which adviseth his Restoring we purpose not so far to consent unto it as to the restoring of him to the Electoral Dignity seeing that in the disposing of it other where we are resolved that we shall do no more than we have just reason to do nor will we defer the filling up of the Electoral College because the dispatching of it doth so much concern the Common good But for the Restitution of the Person of the Palatine you shall see how much our Mind is inclined towards clemency and how far we will declare Our self to gratifie the King of Great Britain the King of Denmark the Elector of Saxony and other Electors and Princes interceding for him And as concerning our forbidding the Exercise of the Lutheran Religion in the City of Prague we do not see how it any way concerns this Diet to inquire of our Letter have signified the causes that moved us to begin it unto the Elector of Saxony nor can we think that what we have done there any of the Neighbour States or Territories need be suspicious of seeing that we have sworn oftner than once in the Word of an Emperour that we will most Religiously observe the Peace both of Religion and civil Government throughout the Empire And thus much we could not but advertise this Illustrious Presence of Electors and Princes and you the Ambassadors of those that are absent The Protestant Electors and Princes still persisted in their Resolution that the Emperour could not translate the Electorate legally the words of the Capitulation being clearly these In all difficult businesses no process ought to be made without the knowledg and consent of the Electors and that without ordinary process no proscription should go out against any one of the States of the Empire before the cause were heard This is the fundamental Law of the Empire which required no more but to be constantly observed nor is it to be drawn into further dispute or deliberation And it stood the Electors upon to be open eyed to see to the observation of it being it concerned the three Secular Electors especially whose Dignity did by an Hereditary Right descend unto their Posterity to keep it safe and entire which they hoped that Caesar would not contradict But the Emperour would not be perswaded from his own Resolution yet in conclusion to gratifie the Princes he was contented to confer the Electorate with a Proviso that the investiture of the Duke of Bavaria should not be prejudicial to the children of the Palatine and so the Diet ended The ending of the Diet in Germany and our Prince's Journey into Spain were much about a time He went with the Marquess of Buckingham privately from Court the 17. of February to New-Hall in Essex the Marquess's House purchased of that unthrift Robert Earl of Sussex and from thence the next day by Graves-End the straight way to Dover attended onely by Sir Richard Graham Master of the Marquess's Horse where they were to meet Sir Francis Cottington who was thought fit to be the Prince's Secretary and Endimion Porter who was then taken from the Marquess's Bed-Chamber to wait upon the Prince Cottington was at first Clerk to Sir Charles Cornwallis his Secretary when Cornwallis was Ambassadour in Spain and being left there an Agent in the Intervals of Ambassadours was by that means trained up in the Spanish affairs Porter was bred up in Spain when he was a Boy and had the Language but found no other Fortune there then brought him over to be Mr. Edward Villers his man in Fleetstreet which was before either the Marquess or his Master were acceptable at White-Hall And Graham at first was an underling of low degree in the Marquess's Stable It is not hereby intended to vilifie the persons being men in this World's lottery as capable of advancement as others but to show in how poor a Bark the King ventured the rich freight his Son having onely the Marquess to steer his Course The Prince and Buckingham had false Beards for disguizes to cover their smooth Faces and the names of Iack Smith and Tom Smith which they past with leaving behind them impressions in every place with their bounty and presence that they were not the Persons they presented but they were not so rudely dealt with as to be questioned till they came to Dover and there the Mayor in a Supercilious Officiousness which may deserve the title of a careful Magistrate examined them so far being jealous they were Gentlemen going over to fight that the Marquess though Admiral was glad to Vail his Beard to him in private and tell him he was going to visit the Fleet so they had liberty to take Ship and landed at Bulloign the same day making swist Motion by Post-Horses which celerity leaves the least impression till they came to Paris There the Prince spent one day to view the City and Court shadowing himself the most he could under a Bushy Peruque which none in former times but bald people used but now generally intruded into a fashion and the Prince's was so big that it was hair enough for his whole face The Marquesses fair Face was shadowed with the same Pencil and they both together saw the Queen Mother at Dinner the King in the Gallery after Dinner and towards the Evening they had a full view of the Queen Infanta and the Princess Henrietta Maria with most of the Beauties of the Court at the practice of a Masking Dance being admitted by the Duke of Montbason the Queens Lord Chamberlain in Humanity to Strangers when many of the French were put by There the Prince saw those Eyes that after inflamed his Heart which increased so much that it was thought to be the cause of setting Three Kingdoms afire but whether any spark of it did then appear is uncertain if it did it was closely raked up till the Spanish fire went out the heat whereof made him neglect â—no time till he came to Madrid At Burdeaux the Duke D'Espernon Governour there out of a noble freedom to Strangers offered them the Civilities of his House which they declined with all bashful respects and Sr Francis Cottington who always looked like a Merchant and had the least Miene of a Gentleman fittest for such an imployment let him know they were Gentlemen that desired to improve themselves and
had not Breeding suitable to his Grandeur which took off the edge of his invitation whose subtile Eye by Converse might have pryed through those fictitious out-sides to discover more then did appear MARY DE MEDICIS Upon Saturday the sixth of March they arrived at Madrid The Prince and Marquess came thither one day before Cottington and the others to make the less noise in appearances They lighted at the Earl of Bristol's House in the evening and the Marquess brought in the Portmantua but his Master staid without with the Guide till he had prepared a way for Privacy The Earl of Bristol was astonished at the sight but after he had collected himself his Diligence attended his Duty and the Prince wanted nothing but Counsel how to order himself which they took time till the next day towards the Evening to deliberate on All that morning the Town was filled with Rumours of the arrival of some great Prince and though the King of Spain had intimation by his Letters yet he kept all private till the Prince exprest himself which was done that Evening For Buckingham and Bristol went to the Court and had private Audience of the King who sent his Grand favourite Olivares back with them to congratulate the Princes coming who let the Prince know how Happy the King his Master was in the Injoyment of him there and what addition of Grandure his presence would contribute to the Court of Spain and that the obligation was so great that he deserved to have the Infanta thrown into his Armes All this while kneeling kissing his Hands and embracing his Thigh the Huge and swelling expressions of Spanish Humility And from him he went to the Marquess of Buckingham telling him That now the Prince of England was in Spain his Master and he would divide the World betwixt them with other Rodomontado fancies And after he was gone about ten of the Clock that night the King of Spain came in a close Coach to Visit the Prince who having intimation of his coming such secret Hints among Princes being suitable invitements he met him in the way and there they spent some time in those sweet yet formal Caresses and Imbraces that are incidents to the Interviews of great Princes though their Hearts and Tongues do seldom accord Gondemar in consort was not without his Strain of Complement for he told the Prince upon a Visit next day that he had strange news to tell him which was That an Englishman was sworn a privy Councellour to the King of Spain meaning himself who he said was an Englishman in Heart and had lately received that Honour CRUX FIDEI COTIâ— CULA All that the Spanish Court could do was heightned into Gallantry and Civilities to the Prince yet he saw not his fair Mistris but at an undiscerning distance and in transitu as she came from Church But after all these Splendid and glorious out-side Ceremonies of Entertainment were grown a little old the Prince began to mind the Business he came about and desired a more intimate access to his Beloved Infanta which Olivares promised from day to day to accomplish but still delayed and at length when unperformed promises were heightned into Shame he plainly confessed That it was agreed by the King and his Council that he might not see her as a Lover till the Dispensation came for it would give scandal to admit him before yet not to starve him quite in his Desires but to keep him short that he should not surfeit he had now and then Access to her as a Prince in a publike way the King of Spain being always present and the Earl of Bristol Interpreter so that nothing could be spoken but those little superficial Compliments that served as Baits rather to nibble on than satisfie But these small Repasts kept up the Appetite And now the Glories of the English Court left the Northern Sun declining to the West and came to see the Sun rising in Spain The Marquess of Buckingham's new Title of Duke came to him also that he might be in the highest Rank among the Spanish Grandees to beard the proudest of them which afterwards he did And the Viscount Doncaster lately made Earl of Carlile came in all his Glories of which two it was observed by knowing Men That Buckingham came into Spain of the Spanish Faction and returned into England of the French Faction Carlile came into Spain of the French Faction and returned into England of the Spanish thus varying the Scene by fits and acting their parts as the present fancy moved them The Lord Kensington Captain of the Guard to our King came also to see the Prince so did the Earl of Denbigh Edward Son and Heir to the now Earl of Manchester The Viscount Mandevill the Viscount Rochford and divers others of the Nobility And the Prince was so circled with a Splendid Retinue of his own people that it might be said Spain's Pallace But together with these specious Entertainments there were underworking Hopes to have the Prince turn Papist for in intervenient Discourses Olivares and others would press him with all the Arguments the Court had instructed them in to a conversion intimating how smooth a path it would make to the Infanta's affections for when he that was to be Lord of her Heart and the best friend she had would be an Enemy to her Religion it could be but a great Obstacle to her Love And when the Danger of it was proposed to them as likely to bring a Rebellion in the Nation if their Prince should be perverted they promised to assist him with an Army against such rebellious people But if he would not admit of a present and suddain alteration publikely yet that he would be so indulgent when the Infanta came into England as to listen to her in Matters of Religion which the Prince promised to do Nay his own familiar friend Bristol as it was Articled against him afterwards by Buckingham did strive with a gentle hand to allure him that way as bringing with it an addition to the Grandure of the King 's of England that none of them could ever do great things that were not of that Religion Thus was the Prince beset and Time ran away in Discourses The Dispensation being purposely delayed for some at that time in the Spanish Court said it was come and sent back again to Rome being too forward and active that it might have more weight put upon it and then it would not make so much haste for now it came too soon to dispatch their worke For the subtily considered that Time and continual dropping might leave those impressions upon the Prince's spirit that Dispatches cannot effect Therefore they made new Queries and clapt new Remora's upon the Articles that being tangled in Disputations betwixt England and Spain and in controversies of Religion betwixt the Prince and some of their cunning Sophisters which they set a work that before the way could be
well cleared on both sides their Design which was the Prince's Perversion might mature and ripen For the Earl of Bristol confessed afterwards That it was a general received Opinion in the Spanish Court that the Prince came thither with intention to be a Roman Catholike And Gondemar pressed Bristol not to hinder so pious a work assuring him they had the Duke of Buckingham's assistance therein And it was evident enough their hopes were great by the Pope's letter to the Bishop of Conchen Inquisitor general in Spain Wherein he excites him not to slip the Opportunity providence had put into his hand of extending his Piety to the outtermost Nations The Prince of England being now in the Court of Spain that glorious Temple as it were that hath been a Bulwark to the Pontifical Authority and an Academy for propogation of Religion he desires he may not stay there in vain but that some of the impressions of the Piety of so many Catholick Kings as have lived there may be imprinted on him that he may be won with all sweetness as many of his noble Ancestors have been who have submitted their Crowned heads and Imperiall power to the Roman Obedience And to his glorious Victory and Eternal GREGORIVS XV alexander Luaouisuis Bononien creat die 9. Februarâ— an 1621. Sedit an 2. me â—s S. Obâ—t die 8. Iulij an 1623 Vac Triumph of Celestial Beatitudes the Treasures of Kings and Legions of Souldiers cannot contribute but the Weapons of Light that must come from Heaven whose Splendor inlightning the Prince's Eyes shall dazleâ— his Errors and establish his mind in meekness And he charges the Bishop and all his Fraternity to use the best strength and industry they can to this purpose So that the Prince was continually laid at by the insinuating Orations of cunning Iesuits the fained and cousening Miracles of reclused Holiness the Splendid and Specious Solemnities of their Formal Processions the rare and admirable Pictures of their reputed Saints besides many other painted devices and subtle Artifices brooded among them And the Pope used all the Rhetorick of his Cabalistical Consistory and Holy Chair to charm him to his Obedience as may be seen by this Letter which he writ to him himself MOst Noble Prince Health and Light of Divine Grace For asmuch as Great Britain hath always been fruitful in Vertues and Men of Merit having filled the one and the other World with the Glory of Her Renown She doth also very often attract the thoughts of the Holy Apostolical Chair to the consideration of her praises And indeed the Church was but then in her Infancy when the King of Kings did choose her for his Inheritance and so affectionately that it is thought the Roman Eagles prevailed not so much as the Banner of the Cross. Besides that many of her Kings instructed in the Knowledg of the true Salvation have preferred the Cross before the Royal Scepter and the Discipline of Religion before Covetousness leaving Examples of Piety to other Nations and to the Ages yet to come so as having Merited the principal and chief Places of Blessedness in Heaven they have obtained on Earth the Triumphant Ornaments of true Holiness And although now the State of the English Church be altered yet we see the Court of Great Britain adorned and furnished with Moral Vertues which might serve to support the Charity that We bear unto Her and be an Ornament to the name of Christianity if withal She could have for her defence and Protection the Orthodox and Catholike Truth Wherefore by how much the Glory of your most Noble Father and the apprehension of your Royal Disposition delights Us with so much more Zeal We desire that the Gates of the Heavenly Kingdom might be opened unto you and that you might purchase to your self the Love of the Universal Church Moreover it being Certain that Gregory the Great of most blessed Memory hath introduced to the English people and taught their Kings the law of the Gospel and the respect to Apostolical Authority We as inferior to him in Holiness and Virtue but equal in Name and Degree of Dignity it is very reasonable that We following his blessed Steps should endeavour the Salvation of those Provinces especially at this time when your Happy Design most Noble Prince elevates Us to the Hope of an extraordinary advantage And as you have taken a Iourney into Spain to the Catholike King with desire to allye your Self to the House of Austria so We do commend your Design and indeed do testifie openly in this present Business That you are he that takes principal Care of our Prelacy For seeing that you desire to take in Marriage the Daughter of Spain We may easily from thence conjecture That the ancient seeds of Christian Piety which have so happily flourished in the Hearts of the Kings of Great Britain May God prospering them revive again in your Soul And indeed it is not to be believed that he that loves such an alliance should hate the Catholike Religion and delight to oppress the Holy Chair To that purpose We have commanded to make continually most humble Prayers to the Father of Lights That he would be pleased to put you as a fair Flower of Christendom and the onely Hope of Great Britain in possession of that most noble Heritage that your Ancestors have purchased for you to defend the Authority of the Soveraign High Priest and to sight against the Monsters of Heresie Remember the dayes of old enquire of your Fathers and they will tell you the Way that leads to Heaven and what way Temporal Princes have taken to gain an Eternal Kingdom Behold the Gates of Heaven opened the most holy Kings of England who came from England to Rome accompanied with Angels did come to Honour and do Homage to the Lord of Lords and to the Prince of the Apostles in the Apostolical Chair their Actions and Examples being as so many Voices of God speaking and exhorting you to follow the course of the Lives of those to whose Empire you shall one day attain Great Brittaine is thy Birth right but the Earth Liâ—e then and conquer till victorious warre stoopes to the Vertues which exceede thy Birth Make thy Rule endles as thy Vertues are This Letter of the Pope's expresses not only the sleek and smooth waies that Soul-merchant takes to purchase his Proselytes but the end he proposes to himself which is to bring them under the Roman Obedience otherwise whatsoever they do or profess is Heresie And to build up the Towers of this great Babel the name of the most High God is brought down among them and used as a Master Builder Every Profession layes that name as a Foundation though the Superstructure be but straw and stubble of Hypocrisie which a whirl-wind shall scatter and the time is coming that her Lovers shall be destroyed and fiery-cloven tongues shall confound their Language The Prince was not slack in answering this
Letter which happily he might think would quicken the Pope to dispatch the Dispensation when he should find so little cause for Delayes by his closing so nearly with him Which whether out of Policy or Real intention cannot be asserted but the Letter was thus MOst Holy Father I received the Dispatch from your Holiness with great content and with that Respect which the Piety and care wherewith your Holiness writes doth require It was an unspeakable pleasure to me to read the Generous Exploits of the King 's my Predecessors to whose Memory Posterity hath not given those praises and Elogies of Honour that were due to them I do believe that your Holiness hath set their Example before my Eyes to the end that I might imitate them in all my Actions for in truth they have often exposed their Estates and Liâ—es for the Exaltation of the Holy Chair And the â—ouâ—â—ge with which they have assaulted the Enemies of the Cross of Iesus Christ hath not been less then the Care and thought which I have to the end that the Peace and Intelligence which hath hitherto been wanting in Christendom might be bound with a bond of true concord for like as the common Enemy of Peace watcheth alwayes to put Hatred and Dissention between Christian Princes so I believe that the Glory of God requires that we should endeavour to unite them And I do not esteem it a greater Honour to be descended from so great Princes then to imitate them in the Zeal of their Piety In which it helps me very much to have known the Mind and Will of our Thrice Honoured Lord and Father and the Holy Intentions of his Catholick Majesty to give a happy Concurrence to so laudable a Design For it grieves him extreamly to see the great Evil that grows from the Division of Christian Princes which the Wisdom of your Holiness foresaw when it judged the Marriage which you pleased to design between the Infanta of Spain and my self to be necessary to procure so great a good For 't is very certain that I shall never be so extreamly affectionate to any thing in the World as to endeavour allyance with a Prince that hath the same apprehension of the true Religion with my self Therefore I intreat your Holiness to believe that I have been alwayes far from encouraging Novelties or to be a Partisan of any faction against the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion But on the contrary I have sought all occassions to take away the suspicion that might rest upon me and that I will imploy my self for the Time to come to have but one Religion and one Faith seeing that we all believe in One Jesus Christ. Having resolved in my self to spare nothing that I may have in the World and to suffer all manner of Discommodities even to the hazarding of my estate and life for a thing so pleasing unto God It rests only that I thank your Holiness for the permission which you have been pleased to afford me and that I may pray God to give you a blessed Health here and his Glory after so much travel which your Holiness takes within his Church Signed CHARLES STUART It may well be a Quere Whether this profession of the Prince in suffering all discommodities even to the Hazarding of Estate and Life did not rest upon him at his Death as may be said hereafter But there is a long Race for him to run before he come to that End It seems he had either a good Will to write this Letter or a bad Council to indite it or both conjoyned that were as careful to please the Pope as they were hopeful it would never come to see the light till the flame of it would be too visible For if the Prince intended Really when he had power to introduce Popery into England this Letter in a bloody colour too apparently would have been discovered and if his intentions were formal and only to close with the Pope for his present accommodation how black would every Character of this letter look to the Roman Rubrick and what a Tincture of Scandal would it leave upon the true Religion for Fallere fallentem may be a fit Motto for a bad man not a good Christian so that whatsoever his Intentions were the Act was evill And I could suspect it is a forged Letter but that it hath been asserted by so many Authors both at home and abroad The Pope finding by this letter and some other private intimations the Princes good affections to the Roman See thought it high time to dally no longer but to draw him altogether with the Cords of Love therefore he dispatches the Dispensation to his Nuntio at Madrid six months after the Prince's arrival there with a little Bob at the Tail of it yet to amuse them Which was That the King of Great Britain and the Prince should give Caution to perform what was stipulated between them and the King of Spain especially in those Articles which were in favour of the Roman Catholicks in England and other his Majestie 's Dominions Requiring at least some Soveraign Catholick Prince should engage for them by oath This made some little demur for being sent into England the King answered That he could give no other Caution but his own and the Princes Royal Words and Oaths Confirmed by his Council of State and Exemplified under the great Seal of England But this would not satisfie Therefore the King of Spain undertook it and it was thought a Spanish Device That by undertaking such an engagement he might not only the more endear himself to the King of Great Britain and to the Prince his Brother but have a more colourable pretext to make War against England if the Roman Catholicks there had not full satisfaction and freedom according to the Articles and the King of Spain knowing or assureing himself that no Catholick Prince would take such an Oath offered himself to satisfie the Pope And a Committee of Ecclesiasticks in Spain were appointed to debate the Case in Relation to the King's conscience whether he might take such an Oath for them and they being doubtless resolved on it before concluded Affirmatively And that if the King of Great Britain and Prince should fail in the performance of these Capitulations the King of Spain might save his Oath by vindicating the Breach thereof upon them with his Sword And now this Monster-difficulty being overcome by the Spanish Bravery the very same time Articles that our King and Prince had signed as are before related were sent into England for our King and his privy Council to swear to and there was not a Rub left for either party to stumble at But whilst these things were in motion in Spain they were much regretted and badly resented in England The Spirit almost of the whole Nation being averse to this Union which made many vent their Passion by their Pens as well as their tongues Amongst the rest the Archbishop of
Canterbury knowing that a Toleration was to be admitted though he stood tottering in the King's Favour and had the Badg of a Puritan clapt upon him thought it better to discharge his Conscience though he hazarded all rather than be silent in such a Cause where the Glory of God and the Good of the Kingdom were so higly concerned Therefore he writes this letter to the King May it please your Majesty I Have been too long silent and am afraid by my Silence I have neglected the Duty of the Place it hath pleased God to call me unto and your Majesty to place me in And now I humbly crave leave I may discharge my Conscience towards God and my Duty to your Majesty And therefore I beseech your Majesty give me leave freely to deliver my self and then let your Majesty do with me what you please Your Majesty hath propounded a Toleration of Religion I beseech you Sir take into your consideration what the Act is next what the consequence may be By your Act you labour to set up that most Damnable and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon How Hateful will it be to God and grievous unto your good Subjects the true Professors of the Gospel that your Majesty who hath often disputed and learnedly written against those wicked Heresies should now shew your self a Patron of those Doctrines which your Pen hath told the World and your Conscience tels your Self are Superstitious Idolatrous and Detestable Add hereunto what you have done in sending the Prince into Spain without the consent of your Council the Privity and Approbation of your People And though Sir you have a large Interest in the Prince as the Son of your Flesh yet hath the people a greater as the Son of the Kingdom upon whom next after your Majesty their Eyes are fixed and Welfare depends And so tenderly is his going apprehended as believe it Sir however his return may be safe yet the drawers of him to that Action so dangerous to himself to desperate to the Kingdom will not pass away unquestioned and unpunished Besides this Toleration which you endeavour to set up by Proclamation cannot be done without a Parliament unless your Majesty would let your Subjects see That you will take unto your self a liberty to throw down the Laws of the Land at your Pleasure What dreadful Consequence these things may draw after them I beseech your Majesty to consider And above all lest by this Toleration and discontinuance of the true profession of the Gospel whereby God hath blessed us and under which this Kingdom hath for many years flourished your Majesty do not draw upon the Kingdom in general and your Self in particular God's heavy Wrath and Indignation Thus in discharge of my Duty towards God to your Majesty and the place of my Calling I have taken humble Boldness to deliver my Conscience And now Sir do with me what you please Thus did our Solomon in his latter time though he had fought with the Beasts at Ephesus as one saith of him incline a little too much to the Beast Yet he made his tale so good to the Archbishop of Canterbury what reservations soever he had that he wrought upon the good old man afterwards in the Conclusion of the work to set his Hand as a Witness to the Articles And his desires were so heightned to the Heats of Spain which boyl'd him to such a Distemper that he would listen to nothing and almost yield to any thing rather than not to enjoy his own Humour Divers of his intimate Council affecting Popery were not slack to urge him to a Toleration and many Arguments were used inciting to it As that Catholicks were the King 's best and most peaceable Subjects the Puritans being the only Sticklers and the greatest Disturbers of the Royal peace trenching too boldly upon the Prerogative and striving to lessen the Kingly power But if the King had occasion to make use of the Catholicks he should find them more faithful to him than those that are ever contesting with him And why should not Catholicks with as much safety be permitted in England as the Protestants are in France That their Religion was full of Love and Charity where they could enjoy it with freedom and where Charity layes the Foundation the upper Building must needs be spiritual But these Arguments were answered and many reasons alledged against them proving the Nature of the Protestant Religion to be Compatible with the Nature of the Politick Laws of any State of what Religion soever Because it teacheth that the Government of any State whether Monarchial or Aristocratical is Supream within it self and not subordinate to any power without so that the Knot of Allegiance thereunto is so firmly tied that no Humane power can unloose or dissolve it Whereas on the contrary the Roman Religion acknowledging a Supremacy in another above that power which swayeth the State whereof they are Members must consequently hold that one stroke of that Supreme power is able to unsinew and cut in sunder all the Bonds which ty them to the Subordinate and Dependent Authority And therefore can ill accord with the Allegiance which Subjects owe to a Prince of their own Religion which makes Papists intolerable in a Protestant Common-wealth For what Faith can a Prince or People expect from them whose Tenet is That no Faith is to be held with Hereticks That the Protestants in France had merited better there than the Papists had done in England the one by their Loyalties to their lawful King having ransomed that Kingdom with their Bloods in the Pangs of her desperate Agonies from the Yoak of an Usurper within and the Tyranny of a Forain Scepter without The other seeking to write their Disloyalties in the Heart-Blood of the Princes and best Subjects of this Kingdom That the Number and Quality of the Professors of these different Religions in either Kingdom is to be observed For in France the Number of the Protestants were so great that a Toleration did not make them but found them a Considerable Party so strong as they could not have been suppressed without endangering the Kingdom But a Toleration in England would not find but form the Papists to be a considerable party witness their encrease by this late Connivency a thing which ought mainly to be avoided For the distraction of a State into several powerfull parties is alwaies weakning and often proveth the utter ruine thereof These thing were laid open to the King but all were waved by the King of Spain's Offering His engagement to the Pope by oath That he and the Prince his son should observe and keep the Articles stipulated betwixt them did exceedingly affect him And the Articles now coming to close up all they were ingrossed with a long preamble Declaring to all the World the much desired Union betwixt him and the King of Spain by the marriage of his son to
the Rere but the Horse passed the fourth Passage before the Enemy came up Then Brunswick drew off his Cannon and marched away to the fifth Passage leaving Kniphuisen who undertook it voluntarily with two thousand Musqueteers to make good that Passsage which was of that advantage that half the men might have done it and two Regiments of Horse were left to give assistance to the Foot to bring them off when they should retire and joyn with the Army But the Van-guard of Brunswick's Army had scarce entred the fifth Passage but he discovered some Musqueteers running towards a Wood that was on this side and not far from the fourth Passage and riding back to see whether all stood firm he met Kniphuisen and askt him if the Passage was made good Who answered Take you no care trust me But presently discovering some of the Officers that had command of the Musqueteers running towards the Army he took a more lively apprehension that the Passage was lost and meeting Kniphuisen with some heat told him he had betrayed him But Kniphuisen excused himself that he could not keep it against an Army and complained that the Horse had abandoned him But said he the next Passage is of as great importance as the last and I will undertake to keep that upon forfeiture of my Head to redeem my Credit again and to that end he desired an entire Regiment of Foot which the Duke granted him but assured him he should answer it if any ill succeeded by his default Whilest the Army was passing the fifth Passage the Duke sent to know whether the Horse placed according to his Direction in the Rere made good their Station and he had intimation that the Horse were retired close to a Wood and by that means discovered the Foot to the Enemy And the Army was no sooner passed the fifth Passage but Kniphuisen quitted it to the Enemy without so much as a Musquet shot from them And the more to weaken his force before he quitted the Passage he comes to the Duke and tells him but it was not true that the Enemy with thirty Cornets of Horse struck towards the left hand to cut away to the Baggage to possess that And Brunswick looking about perceived within a little Wood not far off a Body of Horse which proved to be the Prince of Ouldenburgh who was Colonel of a Regiment of a thousand Horse whom he sent to resist the Enemy if they should attempt upon the Baggage And advancing his Army to the sixth Passage he passed that also before the Enemy came to it but here was Brunswick's Error in trusting Kniphuisen the third time which was only as he said to redeem his former faults for he gave the keeping of this sixth Passage to him also which he delivered to the Enemy at their first approach as he did the others And drawing the Rere-guard out of the way on the right hand contrary to Brunswick's commands and the General of the Ordnance striking out on the left hand with his Body and Cannon and Stirum sheltring himself in the Woods with his Horse The Enemy advanced freely seeing them thus scattered and charged on all sides with his whole Power But little resistance being made the General Officers leaving the Field every one shifted for himself Some escaped over Statloo Bridge many were drowned in the River the slaughter and ruin was great so was the Confusion and fear Sir Charles Rich being with Brunswick in this disorderly business escaped a great danger for in their flight his Horse fell into a Bogg where Brunswick and the rest left him sticking But being a Spritely Horse that his Brother the Earl of Warwick had given him with much labour he plunged himself out and saved both himself and his Rider The Reliques of this broken Army that scaped the Author saw at Eltem on the Hill in Cleveland and this Relation was made by the Duke of Brunswick to Maurice Prince of Orange for his own Vindication And from a French Copy that the Duke gave to the Earl of Essex he translated it then into English that some of our Nation there might partake of the true knowledge of his Misfortunes And the Duke cited his chief Officers to appear before Prince Maurice where he laid this Accusation to their charge but either the Duke had no power over them being in a strange Country or no proof against them for this strange Miscarriage being accounted among them La Fortane de la Guerre but Chance of War for they all escaped without Punishment And some years after Kniphuisen was thought fit in the Duke of Buckingham's Voyage to the Isle of Ree to be a field-Officer in the English Army which almost if not altogether thriv'd as ill So uncertain is the true State of intricate Transactions for that which is obvious and visible may be believed an Error but secret mischiefs are left to his Discovery who only knows the heart France about this time had her wounds bound up and stancht the bloody Issue by the Pacification of Montpelier but it broke out again at Rochel where some English ships did the King of France service pressed thereto by the Duke of Guise Admiral of France and though it carried a bad savour then that they should fight against the Protestants being forced thereto yet it was not so enormous and dangerous to them as when the Duke of Buckingham afterwards did force the Van-guard a prime Ship of Our King 's and six other gallant Ships out of the English hands and put them into French fingring that they might do the mischief with them Which Act was laid upon the Duke's Account among other hainous Crimes by him committed and he had dearly payed for it if the Prince his Fellow-Traveller in the first year of whose Reign it was done had not acquitted him But in their intimate and secret Counsels in France it was debated whether it were not better to pull such a Goad of Hereticks as they called the Protestants out of the side of the Kingdome that stuck there to their continual Vexation and trouble rather than have their pain perpetually renewed being impossible to heal the Sore but by such an extirpation so much rancour and inveterate Malice sprung up in the Popish Party against them of the Religion that the Animosity of it extended to little less than another Massacre And though Our King who may be said to love them gave them no countenance whatsoever his Promises were otherwise than by intreating for them being a tickle and tender point as he thought to partake with Subjects against their Prince yet God 〈◊〉 them Deliverance such are the Dispensations of his Providence by one that hated their Religion as much if not more than the French For the King of Spain doubling his Ambition possest himself about this time of some parts of the Valtolin thinking to bound France towards Italie the Alpes being not so high as his thoughts as the
Pyrenes had bounded it towards Spain And the French Activity being loath to be cooped up thought it better to endure a little inconvenience at home than so much prejudice abroad and therefore to oppose Him they closed with the Protestants And what was it brought them in Obedience The re-edifying of their ruined Temples the restoring and maintaining their banished Ministers and Security in their Religion and Consciences So that it was not their Rebellion that was cause of the War but the War made against their Religion caused it to be called a Rebellion Thus when all other means failed their worst enemies though much against their wills proved to be their best Friends But to return to the Spanish Treaty all this while in Agitation As soon as the Articles Our King had sealed and sworn to observe were come into Spain and the Prince had ratified and comfirmed them and had sworn to another Article there wherein he ties up his own hands and gave leave to Satan and all his complices to buffet him which was To permit at all times that any should freely propose to him the Arguments of the Catholick Religion without giving any impediment and that he would never directly nor indirectly permit any to speak to the Infanta against the same the two Kingdoms of England and Spain as it were shook hands to the Agreement Preparations were made in England to entertain the Infanta a new Church built up at Saint Iames the Prince's house the Foundation stone with much Ceremony laid by Don Carlos a Coloma the Spanish Ambassadour for the publick exercise of her Religion Her very Shadows are courted in every Corner Painters being set a work to take the Height and Dimensions of this new Star that was to rise in the North before it appeared Such as hoped to flourish by her influence grew up to exuberancy what would they do then when they found the effects of it Why be drowned in their own redundancy For the Moderate Spirit did foresee what bad Omens this Apparition did threaten On the other side in Spain the Substance is as much courted as the Shadow is here with the Title of Princess of England her Maiden Restraints are taken off and she may come abroad to publick Meetings where now their Eyes may prattle loving Stories though the great Courtier Olivares gave it no better Title than The Prince watches the Infanta as a Cat doth a Mouse too gross 〈◊〉 Expression for a Master of those Ceremonies And in fine there was such an Union betwixt the two Crowns that it might well be said Philip and Iacob made one Holy-day But this closing betwixt England and Spain made the breach the wider in the House of the Palatine the Restitution of the Palatinate and the Electorate to the Queen of Bohemia and her Children being waved in the Treaty and a great sum of Money proposed as a Dowry which was also lessen'd after the first Proposition and some part of it promised to be sent with Her in Iewels which as one said might be Counterfeit as the rest of their Actions yet Our King accepted of all so eager was He and greedy of the Match that no Obstacle could stand in his way which he did not remove But there was some under-hand promise that the Infanta among the Courte-Complements should work that feat in presenting the Restorative of that Dignity and Country for a break-fast to ingratiate her Self with the Prince her Husband and as a pawn of her good Will and Affection to the English Nation And these Promises with the Spanish stamp were taken in England for current Payment so that all things tended to a Conclusion But time in Spain came too swift upon them they were willing the Infanta should winter there but knew not well how to delay the Prince longer And as they were in this plunge ruminating upon and striving to find out some new Remora to help them Pope Gregory the fifteenth that had granted the Dispensation dies and then their Subtilties flew upon that accident to make-the Dispensation invalid yet with a Reserve to keep up our Prince's Spirit that it should be no hinderance to the Match for the new Pope would instantly do it if not it should be dispatched by the Dean of the Cardinals and the King of Spain assured the Prince That if he would stay till Christmas the Marriage should be really celebrated then These delayes coming one on the neck of another and the Duke of Buckingham having taken some disgust 〈◊〉 Spain presented all things to our King in the worst habit he could put upon them For there had been some jarrs betwixt him and Olivares Two great Favourites though of different Kingdoms could not well squat in one form Olivares hunted Buckingham so close that he had almost caught him in his own Burrow but instead of his Game he incountered some Vermin which darkness could not distinguish who bit him shreudly and whether it were by this Common Hunt I know not but I am sure it was by the Common-Cry that he was so displeased with the Spanish for it that he afterwards much inclined to the French I acknowledge the Gravity and Dignity of History should not appear in such Metaphorical Habiliments but that we now live in an Age where Truth is forced to shroud her self in such Attire lest she should have imprinted on her face a Mark of Malice against Greatness which if it be not ballanced with Goodness and Piety is but an empty and frothy Title But it was said this Tetrical Humour made Buckingham dislike all the Spanish proceedings and just in the nick when it was on him the Queen of Bohemia by a private message gave him some intimation that She and her Children were to be thought on inviting him to be a Witnesse to the Christning of one of them which came fit to his acceptation not so much out of affection to the one Party as in opposition to the other And what disrelished with him gave an ill Savour to Our King who having cause enough to dislike the Spanish delates and finding the Hearts of the People bent against the Match and some neer him as the Duke of Lenox made Duke of Richmond when Buckingham had his Title that the Scots might still precede the English and the Marquess Hamilton made Earl of Cambridge to intitle him a Peer the last Parliament a man of a gallant and stately presence one whom the King much listened to and others having as little affection to it The hopes of a Daughter of France left to give life yet to a Royal Race did bate something of Our King 's keen edge so that he wrote to Buckingham That he could not expect after so long a stay in Spain and so little done that they had any cordial intention to perfect the Treaty and therefore conjured him to bring his Son back with all speed but if his Sonnes youthful follies should tye him to a
long expectation he chargeth him by his allegiance to come away and leave him there This letter the Duke shewed to the Prince and it wrought so upon him that he took a suddain resolution to go home The Grandees of Spain having notice thereof were much troubled for their Design was to detain the Prince there all Winter not only hoping thereby to turn him to their Religion but to marry him to the Infanta that there might have been a Co-union between them that she being with Child before the Spring they might keep her there till she were delivered that so the Child might be bred up and naturalized a Spaniard both in affection and Religion which this suddain Resolution hindring it somewhat startled them Olivares told Buckingham that he had promised the Prince should admit of Communion with some Iesuits of theirs in Matters of Religion And the Duke answered there had been some already with him but the Prince he said was so well setled in Religion that he was not to be further altered Olivares replied You gave me some assurance and hope of the Prince's turning Catholick The Duke told him it was false The Conde in a great rage broke from him with so much impatience that he was scarce able to contain himself went to the Prince and told him how unworthily Buckingham had served him And after his complaints to him he found out the Baron Kensington whom he looked on with an eye of good respect his Civilities and Carriage obliging every where venting his passion to him telling him that Buckingham had given him the Ly and that there was nothing a man of Honour could be more sensible of That it bred a great distraction in him betwixt his affection to his Master's Honour and his own For if any evil did redound to Buckingham by his hand being a Person so near the Prince who had honoured the Court of Spain with his presence and run through great and dangerous hazards out of affection to his Master's Sister upon whose actions now all the Christian World are gazing it would reflect upon the Honour of his Master and when his own Honour comes in competition with his Master's the least must give way to the greatest therefore he desired the Lord of Kensington to tell the Duke That he had so much of a Gentleman as to be sensible of the injury and so much Power and Courage as to revenge himself but rather than his Master's Honour should suffer he would be the sufferer The Duke sent the Conde word again by the said Lord That he laid a thing to his charge that would not admit of a less sharp answer for when his Honour comes in competition with the Conde's he had rather that should suffer than his own His Passion was quick but not durable hot but not revengful And he held so high an esteem of the Conde that he was more willing to venture upon his Sword than his Malice NOVILISSê° Dê° FRANCISCUS MANNORES COMES RVTLANDIAE BARO ROSS ET cetera The right Honorabell FRAVNCIS MANNERS Earle of Rutl and Baron Ross of Ham lake Beluoire and Trusbutt and Knight of the Honorable order of the Garter Among the Specious Ceremonies indented betwixt these two great Princes the richness of the Gifts and Presents that past among them were highly remarkable The King of Spain presented the Prince and all his Noble Train and the Prince filled the Court of Spain as it were with Iewels no Person of Quality or Merit but his name was recorded in the Inventory of the Princes Bounty as if England had disfurnished and made bare her own Neck to adorn the Breasts of Spain The Pirnce presenting his Mistris with such a Neck-lace of Pearl that all Spain could not Parallel Pearls that had been long pluckt from their Watry Beds and had left few fellows there For the Eastern and Western Divers throughout the Catholic Empire could never yet find the like But these upon the Breach were returned again though it be now indifferent whether the French or the Spanish have them The Duke of Buckingham was not close handed in distributing his Iewels to the Beauties of Spain though his farewel was private his Bounty was public More suitable to his Masters Honor than his Own which the Lord Treasurer Middlesex found and repined at The Prince took leave of the Queen of Spain and the Infanta prepared for it in their greatest Magnificence attended with all their train of Grandees and Ladies The Queen spoke her own Adieu in French which the Prince returned in the same Language But the Earl of Bristol was the Medium betwixt the Prince and his Mistris who if he may be believed set her Heart to make Her self Grateful and therefore this parting could not be acceptable to her one of her Arguments being If the Prince loved me he would stay for me but now the Time of parting approaching those Arguments were laid aside and the Superficial Ornaments of public Interview like a Cloud interposed it self betwixt them so that what was darkly lodged in their thoughts could only find light by the Eyes Their Tongues the Common Orator could tell what was fit to say when there were so many by to hear and if the Eyes had learn'd the Language of the Heart they quickly forgot it because they never met again to practise it PHILIPPVS II. HISPANIAE REX XLIII BRABANTIAE FRANCOIS de Moncada Marquis d Aytone General de L'armee du Roy dcspaigne B. moncornet excâ—â— Here the Prince being feasted sealed the Proxie and swore to perform the Marriage as aforesaid And the day of Departure being come there was a Stagg lodged in the way whose Chace gave the King and Prince some Recreation The Prince was attended by the Lord Kensington and the Earl of Bristol who was the Prince's Interpreter the King of Spain by intention only with Olivares and the Marquess D'avila Olivares was grand Master of the Horse to the King of Spain and neerest Attendant to his Person but to shew the Spanish Civility he always waited on the Prince and the Marquess D'avila his brother-in-Law attended on the King of Spain After the Ceremonies of the Staggs death were performed the King and Prince with their Train declining into a little Wood adjoining found a Table spread with Variety of Meats and excellent Wines provided for them which entertained them as well with wonder how it came there as with Refreshment after the Serenity of the Air and their exercise had quickened their appetites concluding Merrily as if the Stagg had been in the Plot and had yielded himself to Death purposely there because the Prince's necessary accommodations were so neer After the Repast the parting Minute approaching to perfect all they gave leave to the exercise of Complements The King expressing extraordinary Respects to the Prince setting a high valuation upon his Merit telling him Nothing in the World could more oblige him than the confidence he had of
free Trumpet sending into England with the Prince Don Mendosa de Alcorcana to our King to congratulate the Princes happy Voyage into Spain and his safe return into England And from thence he had instructions to go into Flanders Germany and Italy to make known to all Princes and Potentates Allies to the King of Spain how neer the Treaty of Marriage betwixt the Prince of England and the Infanta of Spain was to be consummated And the Polonian Ambassadour at Madrid that solicited to have the Infanta for the Prince of Poland when he saw such preparations for the Match with England fainted in his Hopes and returned home For as soon as the Dispensation came from the new Pope which was in the Beginning of December Bonefires were made throughout all Spain for joy and the great Ordnance every where thundred out the noise of it The ninth of the month was prefixt for the Mariage day a Tarras being erected betwixt the Court and the next Church almost a quarter of a mile in length covered with Tapestry for the more magnificence and all things appointed in the highest State for so great a Solemnity Presents were providing in the Court of Spain for Our King and Prince the Infantas family to take into England was setled and established She had used her best skill among the Sweets of Spain as one of the Principal of them to cloth her Lord and Husband with some suits of perfumed Amber leather some imbroidered with Pearl and some with gold she had practiced long the English tongue to make it natural by the help of her two Iesuit Tutors Wadsworth and Boniface and began to draw the letters which she intended to have written the day of her Espousals to the Prince her Husband and the King her Father-in-law Her journeyinto England being resolved on about the Beginning of March In this State and perfection were the affairs of Spain when Our King's commands like a Cloud overshadowed the Brightness of them For Bristol had now Order to declare positively to the King of Spain that without the Restitution of the Palatinate and the Electoral Dignity the Treaty should proceed no further Four Messengers viz. Mr. Killigrew Gresly Wood and Davies followed each other at the heels which raised such a dust of Discontentment among the people at Madrid that as some report they wished they had broken their necks by the way so highly were the Commonalty of Spain affected with the Match And if they felt the Influence of this cloudy Message what did the Lady Infanta and the King do The one to lose her Lover the other to lose his Honour She whose Heart was affected and He who found himself affronted But his answer to Bristol was The Palatinate was none of his to give and the Electorate was in the Power of another but if the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria would not yield to reason he would Arm himself on our King's part against them But this would not satisfie fair Promises having now lost their Virtue and the King of Spain discerning a Breach towards by this Various Motion sent to the Earl of Bristol to demand no more Audience of him to deliver no more Letters to the Infanta and gave command that none should call her hereafter Princess of England This was the end of seven years Treaty Wherein the King of England a King of Peace in spight of all the Spanish Armadoes got the Victory and Spain for many years did not receive so great an overthrow Yet they were paid in their own Coin For at the first and in the highest Progress of the Treaty when Our King was so eager for the Match in all likelyhood they never intended it But the Prince's Presence gaining much with both Sexes his Journey into Spain being esteemed among them so glorious an action and the hopes they had now by this Marriage to propagate the Catholick Cause finding the Prince as they thought something inclined that way better digested their first intentions and brought it to the state from whence it declined The Duke of Buckingham by the insinuation of a long converse having brought the Prince up to his own Humor taught him to look back to the Beauty he had seen in France which was neerer to him that he might remember the Spanish no more now esloigned from him But the Treaty with Spain must be first dissolved to give a tincture of Honor to a proceeding with the other and nothing but a Parliament shall do that which thâ—y had fore-determined For a Parliament taking away the cause which was a Treaty of Peace were best able to make good the effect which would be a War that must follow it Therefore a Parliament was summoned to meet the 12 th of February but a sad accident intervened which made it to be deferred for some few daies That morning the Parliament was to begin the King missed the Duke of Richmond's attendance who being a constant observer of him at all times the King as it were wanted one of his Limbs to support the Grandure of Majesty at the first solemn meeting of a Parliament and calling for him with earnestness a Messenger was dispatched to his Lodgings in Hast where the King's Commands and the Messenger Importunity made the Dutchess his wife somewhat unwillingly go to the Duke's Bed-side to awake him who drawing the Curtain found him dead in his Bed The suddenness of the affright struck her with so much Consternation that she was scarce sensible of the Horror of it and it was carried with that violence to the King that he would not adorn himself that day to ride in his Glories to the Parliament but put it off to the nineteenth of February following dedicating some part of that time to the Memory of his dead Servant who might serve as a fore-runner to the King and an Emblem to all his People That in the dark caverns of Man's Body Death often lurkes which no Humane Prudence or Providence is able to discover For the Dutchess to some of her intimates confessed afterwards that She found the effects of his full Veines that night that he was found dead the next Morning The portraiture of the illustreous Princesse Frances Duchess of Richmond and Lenox daughter of Thomas LD. Howard of Bindon sonne of Thomas Duke of Norfok. whose mother was Elisabeth daughter of Edward Duke of Buckingham Anno 1623. When She was Countess of Hertford and found admirers about her She would often discourse of her two Grand-Fathers the Dukes of Norfolk and Buckingham recounting the time since one of her Grand-Fathers did this the other did that But if the Earl her Husband came in presence she would quickly desist for when he found her in those Exaltations to take her down he would say Frank Frank How long is it since thou wert Married to Prannel which would damp the Wings of her Spirit and make her look after her feet as well as gawdy Plumes One
good Gardiners you pluck up the weeds that will choak your labours and the greatest weeds among you are jealousies root them out for my Actions I dare avow them before God but jealousies are of a strange depth I am the husband and you the wife and it is subject to the wife to be jealous of her husband Let this be far from you It hath been talked of my remisness in maintainance of Religion and suspicion of a toleration but as God shall judge me I never thought nor meant or ever in word expressed any thing that savored of it It is true that at times best known to my self I did not so fully put those lawes in execution but did wink and Connive at some things which might have hindred more weighty Affaires But I never in all my Treaties agreed to any thing to the overthrow or disagreeing of those Lawes But in all I had a chief regard to the preservation of that Truth which I have ever professed And in that respect as I have a Charitable conceit of you I would have you have the like of me also in which I did not transgress For it is a good Horseman's part not alwayes to use the Spur nor keep streight the Reign but sometimes to use the Spur and sometimes to suffer the Reign more remiss So it is the part of a Wise King and my Age and experience have informed me sometimes to quicken the Laws with strict Execution and at other times upon just Occasion to be more remiss And I would also remove from your thoughts all jealousies that I might or ever did question or infringe any of your lawful liberties or privileges But I protest before God I ever intended you should injoy the fulness of all those that from antient times give good Warrant and Testimony of which if need be I will inlarge and amplifie Therefore I would have you as I have in this place heretofore told you as Saint Paul did Timothy avoid Genealogies and curious questions and quirks and jerks of Law and idle innovations and if you minister me no just Occasion I never yet was nor ever will be curious or captious to quarrel with you But I desire you to avoid all doubts and hindrances and to compose your selves speedily and quietly to this weighty affair Carry your selves modestly and my Prayers shall be to God for you and my love shall be alwayes with you that a happy Conclusion may attend this Parliament God is my Judge I speak it as a Christian King never any way faring Man in the burning drie and sandy Desarts more thirsted for water to quench his thirst than I thirst and long for the happy success of this Parliament that the good issue of this may expiate and aâ—quit the fruitless issue of the former And I pray God your Counsels may advance Religion the publick weal and the good of me and my Children When the King had thus ended the Lord Keeper Williams Bishop of Lincoln and Speaker to the House of Peers who uses always to make the King's mind further known if there because told the Parliament That after the Eloquent speech of his Majesty he would not say anything for as one of the Spartan Kings being asked whether he would not willingly hear a man that counterfeited the voice of the Nightingale to the life made answer He had heard the Nightingale So for him to repeat or rehearse what the King had said was according to the Latine Proverb to enamel a Golden Ring with studs of iron He doubted not but that the King's Speech had like Aeschines Orations left in their minds a sting And as an Historian said of Nerva that having adopted Trajan he was immediately taken away Nepost divinum et immortale factum aliquid mortale faceret So he would not dare after his Majesties Divinum et immortale dictum mortale aliquid addere HONORATISS et REUERENDISS Dê° IOHANES WILIAMES EPISC. LINC et MAG SIGILL ANG 〈◊〉 The right Honourable and right-reverend father in god Iohn Lorde Bishop of Lincolne Lord keeper of the greate Seale of England and one of his Ma.ties most hon ble princes Counsell But the Parliament though they knew there was an intention of a Toleration of Popery upon the close of the Spanish match sealed up as it were their lips and would not see the light that discovered it self through this cloud that the King cast before it though some of the Commons had much ado to hold which he takes notice of at the next Interview and thanks them for but they went on directly to his Business making it their own forgetting all former miscarriages And upon the 24. of this moneth the Duke of Buckingham accompanied with the Prince as his Remembrancer made a long Relation of all the transactions in Spain to both Houses with all the advantage he could to make good his own Actions some of the Particulars whereof are already related And he took the first Discovery of the intention of the King of Spain not to deal fairly with Our King touching the Restitution of the Palatinate from the Arch-dutchess jugling in the Treaty at Bruxels which was managed by Sir Richard Weston our King's Ambassadour there who urged for a Cessation of Armes in the Palatinate the Arch-Dutchess pretending Power to draw off the Spanish Forces if Our King would first draw off his it came to an Agreement but in the close after some Delayes she confessed she had no Power to admit of a Cessation till she had more particular warrant for it out of Spain That these shufflings made Our King send Porter into Spain for a more resolute answer in relation to the Match and the Palatinate and assigned him but ten dayes to stay there In which time Bristol fed him with Hopes which he found very Empty ones whereupon Porter went boldly to Olivares who in an open-hearted way told him plainly that Spain meant neither the Match nor Restitution of the Palatinate Bristol seeing Porter would return with this answer persuaded him to speak with Olivares again who coming to Olivares found him much incensed for relating the private intimation he gave him to Bristol the Publick minister and denyed to speak with Porter anymore Bristol still puffs up Our King with an assurance both of the Match and restitution of the Palatinate but they proceeding slowly the Prince desired that he might go himself into Spain which Buckingham first broke to the King who with Reasons laid down for it was drawn to it When the Prince came there the Match at first was absolutely denied unless he would be converted which Bristol perswaded the Prince unto at least in shew to expedite his Business Then the Spanish Ministers urged for a Toleration of Religion in England which they hoped as some of them expressed would cause a Rebellion and they offered the Prince an Army to Assist him for the Suppression of the same But the Prince finding the Spanish did
but dallie with him left a Proxie with Bristol to conclude the Match when the Dispensation came which the Prince forbad him to deliver Bristol nevertheless proceeds and if Gresley had not brought a Revocation of the Proxie from the King over night Bristol had made the Espousalls the next day And alwaies at the end of every point he would look upon the Prince for his approbation and allowance who still as the Duke went on confirmed the same And so Buckingham concluded that if the drawing of us out of Darkness into Light did deserve thanks we all owed it to the Prince who by the Hazard of his Person and by his great care and industry had done this for Us. The Parliament that looked upon the Duke with a Sour Eye for tempting the Prince to so dangerous a journey when they found what excellent effects it had produced forgot the Old Murmurs buzzed against him and with elevated Voices could scarce be contained from acknowledging him The Preserver of the Nation This his discovery is Cryed up every where and who but the Duke is become the Darling of the Multitude So dear then was the Prince unto the People that they tendred his safety as their own and so easily might he have retained his Love if by grasping after Shadows he had not lost the Substance For those people are the soonest deceived that love most to admire The Parliament were but men and could at present see no more than the Duke was pleased to shew them through the flattering glass of this Relation But when Bristol came over and as afterwards he did discover that the Duke carried the Prince purposely into Spain to be the better instructed in Popery That he gave hope to the Spanish Ministers of State of the Prince's Conversion which made them propound far worse Conditions for Religion than had been formerly agreed on That he professed himself a Papist there going to Mass kneeling to and adoring their Sacraments which the Pope being informed of sent the Duke a Bull to perswade and incourage him to pervert the King and Prince with other pernicious Crimes laid to his Charge in the next King's reign as may appear in due time None can blame the People for Mutable affections for when false-hood is so impudent as to hoodwink such an Assembly with the vail that Truth her self is wont to put on who can at an instant discover it But it was a hard Condition for the banished Palatine to have such Mediators as Buckingham Bristol and Weston to make intercession for him the Temper of whose Spirits was well known and which way their affections tended But now the load is all laid upon Bristol though he were at the distance of not being sensible of it yet it was so heavy that most Men thought he would never come to have it taken off But all things were passed over by the Parliament that reflected upon particulars having in their eye the general good of the Kingdom which they strove to manage with advantage And the Treaty of the Marriage with Spain being put into their hands they crushed the brood in the nest advising the King to break the Treaty and proclaim open War with that King Which they did not do suddainly as if they had been eager upon a War but with good advice and deliberate consideration as the most immediate means for the establishment of Religion and setled Peace protesting to assist the King for the regaining of the Palatinate with their lives and fortunes Upon which Declaration and Resolution the King determined to send instantly post into Spain to his Ambassadors to signifie to that King that the Parliament advised him to break off the Treaties and to recover the Palatinate by War and the Post had his Dispatch to that purpose when the King repented him of what he had done and like the Husband how jealous of his Wife writes to Secretary Conway this Letter to impede and delay the Business I doubt not but you have heard what a stinging Petition against the Papists the Lower House have sent to the Higher House this day that they might joyntly present it to me you know my firm Resolution not to make this a War of Religion And seeing I would be loth to be Conny-catcht by my People I pray you stay the Post that is going into Spain till I meet with my Son who will be here to morrow morning Do it upon pretext of some more Letters ye are to send by him and if he should be gone hasten after him to stay him upon some such pretext and let none living know of this as ye love me and before two in the afternoon to morrow you shall without fail hear from me Farewell Apr. 3 1624. By this Letter it appears that the King thought the Petition against Recusants of such high consequence that if he should not give the Parliament a good answer it might make a Rupture with them and therefore he will see further in the Nature of this Petition before he will break with the King of Spain and know more of the Prince his Son's mind happily whether he would yet accept of his Old Mistris or expect a new one Or whether the King feared that the Parliament would not make good their Promises to stand with their lives and fortunes in the Gap when this great Breach was made and so cousen him may be Mystical Conjectures from Mystical Expressions grounded upon the Words of a King Or whether any or all of these like the King's Heart inscrutable are meant in the Letter is not here determined But the King hastens to the House and finding no such terrible things in the Petition the Lords being not so quick in the Resolution of it as the King was in the apprehension of it he stirs not those Waters but sounds the depth of the Parliaments Intentions by propounding his Doubts and requiring a solution to them in order to a War with prudence and caution My Lords and Gentlemen all I have cause first to thank God with my heart and all the faculties of my mind that my speech which I delivered in Parliament hath taken so good effect among you as that with an Unamine consent you have freely and speedily given me your advice in this great Business for which I also thank you all as heartily as I can I also give my particular thanks to the Gentlemen of the lower House for that I hear when some among them would have cast jealousies and doubts between me and my people you presently quelled those Motions which might have hindred the happy agreement I hope to find in this Parliament You give me your advice to break off both the Treaties as well concerning the Match as the Palatinate And now give me leave as an old King to propound my Doubts and hereafter give me your answer First it is true that I who have been all the dayes of my life
a peaceable King and have had the Honour in my Titles and impress to be stiled Rex pacificus should without necessity imbroil my self in a War Which is so far from my Nature and from the Honour I have had both at home and abroad in endeavouring to avoid the effusion of Christian blood of which too much hath been shed and so much against my Heart that unless it be upon such a necessity that I may call it as some merrily say it of Women Malum Necessarium I shall be loth to enter into it And I must likewise acquaint you that I have had no small hopes given me of Obtaining better Conditions for Restitution of the Palatinate and that even since the setting down of this Parliament But be not jealous nor think me such a King that would under pretext of asking your advice put a scorn upon you by disdaining or rejecting it For you remember that in my first Speech unto you for proof of my Love to my People I craved your advice in this great and weighty affair But in a matter of this Weight I must consider how this Course may agree with my Conscience and Honour and next according to the Parable uttered by our Saviour after I was resolved of the Necessity and justness of the Cause to consider how I shall be enabled to raise Forces for this purpose As concerning the Case of my Children I am now old and would be glad as Moses saw the Land of Promise from a high Mountain though he had not leave to set his foot in it so would it be a great Comfort to me that God would so long prolong my daies as if I might not see the Restitution yet at least to be assured that it would be That then I might with old Simeon say Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine Otherwise it would be a great grief unto me and I should dy with a heavy and discomforted Heart I have often said and particularly in the last Parliament and I shall be ever of the Mind that as I am not ambitious of other Mens Goods or Lands so I desire not to enjoy a surrow of Land in England Scotland and Ireland without Restitution of the Palatinate and in this Mind I will live and dy But let me acquaint you a little with the difficulties of this Case He is an unhappy man who shall advise a King to War and it is an unchristian thing to seek that by blood which may be had by Peace Besides I think your Intentions are not to ingage me in a War but withal you will consider how many things there are requisite thereunto I omit to speak of my Own Necessities they are too well known Sure I am I have had the least help in Parliament of any King that reigned over you these many years I have let you know that my disabilities are increased by the Charge of my Son's Journey into Spain which I was at for his Honour and the Honour of the Nation by sending Ambassadours by Maintenance of my Children and by assisting of the Palatinate I have incurred a great Debt to the King of Denmark which I am not able to pay The Low-Countries who in regard of their nearness are fittest to help for the Recovery of the Palatinate are at so low an ebb that if I assist them not they will be scarce able to subsist The Princes of Germany that should do me any good are all poor and weak and disheartned and do expect assistance from hence For Ireland I leave it to you if that be not a back-door fit to be secured For the Navy I thank God it is now in a better Case than ever it was yet more must be done and before it can be prepared as it ought to be it will require a new Charge as well for the own Strength as for securing of the Coasts My Children I vow to God eat no bread but by my means I must maintain them and not see them want My Customs are the best part of my Revenues and in effect the Substance of all I have to live on All which are Farmed out upon Condition That if there be War those Bargains are to be anulled Subsidies ask a great time to bring in and if you assist me that Way I must take them up before-hand upon Credit which will eat up a great part of them This being my Case to enter into a War without sufficient means to support it were to shew my Teeth and do no more In the mean time I heartily thank you for your Advice and will seriously think upon it As I pray you to consider of these other Points My Treasurer to whose Office it appertains shall more at large inform you of those things that concern my Estate Thus freely do I open my Heart to you and having your Hearts I cannot want your Helps for it is the Heart that opens the Purse not the Purse the Heart I will deal frankly with you shew me the means how I may do what you would have me and if I take a Resolution upon your Advice to enter into a War then your own Deputies shall have the disposing of the Money I will not meddle with it but you shall appoint your own Treasurers I say not this with purpose to invite you to open your Purses and then to slight you so much as not to follow your Counsel nor ingage you before I be ingaged my self Give me what you will for my own means for I protest none of the Money which you shall give for these Uses shall be issued but for those ends If upon your Offer I shall find the means to make a War honourable and sate and that I resolve to imbrace your Advice then I promise you on the Word of a King That although War and Peace be the peculiar Prerogative of Kings yet as I have advised with you in the Treaties on which War may ensue so I will not Treat nor accept of Peace without first acquainting you with it and hearing your Advice and therein go the proper way of Parliament in conferring and consulting with you And happily Conditions of Peace will be the better when we are prepared for War according to the Proverb That Weapons breed Peace Your kind Carriage gives me much Contentment and that comforts me which my Lord of Canterbury said That there was not a contrary Voice among you all like the Seventy Interpreters who were led by the breath of God I am so desirous to forget all rents in former Parliaments that it shall not be my default if I be not in love with Parliaments and call them often and desire to end my life in that intercourse between Me and my People for making of good Laws reforming abuses and maintaining the good Government of the Common-Wealth Therefore go on cheerfully and advise of these points and my Resolution shall be then declared None can blame the King for being too cautelous
or wary in such an Eruption as this so contrary to his Nature as he saith himself a War was a new World to him fearing to lay out by it more than he should receive And in this he was like the Man that when his Master gave great Charge to go and gather up his Rents in the Country and to take a pair of Pistols with him to bring home his Money with the more security After the Master had appointed him to pay so much in one place and so much in another that the Man saw he should not receive so much as he should disburse Bid his Master take his Pistols again he should not use them So the King fearing that when the War was begun there would not be where withal to maintain it Thanked the Parliament for their Advice and he would consider better of it And they seeling the King's Pulse by his expressions resolved now not to let him flag but to keep up the temper of his Spirit that a little thing would make decline again And therefore they seriously settled to their Business and answered his Expectation fully which they presented unto him shortly after in these words to his great Satisfaction Most Gracious Soveraign WE your Majesties most Humble and Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled do first render to your Sacred Majesty Our most Dutiful Thanks for that to Our unspeakable Comfort you have vouchsafed to express your Self so well satisfied with Our late Declaration made unto your Majesty of Our general Resolution in pursuit of Our Humble Advice to assist your Majesty in a Parliamentary way with Our Persons and Abilities And whereas your Majesty in your Great Wisdom and Iudgment foreseeing that it will make a deeper impression both in the Enemies of that Cause and in your Friends and Allies if they shall not onely hear of the Cheerful Offers but also see the Real performance of your Subjects towards so great a Work Your Majesty was pleased to descend to a particular Proposition for the advancing of this great Business We therefore in all humbleness most ready and willing to give your Majesty and the whole World an ample Testimony of Our Sincere and Dutiful Intentions herein upon Mature Advice and Deliberation as well of the Weight and Importance of this great Affair as of the present Estate of this your Kingdom the Weal and Safety whereof is in Our Iudgments apparently threatned if your Majesties Resolution for the Dissolving of the Treaties now in question be longer deferred and that Provision for defence of your Realm and aid of your Friends and Allies be not seasonably made have with a Cheerful Consent of all the Commons no one dissenting and with a Full and Cheerful Consent of the Lords Resolved That upon your Majesties publique Declaration for the Dissolution and utter Discharge of both the said Treaties of the Marriage and the Palatinate in pursuit of Our Advice therein and towards the Support of that War which is likely to ensue And more particularly for those four Points proposed by your Majesty Namely for the Defence of this your Realm the Securing of Ireland the assistance of your Neighbours the States of the United Provinces and other your Majesties Friends and Allies and for the setting forth of your Royal Navy We will grant for the present the greatest Aid which ever was given in Parliament That is to say Three intire Subsidies and three Fifteens to be all paid within the compass of one whole Year after your Majestie shall be pleased to make the said Declaration The Money to be paid into the Hands and expended by the Direction of such Committees or Commissioners as hereafter shall be agreed upon at this present Session of Parliament And We most humbly beseech your Majesty to accept of these First Fruits of Our Hearty Oblation dedicated to that Work which We infinitely desire may prosper and be advanced And for the Future to rest confidently assured That We your Loyal and Loving Subjects will never fail in a Parliamentary way to assist your Majestie in so Royal a Design wherein your Own Honour and the Honour of your most Noble Son the Prince the Antient Renown of this Nation the Welfare and very Subsistence of your Noble and Onely Daughter and her Consort and their Posterity the Safety of your Own Kingdom and People and the Prosperity of your Neighbours and Allies are so deeply ingaged The Parliament by this Declaration came up so close to the King that he could make no evasion but rested contented now in his Latter time when the Almonds as it were begun to Blossom upon his head to plunge himself into a War which brought him again to the Parliament to thank them for their Readiness to assist him telling them That he is willing to follow their advice in the Anulling and Breach of these two Treaties They having given enough to begin a War but when the end will be he said God knows Yet he will ingage for himself and his Son his Successour That no means shall be left unused for recovery of the Palatinate And for all his Old Age if it might do any good he would go in person to further the Business But as he is contented to have the Parliament Committees to dispose of the Moneys by their Directions so the Design must not be acted by publique Councels For whether he shall send Two thousand or Ten thousand whether by Sea or Land East or West by Diversion or Invasion upon the Bavarian or the Emperor that must be left to the King And this he did that there might be no jealousies but to smooth every Rub betwixt them And to put it in execution a Council of War is chosen out of the old and long discontinued Militia of Ireland and some others of the Nobility and upon result of their Counsels after some debate it was concluded to send fix thousand men for the present into the Low Countreys to joyn with the States Forces against the King of Spain's mighty Armies under the command of Marquess Spinola that threatned the next Summer to over-run the Netherlands that weakning the Spaniard in Flanders they might have the more free access into Germany The Dissolution of the Treaties with Spain and the preparation for War resounding in every Ear gave such an Allarm to the Spanish Ambassadour the Marquess of Inoiosa that whether out of Truth and Knowledge as he pretended or Malice only cannot be determined But he sent to the King to let him know that the Duke of Buckingham had some dangerous Machination a foot that tended to his Destruction and the best he could expect would be a confinement to a Countrey-house in some Park during his life the Prince being now in full abilities and ripe in Government This Concussion was strong enough to shake an old Building that was of a fearful and tottering Temper especially if he considered how his Mother was
put by her Government to say nothing of Prince Henry but the violence of it did not work because the Operation was somewhat mitigated by the Duke's Protestation of his Innocency For the King at the next Interview saying to him Ah Stenny Stenny which was the Familiar name he alwayes used to him Wilt thou kill me The Duke struck into an Astonishment with the Expression after some little Pause collected himself and with many asseverations strove to justify his Integrity which the good King was willing enough to Believe and Buckingham finding by some discourse that Padre Macestria the Spanish Iesuit had been with the King he had then a large Theme for his Vindication turning all upon the Spanish Iesuitical Malice which proceeded from the ruins of their quashed Hopes And the King knowing Inoiosa and all that Party very bitter against Buckingham and though he did not directly accuse the Prince to be in the Conspiracy with Buckingham yet he reflected upon him for such an attempt could never have been effected without his Privity therefore out of the Bowels of good Nature he did unbelieve it and after Examinations of some Persons the Duke's Intimates and their constant denyal upon oath which they had no good Cause to confess the King was content being loth to think such an Enterprize could be fostred so neer his own Bosom to have the Brat strangled in the Womb. And he presently sent into Spain to desire Iustice of that King against the Ambassadours false Accusation which he said wounded his Son's Honour through Buckingham's side which Sir Walter Aston represented to the King of Spain for Bristol was coming over to justifie his Actions to the Parliament But the Duke of Buckinghams reputation there procured no other Satisfaction than some little check of formality for when Inoiosa was recalled home he was not lessen'd in esteem Thus was this Information waved though there might be some cause to suspect that the great intimacy and Dearness betwixt the Prince and Duke like the conjunction of two dreadful planets could not but portend the production of some very dangerous effect to the old King But the Duke's Reputation though it failed in Spain held firm footing in England for Bristol no sooner appeared but he is clapt up in the Tower Their jugling practices whereof they were Both guilty enough must not yet come to light to disturb the Proceedings in Parliament Bristol had too much of the King's Commission for what he did though he might overshoot himself in what he said which was not now to be discovered Yet the Rigor of that imprisonment would have sounded too loud if he had not had a suddain Release who finding the Duke high mounted yet in power and himself in no Degree to grapple with him was content with Submission to gain his liberty and retire himself to a Country privacy The Lords being now at leisure began to consider of that stinging petition as the King called it against Papists how necessary it was to joyn with the Commons to supplicate the King to take down the pride of their high-flying Hopes that had been long upon the Wing watching for their prey and now they are made to stoop without it And after some Conferences betwixt both Houses about it the Petition was reduced to these two Propositions and presented to the King as two Petitions We your Majestie 's most humble and loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament do in all humbleness offer unto your Sacred Majesty these two Petitions following 1. That for the more safety of your Realms and better keeping your Subjects in Obedience and other important Reasons of State your Majesty would be pleased by some such course as you shall think fit to give present Order that all the Laws be put in due execution which have been made and do stand in force against Jesuits Seminary Priests and others having taken Orders by authority derived from the See of Rome and generally against all Popish Recusants And as for disarming that it may be according to the Laws and according to former Acts and Directions of State in that Case And yet that it may appear to all the World the Favour and Clemency your Majesty useth towards all your Subjects of what Condition soever And to the intent the Jesuits and Priests now in the Realm may not pretend to be surprized that a speedy and certain may be prefixed by your Majesties Proclamation before which day they shall depart out of this Kingdom and all other your Highness Dominions and neither they nor any other to return or come hither again upon peril of the severest Penalties of the Laws now in force against them And that all your Majesties Subjects may thereby also be admonished not to receive entertain or conceal any of them upon the Penalties and Forfeitures which by the Laws may be imposed on them 2. Seeing We are thus happily delivered from that danger which those Treaties now dissolved and that use which your ill-affected Subjects made thereof would certainly have drawn upon us and yet cannot but foresee and fear lest the like may hereafter happen which would inevitably bring much peril upon your Majesties Kingdoms We are most humble Suters unto your Gracious Majesty to secure the Hearts of your good Subjects by the ingagement of your Royal Word unto them that upon no occasion of Marriage or Treaty or other request in that behalf from any forein Prince or State whatsoever you will take away or slacken the Execution of your Laws against Jesuits Priests and Popish Recusants To which Our humble Petitions proceeding from Our most Loyal and Dutiful affections towards your Majesty Our Care of Our Countries good and our own confident persuasion that these will much advance the Glory of Almighty God the everlasting Honour of your Majesty the Safety of your Kingdoms and the incouragement of all your good Subjects We do most humbly beseech your Majesty to vouchsafe a gracious Answer The King was prepared for the Petition having given his own Resolution the Check at present that whatsoever he might do hereafter yet now he would comply and therefore he sends for both Houses to Whitehall to sweeten them with a gentle answer to this Petition that might take off those sour aspersions that this miscarriage in Government might happily cast upon him And we will not say but his intentions might rove towards the End though he gave too much liberty through a Natural easiness in himself to those that He trusted with Management of the great affairs by evil means to pervert that end which made him guilty of their Actions For where true Piety is not the Director Carelesness as often as Wilfulness carries men out of the way But he had this Principle and made often use of it like ill Tenants when they let things run to ruin to daub all up again when forced to it and find no other Remedy This was the effect of
what he said in his own excuse My Lords and Gentlemen of both Houses I cannot but commend your Zeal in offering this Petition to me yet on the other side I cannot but hold my Self unfortunate that I should be thought to need a Spur to do that which my Conscience and Duty binds me unto What Religion I am of my Books do declare my Profession and Behaviour doth shew and I hope in God I shall never live to be thought otherwise surely I shall never deserve it And for my part I wish it may be written in Marble and remain to Posterity as a mark upon me when I shall swerve from my Religion For he that doth dissemble with God is not to be trusted with Men. My Lords for my part I protest before God That my Heart hath bled when I have heard of the increase of Popery God is my judge it hath been such a great grief to me that it hath been as Thorns in my Eyes and Pricks in my Sides and so for ever I have been and shall be from turning another way And my Lords and Gentlemen you shall be my Confessors that one way or other it hath been my Desire to hinder the growth of Popery and I could not be an honest Man if I should have done otherwise And this I may say further That if I be not a Martyr I am sure I am a Confessor and in some sense I may be called a Martyr as in the Scripture Isaac was Persecuted by Ismael by mocking Words for never King suffered more ill Tongues than I have done and I am sure for no cause yet I have been far from Persecution for I have ever thought that no way increased any Religion more than Persecution according to that Saying Sanguis Martyrum est Semen Ecclesiae Now my Lords and Gentlemen for your Petition I will not onely grant the Substance of what you craved but add somewhat more of my own For the Two Treaties being already anulled as I have declared them to be it necessarily follows of it self that which you desire and therefore it needs no more but that I do declare by Proclamation which I am ready to do That all Jesuits and Priests do depart by a Day but it cannot be as you desire by Our Proclamation to be out of all my Dominions for a Proclamation here extends but to this Kingdom This I will do and more I will Command all my Judges when they go their Circuits to keep the same Courses for putting all the Laws in Execution against Recusants as they were wont to do before these Treaties for the Laws are still in force and were never dispensed with by me God is my judge they were never so intended by me But as I told you in the beginning of the Parliament you must give me leave as a good Horse-man sometimes to use the Reins and not always to use the Spurs So now there needs nothing but my Declaration for the disarming of them that is already done by the Laws and shall be done as you desired And more I will take order for the shameful disorder of the Resorting of my Subjects to all forein Ambassadours of this I will advise with my Council how it may be best reformed It is true that the Houses of Ambassadors are privileged places and though they cannot take them out of their Houses yet the Lord Mayor and Mr. Recorder of London may take some of them as they come from thence and make them Examples Another Point I will add concerning the Education of their Children of which I have had a principal care as the Lord of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester and other Lords of my Council can bear me witness with whom I have advised about this Business For in good faith it is a shame their Children should be bred here as if they were at Rome So I do grant not onely your Desire but more I am sorry I was not the first mover of it to you But had you not done it I should have done it my self Now for the second part of your Petition You have there given me the best advice in the World For it is against the Rule of Wisdom that a King should suffer any of his Subjects to transgress the Laws by the intercession of other Princes and therefore assure your selves that by the Grace of God I will be careful that no such Conditions be foisted in upon any other Treaty whatsoever For it is fit my Subjects should stand or fall to their own Laws If the King had seriously and really considered the Minute of this Petition the very last Clause wherein the Glory of God and the Safety of his Kingdoms so much consisted as the Parliament wisely express and foresee and which the King saith is the best Advice in the World and which he promised so faithfully to observe in the next Treaty of Marriage for his Son it might perhaps have kept the Crown upon the Head of his Posterity But when Princes break with the People in those Promises that concern the Honour of God God will let their people break with them to their Ruin and Dishonour And this Maxim holds in all Powers whether Kingdoms or Common Wealths As they are established by Iustice so the Iustice of Religion which tends most to the Glory of God is principally to be observed The King grants them more than they desire but not so much as they hope for they have many good words thick sown but they produce little good fruit Yet the Parliament followed the Chace close and bolted out divers of the Nobility and Gentry of Eminency Popishly affected that had Earth'd themselves in Places of high Trust and Power in the Kingdom as if they meant to under-mine the Nation Viz. Francis Earl of Rutland the Duke of Buckingham's Wives Father Sir Thomas Compton that was married to the Duke's Mother And the Countess her self who was the Cynosure they all steered by The Earl of Castle-Haven The Lord Herbert after Earl of Worcester The Lord Viscount Colchester after Earl of Rivers The Lord Peter The Lord Morley The Lord Windsor The Lord Eure. The Lord Wotton The Lord Teinham The Lord Scroop who was Lord President of the North and which they omitted the Earl of Northampton Lord President of Wales who married his Children to Papists and permitted them to be bred up in Popery Sir William Courtney Sir Thomas Brudnell Sir Thomas Somerset Sir Gilbert Ireland Sir Francis Stonners Sir Anthony Brown Sir Francis Howard Sir William Powell Sir Francis Lacon Sir Lewis Lewkner Sir William Awberie Sir Iohn Gage Sir Iohn Shelly Sir Henry Carvel Sir Thomas Wiseman Sir Thomas Gerrard Sir Iohn Filpot Sir Thomas Russell Sir Henry Bedingfield Sir William Wrey Sir Iohn Conwey Sir Charles Iones Sir Ralph Connyers Sir Thomas Lamplough Sir Thomas Savage Sir William Moseley Sir Hugh Beston Sir Thomas Riddall Sir Marmaduke Wivel Sir Iohn Townesend Sir William Norris Sir
Philip Knevit Sir Iohn Tasborough Sir William Selbie Sir Richard Titchborn Sir Iohn Hall Sir George Perkins Sir Thomas Penrodduck Sir Nicholas Sanders Knights Besides divers Esquires Popishly addicted either in their own Persons or by means of their Wives too tedious to be expressed here And these were dispersed and seated in every County who were not only in Office and Commission but had Countenance from Court by which they grew up and flourished so that their exuberancie hindered the growth of any Goodness or Piety their Malice pleased to drop upon These men being now touched began to shrink in their Branches like the new-found Indian Plants but they quickly put out again for though this Disturbance or Movement came upon them by the Dissolution of one Treaty yet they presently got heart and spread again by the other which was in Agitation Carolus D. G. Rex Ang Sco Fran et Hib Henreta Maria D. G. Reg Ang Sco Fran et Hib But the Iesuitical Party both here and there were incessantly laborious for a greater Liberty and the King 's chief Agent in the Treaty Monsieur de Vieuxvill having pulled on him the Odium of the people through some miscarriages being committed Prisoner by the King to protect him from their Rage the Cardinal Richelieu entring then into his Infancy of Favour being preferred by the Queen-Mother to be a manager of the Treaty whose Intimate he was and more Stubborn for promoting the Catholique Cause yet all this could give no stop to the Career but that the Match would be made up upon very easie Terms But when the King of France understood by his Ministers and Agents in England how eager our King was for the Match for he desired it above all Earthly Blessings as one near him said of him for besides the Reproach he thought would fall upon him by another Breach he should lose the Glory of a Conjunction with Kings which he highly wound up his Opinion to to Sublime and as it were Deifie his Posterity in the esteem of the people so that he would almost submit to any thing rather than the Match should not go forward which the King of France finding he bated his Humour of earnestness for it and descended by the same Steps and Degrees that he found his Brother King advanced to it and got several great Immunities for the Papists by it notwithstanding all Our King 's fair Promises to the Parliament as may be seen by those Articles seal'd and sworn to by Our King some few Months before his Death But a little before this when the Hopes of the Match with France began to bud the Earl of Carlile was sent over to mature and Ripen the proceedings with the Earl of Holland to bring the Treaty to some perfection yet with private instructions That if they could find by their Spanish Correspondencies as the Earl of Carlile was a little Hispanioliz'd that the Match there had any Probability of taking effect with the new Propositions that then they should proceed no further in the French Treaty so earnest was the King for the one so Violent for the other The Sophisticate Drugs of the Spanish Restitution of the Palatinate having not yet lost their Operation Thus the Ambition of Princes that devolve all their Happiness upon glorious Extractions doth choak and smother those Considerations that Religion like a clear light discovers to be but gross and cloudy Policy which vanishes often and comes to nothing The Duke of Buckingham swoln with Grandure having two great Props to support him doubted not to Crush any thing that stood in his way so that he fell very heavily upon his Cousen the Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer for he remembred how he repined at the Moneys that were spent in Spain and his Comportment to him since his coming over Middlesex being naturally of a Sullen and proud Humor was not such as he thought did become his Creature Therefore he Resolved to bring him down from that Height he had placed him in and quickly sound the means to do it For great Officers that dig deep in Worldly Treasures have many Underminers under them and those that are not just to themselves or others must make use of such as will not be so just to them so that a flaw may easily be found whereby a great Breach may be made And as Middlesex had not Innocency to Iustifie himself so he wanted Humility whereby others might Iustifie him which made him fall unpitied The Prince that was Buckingham's right hand took part against him in the House of Lords where he was Questioned which the King hearing of writes to the Prince from New-Market whither he often retired to be free and at ease from comber and noise of Business That he should not take part with any Faction in Parliament against the Earl of Middlesex but to reserve himself so that both sides might seek him for if he bandied to take away his Servants the time would come that others would do as much for him This wise Advice speaks Buckingham a little declining from the Meridian of the King's Favour or the King from his For if the King did know that Buckingham was his chief Persecutor it could not but relish ill with the Duke to have the King plead for him if the King did not 〈◊〉 know there was not then that intimacy betwixt them that used to be But the Treasurer's Actions being throughly canvased though he had not had such great Enemies he was found guilty of such misdemeanors as were not fit for a Man of Honour to commit so that the Parliament thought to Degrade him but that they looked on as an ill Precedent But though they took not away his Titles of Honour in Relation to his Posterity who had not offended yet they made him utterly uncapable of sitting in the House of Lords as a Peer And for his fine it was so great that the Duke by Report got Chelsie House out of him for his part of it There was an odd accident hapned in Northampton-shire while this Treasurer was in his Greatness One Harman a rich man that knew not well how to make use of his Riches having some bad Tenants and being informed that one of them which Owed him money had furnished himself to go to a Fair to buy some Provisions for his accommodation Harman walks as by accident to meet him in the way to the Market when he saw his Tenant he askt him for his Rent the man that was willing otherwise to dispose of his money denied he had any Yes I know thou hast money said Harman calling him by his Name I prithee let me have my Rent and with much importunity the man pulled out his money and gave all or the most part of it to his Landlord This coming to some Pragmatical knowledg the poor Man was advised to indict his Landlord for Robbing him and taking his Money from him in the High-way which he
presenting himself before him the King rowsed up his Spirits and raised himself up as if he meant to speak to him but Nature being exhausted he had not Strength to express his Intentions but soon after expired Being upon Sunday morning the 27. of March 1625. at Theobalds in the nine and fiftieth year of his Age and the two and twentieth year compleat of his Reign And was buried at Westminster with great Solemnity the 7. of May following Not long after our King's Death as if the Time and Season as well as the Disease were Epidemical to Princes old Maurice the Prince of Orange died And his Brother Prince Henry being made General of the States Army put his Fortune into an unhappy Ballance which lost much of the Weight For either valuing his Soldiers lives less than his Brother or the loss of so brave a Town as Breda more or thinking to spring up with more Glory Phoenix-like from the ashes of his Brothers funerals being recruited with the Relicks of Mansfeldt's Army he set upon one of Spinola's strong Works at Terheiden either to relieve the Town or beat the Enemy out of his Trenches but he failed in both and lost many gallant Men especially English in the Enterprise The Earl of Oxford having the leading of the Van being a man Corpulent and heavy got such a sweltring heat in the service that though he came off without hurt from the enemy yet he brought Death along with him for he fell sick presently after went to the Hague and there dyed The other two gallant Collonels Essex and Willoughby survived to command two English Armies in a Civil-War Essex being General for the Paliament and Willoughby for the King in Kinton-field in Warwick-shire where Essex remained Victor the King being there in Person and leaving him the Honour of the Field his General Willoughby then Earl of Lindsey being slain in the Battel But there will be a long Tract of Time and Discourse before these Armies incounter being the first Cloud of that fiery exhalation which broke out in the next King's Reign and could not be quenched without the blood of many thousands of the Nation But Our King that was very much impatient in his Health was patient in his Sickness and Death Whether he had receibed any thing that extorted his Aguish Fits into a Feaver which might the sooner stupifie the Spirits and hasten his end cannot be asserted but the Countess of Buckingham who trafficked much with Mountebanks and whose Fame had no great savour had been tampering with him in the absence of the Doctoâ—s and had given him a Medicine to drink and laid a Plaster to his side which the King much complained of and they did rather exasperate his Distemper than allay it and these things were admitted by the insinuating persuasions of the Duke her Son who told the King they were appoved Medicines and would do him much good And though the Duke after strove to purge himself for this Application as having received both Medicine and Plaster from Doctor Remington at Dunmow in Essex who had often cured Agues and such Distempers with the same yet they were Arguments of a complicated kind not easie to unfold considering that whatsoever he received from the Doctor in the Countrey he might apply to the King what he pleased in the Court besides the Act it self though it had been the best Medicine in the World was a Daring not justisiable and some of the King's Physicians mutter'd against it others made a great noise and were forced to fly for it and though the still voice was quickly silenced by the Duke's power yet the Clamorous made so deep impressions that his Innocence could never wear them out And one of Buckingham's great provocations was thought to be his fear that the King being how weary of his too much greatness and power would set up Bristol his deadly enemy against him to pull him down And this Medicine was one of those 13 Articles that after were laid to his Charge in Parliament who may be misinformed but seldom accuse any upon false Rumor or bare Suggestion and therefore it will be a hard task for any man to excuse the King his Successor for dissolving that Parliament to preserve one thar was accused by them for poisoning his Father For Doctor Lamb a man of an infamous conversation having been arraigned for a Witch and found guilty of it at Worcester and arraigned for a Rape and found guilty of it at the Kings-Bench-Bar at Westminster yet escaped the stroak of Iustice for both by his favour in Court was much imployed by the Mother and the Son which generally the people took notice of and were so incensed against Lamb that finding him in the Streets in London in the year 1628. they roâ—e against him and with stones and slaves knockt out his Brains as may be more particularly â—elated in its due time And besides Lamb there was one Butler an Irishman which vaunted himself to be of the house of Ormond who was a kind of Montebank which the Duke and his Mother much consided in This Butler was first an Apprentice to a Cutler in London and before his time expired quitted his Master having a running head and went to the Barmudoes where he lived some time as a Servant in the Island and walking by the Sea-side with another of his Companions they found a great Mass of Ambergreece that the Seas bounty had cast up to them which they willingly concealed meaning to make their best Markets of it Butler being a subtle Snap wrought so with his Companion with promises of a share that he got the possession of it and in the next Dutch ship that arrived at the Barmudoes he shipt himself and his Commodities for Amsterdam where having sold his Bargain at a good Rate and made his credit with his fellow Venturer cheap enough ingrossing all to himself he came into England lived in a gallant and noble Equipage kept a great and free Table at his lodgings in the Strand which were furnished suitable to his Mind and had his Coach with six Horses and many footmen attending on him with as much State and Grandure as if his Greatness had been real But though his means lasted not to support this long yet it brought him into great acquaintance and being Pragmatical in tongue and having an active pate he fell to some Distillations and other odd extracting practices which kept him a float and some men thought he had gotten the long-dreamed-after Philosopher's Stone but the best Recipe which he had to maintain his Greatness after his Amber money fumed and vapoured away was suspected to come from his friends at White-Hall And the Story of his Death if it be true is one great Evidence of some secret Machination betwixt the Duke and him that the Duke was willing to be rid of him For Mischief being an ingrosser is Unsecure and Unsatisfyed When their Wares are to
Parliament 165 166. Sent Extraordinary Ambassador into Spain 192. where slighted and coursly entertained ibid. Made Earl of Bristol 210. vid. Bristol Disputation at Sir Humphrey Linds house 240 Doncaster sent Extraordinary Ambassador into Germany 132. his expensive Ambassy 154. Feasted by the Prince of Orange 154. sent again into France 171. his short Character ib. Dorset Lord Treasurer dies suddenly 43 Duel between Sir Halton Cheek and Sir Thomas Dutton 50. Lord Bruse and Sir Edward Sackvil 60. Sir Iames Stuart Sir George Wharton 61. Sir Thomas Compton and Bird 147 Duncome a sad story of him 140 E Queen Elizabeth breaks into passion mention being made of her Successor 2. yet bequeaths one in her last Will as a Legacy to this Nation 1 The Lady Elizabeth married 64. presented with a chain of Pearl by the Mayor and Aldermen of London ib. Ellowis made Lieutenant of the Tower 67. consenting to the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury 70. Executed on Tower-Hill 82 Earl of Essex his Character 2 Young Earl of Essex restored to the right of Blood and Inheritance 6. marries the Lady Frances Howard 55. Travels into France and Germany 56. demands his Wife is suspected to be poison'd ib. Attended with a number of Gallant Gentlemen accompanies Sir Horatio Vere into the Palatinate 136. His Character 162 March of the English into the Palatinate 136. Spinola endeavours to intercept them 137. they joyn with the Princes of the Union ibid. and prepare for a Charge 138 Countess of Essex in love with the Viscount Rochester 56. She is slighted by Prince Henry ibid. consults with Mr. Turner and Foreman 57. whom she writes to 58. seeks by the aid of Northampton to be divorced from the Earl of Essex 67. searched by a Jury of Matrons and found a Virgin 68. divorced 69. married to Rochester now made Earl of Somerset 72. and both Feasted at Merchant-Tailers Hall ib. vid. Somerset F Fairfax racked and tormented to death in France the occasion 172 Lady Finch Viscountess of Maidstone 279 France in combustion 102. their troubles now and those thirty three years ago running all in one parallel 103 G Gage sent to Rome 195 Garnet Provincial of the Jesuits in England arraigned and executed 33 Gib a Scotchman a passage 'twixt him and King Iames 219 Gold raised 77 Gondemar by Letters into Spain makes known Sir Raleigh's design 113. incenses our King against him 115. lulls the King asleep with his windy promises 144. His power 145. and several effects thereof ib. prevails with both Sexes 146. a Passage 'twixt him and the Lady Iacob ib. He writes merrily into Spain concerning the Countess of Buckingham 149 Germany stirs there and the causes thereof 131 H Hamilton dies 285 Harman's Story 279 Lord Hays sent into France 92. rides in state to Court 93. made Viscount Doncaster and married to the Lady Lucy younger Daughter to Henry Earl of Northumberland 130. sent into Germany to mediate a reconciliation betwixt the Emperor and the Bohemians 132. Vid. Doncaster Henry 4th of France stab'd by Raviliac 50 Prince Henry installed Knight of the Garter 6. created Prince of Wales 52 Hicks and Fairfax their story 172 August the fifth made Holy-day 12 November the fifth made Holy-day 33 Thomas and Henry Lord Howards made Earls of Suffolk and Northampton their characters 3 I Iames the sixth of Scotland proclaimed King of England 1 2. Thirty six years of age when he comes to the Crown 1. Posts are sent in hast after the death of Queen Elizabeth into Scotland 2. coming through the North toward London great was the applause and concourse of people which he politickly inhabites 3. at Theoâ—alds he is met by divers of the Nobility ib. went at his first entrance a smooth way betwixt the Bishops and Non-conformists not leaving out the Papists whom he seemeth to close withal ib. conspired against by Cobham Grey Rawleigh c. 4. A Censure on the Conspiracy ib. Crowned at Westminster 5. Gives way to a Conference a Hampton-Court 7. and determines the matters in controversie 8. Rides with the Queen and Prince thorough the City 12. His first Speech he made to the Parliament Anno 1603. 13. Proclaimed King of Great Britain 25. Rumor of his Death how taken 32. His Speech to the Parliament concerning an Union of Scotland and England 38. His wants laid open to the House of Parliament 44. his Speech to both Houses an 1609. 46. His bounty 76. comes to the Star-Chamber 99. his Speech there 100. Goes into Scotland 104. Several Messages of his to the States concerning Vorstius 119. whose Books he caus'd to be burnt 120. writes against him 124. Prohibits his Subjects to send their Children to Leyden 125. dislikes the Palatin's acceptation of the Crown of Bohemia 133. yet at last sends a Gallant Regiment to joyn with the United Princes in Germany 135. and assents to the raising of two Regiments more 136. Intends to match the Prince of Wales with the Infanta of Spain 143. Incouraged therein by Gondemar and Digby 144. Calls a Parliament An. 1620. 150. His Speech to both Houses 153. to the Lords 155. is not pleased with the House of Commons Remonstrance 171. writes to the Speaker of the House of Commons 173. The Parliament Petition him 174. His Answer thereunto 178. The Nobility Petition him 187. He is angry thereat ib. His expression to Essex 188. dissolves the Parliament 190. Punishes some and prefers others that were active in the House 191. is dishonoured abroad 192. persues the Match with Spain ibid. Sends Digby thither as Extraordinary Ambassador ib. Gage to Rome 195. Commands Lincoln to write to the Judges that all Recusants be released out of Prison 196. His Letter to the Archbishop with directions concerning Preachers 199. Active in the Treaty of Marriage with Spain 202. Disclaims any Treaty with the Pope 203. his Letter to Digby 204. his second Letter to Digby 207. A third Letter to Digby 210. writes to Buckingham to bring home the Prince speedily or to come away leave him there 249 Demands restitution of the Palatinate or else the Treaty of marriage to proceed no further 256. Summons a Parliament An. 1623. 257. His Speech to the Parliament 259. writes to Secretary Conwey 265. A second Speech 266. his Answer to the Parliaments Petition against Recusants 274. His Death 285. more of him 287. his description 289 Iesuits commanded to avoid the Realm 51 Iesuits swarm 151. Iesuitrices 152. K King of France stabb'd by Raviliac 50 Knighted many 5 Prince Henry installed Knight of the Garter 6 L Lamb a Witch 287 Laud gets into Favour 201 Lieutenant of the Tower consenting to the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury 70. Executed 82 Lincoln made Keeper of the Great Seal 196. his Letter to the Judges for setting Recusants at liberty ib. His preferment Character and part of his story ib. his short Harangue 262 M Lord Mayor his Piety 106 Mansfieldt with an Army opposes the Emperor 135. Vexeth him after Anhalt's
obtruded 105 3 Subsidies and 6 Fifteens granted 33. Subsidy and Fifteen granted Anno 1609. 84. Two Subsidies granted Anno 1620. 155. Synod at Dort 128 T Tirone comes over is pardon'd and civilly intreated 6 Gunpowder-Treason 38. Discovered by a Letter to the Lord Monteagle 30. The principal actors 28. The Traitors Executed 31. The Lord Monteagle the Discoverer of the Treason rewarded 3 Earl of Dorset Lord Treasurer dies suddenly 43. Earl of Salisbury made Lord Treasurer 43 Lord Treasurer question'd in Star Chamber 97. and fined 99 Two Lord Treasurers in one year 148 Lord Treasurer Craâ—fiâ—ld questioned in Parliament 278. His punishment 279 Turner murder'd by the Lord Sanquir 59 Mrs. Turner intimate with the Countess of Essex 57. In Love with Sir Arthur Manwaring ibid. Executed 82 U Sir Horatio Vere Commander of a Regiment sent to joyn with the United Princes in Germany 135. His Answer to the Marquess of Ansbach 139 Villers a Favourite 79. highly advanced 104. Rules all made Marquess of Buckingham Admiral and Master of the Horse 147. His Kindred advanced ibid. Commissioners for an Union betwixt England and Scotland appointed 27 Arguments pro and con about the Union Dis-union in the United Provinces by reason of Schism and Faction 118. the Authors thereof ib. forewarn'd of it by our King 119 Vorstius his Books burnt by the King 120 W Warwick his Character 162 Weston imployed in the poysoning of Sir Thomas Overbury 70 Tried and Executed 81 Weston and Conwey sent Ambassadors into Bohemia 133. Their Characters ib. Their Return 142 Arch-bishop Whitgift's Saying concerning King Iames at Hampton-Court Conference 8. His Character Dies when ibid. Sir Winwood's Remonstrance 120. and Protestation The End An. Reg. 1. An. Christi 1603 Secretary Cecil Proclaimed King Iames. The King comes to Theobalds Changes beget hopes A Conspiracy against the King A censure upon it The King and Queen Crowned Prince Henry made Knight of the Garter Reformation in the Church sought for Conference at Hampton Court Arch-Bishop Whitgift dies A Proclamation against Jesuits A Proclamation for Uniformity A Sermon against Ceremonies The fifth of August made Holyday The King and Queen ride through the City The Kings Speech to the Parliament Tobie Matthew The King proclaimed King of great Britain Commiss for an Union Roaring Boys The Gun-powder Treason Principal Actors 1604. An. Reg. 3. An. Christi 1605. A Letter to my Lord Monteagle The Parliament meet the 9. of Novemb. The King of Denmarks first coming The fifth of Novemb. made Holy-day Arguments about a Union An. Reg. 5. An. Christi 1607. The Kings Speech to the Parliament about the Union The Parliament declined the Union An. Reg. 6. An. Christi 1608. An. Reg. 7. An. Christi 1609. The death of the Earl of Dorset suddenly The Earl of Salisbury made Treasurer Salisbury and Northampton Sticklers for the King The High-Commission a grievance The Kings Speech to both Houses The Siege of Iuliers An. Reg. 8. An. Christi 1610. A Duel betwixt Sir Hatton Cheek and Sir Thomas Dutton A Proclamation against Jesuits Bancroft Arch-Bishop of Canterbury dies 7 Regis Masks in great esteem An. Reg. 9. An. Christi 1611. 1612. Made Viscount The Earl of Essex marries the Lady Frances Howard The Countess of Essex in love with Rochester She consults with Mistriss Turner And Forman about it The Earl of Essex gets his Wife to Chartley She comes again to Court The Lord Sanquir murthered a Fencer Is hanged Salisbury not pleased with the Viscounts greatness The Queen of Scots translated to Westminster The Palatints arrival 16. Octob. Prince Henry's death 6. Nov. His gallant spirit His Funeral Mourning laid aside Knights of the Garter made The Prince Palatine married to the Lady Elizabeth The Prince Palatine returns home with the Princess Rochester betrays Overbury The Countesses designs Northampton joyns with her Rob. Iohnstons Hist. of Scotland 〈…〉 The Countess divorsed from her Husband Mrs. Turner imployed to poyson Overbury Their poysons set a work Rochester made Earl of Somerset 4. Nov. married 5 Dec. following Feasted in London Overbury hears of the Marriage Writes to Somerset Somerset sends poysons in his Answers The Lieutenant betrays Overbury Overbury dies Northampton reviles him A. Reg. 12. An. Christi 1614. Northampton dies New-England described Planted first 1606. Somersets devices to get Money The Kings Bounty Gold raised A Parliament undertaken A Benevolence required The King of Denmarks second coming George Villers a favourite A. Reg. 13. An. Christi 1615. Somersets decline 1615. Weston and the rest tried Weston executed Mrs. Turner Sir Ierv Ellowis And Franklin The Countesses description in her death Somersets in his life A. Reg. 14. An. Christi 1616. Sir Francis Bacons Speech in Star-chamber Sir Thomas Monson arraigned The Lord Chief Justice blamed Peace every where The King think of a match for his Son Prince Charles The Lord Hays sent into France 6 lib. H. Hunt The Lord Hayes rides in state to the Court. The Chief Justice is humbled And short Character The Lord Chancellor retires Sir Ralph Winwood dies The Lord Treasurer questioned in Star-Chamber Cov. Lichf The King comes to the Star-Chamber A. Reg. 15. An. Christi 1617. Unstable spirits mutable The Arch-Bishop of Spalato comes into England Dies at Rome The King goes into Scotland The Book of Sports obtruded * His House in Edenburg so called Piety of the Lord Mayor of London Juggling of the Jesuits The Boy of Bilson Accuses a Woman to be a Witch She is condemned Bishop Morton gets her Reprieve The Bishop troubled for the Boy The Impostor discovered The King discovers many Impostors Sir Walter Rawleighs West-Indian Voyage The Design discovered to Gondemar Raleigh troubled Kemish kills himself Gondemar incenses the King against Raleigh 1618. He is committed to the Tower And Beheaded His character and description Disunion in the United Provinces Our King forewarns them of it An. 1611. The States answer Vorstius's Books burned by the King The States answer Sir Winwood's Protestation Our King writes to the States in 1613. And now in 1618. Barnevelt opposes the Pr. of Orange The Prince of Orange goes to Utrecht 25 Iuly Barnevelt's Sentence and death His Imployments A Synod at Dort A blazing Star The death of Queen Anne A short Character of the Queen An. Reg. 17. An. Christi 1619. Northumberland set at Liberty Stirs in Germany Anno 1617. 18 Aug. Doncaster Ambassador Weston and Conwey sent Amb. into Bohemia 1620. The Palatine proscribed An. Reg. 17. An. Christi 1619. Preparations for War An. Christi 1620. The march of the English into the Palatinate Spinola attempts to intercept the English The English joyn with the Princes Spinola and the Princes hunt one another A sad Fate upon Germany A sad story of Mr. Duncomb Bad success in Bohemia The King censuâ—ed The loss of his Son The King's Character Weston and Conwey return home The Princes of the Union submit to Ferdinand Mansfeldt vexeth the Emperor still Essex solicits our King for
more Forces Obstructed by Gondemar Papists flourish Gondemar's power Prevails with both Sexes Buckingham rules all A Duel betwixt Compton and Bird. The Countess of Buck. rules her Son Buckingham a lover of Ladies The King calls a Parliament Sir Rob. Cotton Hen. 3. Jesuits swarm A Satyrical Sermon The Parliament meet the 20 Ian. The King's Speech to the Parliament The Parliament comply with the King Doncaster's Ambassy expensive He is feasted by the Pr. of Orange His short character Digby goes into Germ. The peoples grievances Mompesson and Michel actors in them The Parliaments goodness The King's Speech discanted on Buckingham Master of the Work Michel censured His Supplication Extortion and Bribery the Vices of the Times His censure His description and character Parties in Parliament Spencer and Arundel quarrel Arundel committed His Submission The Parliament adjourned The Commons Declaration The King pleased with it Dighie's return His Relation to the Parliament Seconded The King prevails not abroad nor at home The People and Parliament against the Match A Remonstrance of the House of Commons The King vext at it The Protestant Religion in danger Hicks and Fairfax The King's Letter to the Speaker The Parliaments Petition An humble Parliament And a Pious The King wanted money not advice An. Christi 1621. The King's Answer False play justly rewarded Wars good to prevent wars The King and People Competitors Discourses upon the Kings Answer The Parliament the Kings Merchants The higher House offended They Petition The King angry The Commons discontent Their Protestation The King's trouble increases The Parliament is dissolved A Proclamation against talking Oxford and Southampton committed Sir Ed. Cook in disgrace Some punished some preferred The King dishonoured abroad Car. Bandino Car. Lodâ—visio An. Reg. 20. An. Christi 1622. Lord Keeper's Letter to the Judges His Preferment Character and part of his Story Archbishop Abbat kills a Keeper Arminianisin flourished The King's Letter for regulating the Ministery Observations upon the Directions Papists the fomenters Regians and Republicans The King active in the Treaty The Articles of marriage long a setling Quo semel est imbuta Recens servabit odorem Testa diu Our King's Resolution Sent to Digby in Spain Spanish jugling Austrian jugling An. Reg. 20. An. Christi 1622. The King abused Digby faulty 2. Letter to Digby Gondemar 's Master-piece 3. Letter to Digby The Palat. lost The Palatinate a strong Countrey Our King satisfied of Spainesâ— good intentions Articles of Marriage The Pope extended this Article Habeat exiam Ecclesiam publicam Londini c. Holy Roman Ch. Spanish delusion The King of Spain's letter to Olivares Bergen besieged by Spinola The Battail of Fleury Brunswick's Arm shot off Spinola raises his Siege Buckingham's Medicine to cure the King 's melancholy The King's Choler His sanguine His Flegmatick Humor A Diet at Ratisbone 7 Ian. The opinion of the Protestant Princes The opinion of the Popish Princes The Reply of the Protestant Princes The Emperour's Reply The Elector of Saxony The Protestants answer Result of all The Prince's journey into Spain By Dover Paris Burdeaux At Madrid His Royal entertainment The English Nobility flock into Spain The Spanish strive to pervert the Prince So doth the Pope By his Letters The Pope's cunning The Prince's answer A fatal Letter The Dispensation comes to Madrid The Archbishops letter to the King against a Toleration Arguments for and against a Toleration An. Reg. 21. An. Christ. 1623. The Match concluded in England The Preamble to the Articles Private Articles sworn to Jesuits swarm Dispute publickly An. Reg. 20. An. chisti 1623. A great judgment or an unfortunate mishap Brunswick raises an Army Thier Order in Marching The General of the Horse falters So doth the Sergeant Major General Brunswick's Army defeated The condition of France The Match concluded in Spain The Palatine affairs waved New Resolutions on both sides Buckingham angry The Duke and Olivares quartel Gifts and presents on both sides The Prince leaves Madrid The Prince feasted there The King 's Prince's compliments parting The Prince in danger by a Tempest A demur upon the espousals The Prince comes to Court cold in his Spanish affections Preparation in Spain for the Marriage Spanish delaies retaliated Thoughts of a Match with France A Parliament Summoned The Duke of Richmond dies suddenly Of her Visitants The King's Speech to the Parliament The Bishop of Lincolns short Harangue Feb. 24. Buckinghams Relation to the Parliament The Duke highly esteemed Little deserved An. Reg. 21. An. Christi 1624. The Parliament advise the King to break the Treaties with Spain The King's Letter to Secretary Conway Conjectures on the King's Letter The King 's 2. speech to both Houses An. Reg. 22. An. Christi 1624. The Parliament close with the King Their Declaration The Treaties with Spain dissolved The Spanish Ambassadour accuses Buckingham of Treason Bristol sent toâ— the Tower The Parliaments Petition against Recusants The King prepared for it The Kings answers to the Parliaments Petitions 23. Apt. The King promises much performs little a swarm of Popery Herba mimosa The Lord Treasurer questioned in Parliament Harman's story The Lady Finch Viscountess of Maidstone Cruelty at Amboina The English accused of Treason The improbability of the Attempt by the English 1619 Mansfeldt goes into England Forces raised for him The design ruined The death of the Earl of Southampton and his son The death of the Marquess Hamilton The death of the King An. Christi 1625. The Death of Maurice Prince of Orange 23. Apr. 1625. The death of the Earl of Oxford The King patient in sickness Lamb a Witch Butler a Mountebank The Description of King Iames.
providence to prevent the perils otherwise inevitable Considering their absolute submission to Foreign Iurisdiction at their first taking Orders doth leave so conditional an authority to Kings over their Subjects as the same Power by which they were made may dispense at pleasure with the strictest Bond of Loyalty and Love between a King his People Among which Foreign Powers though We acknowledg Our self personally so much beholden to the now Bishop of Rome for his kind Offices and private temporal Carriages towards Us in many things as We shall be ever ready to requite the same towards him as Bishop of Rome in state and condition of a Secular Prince Yet when we consider and observe the course and Clame of that See We have no reason to imagine that Princes of Our Religion and Profession can expect any assurance long to continue unless it might be assented by mediation of other Christian Princes that some good course might be taken by a general Council free and lawfully called to pluck up those Roots of Dangers and Iealousies which arise about Religion as well between Prince and Prince as between them and their Subjects and to make it manifest that no State or Potentate either hath or can challenge power to dispose of earthly Kingdoms or Monarchies or to dispense with Subjects obedience to their natural Soveraigns In which charitable Action there is no Prince living that will be readier than We shall be to concur even to the uttermost of Our Power not only out of particular disposition to live peaceably with all States and Princes of Christendom but because such a setled Amity might by an Union in Religion be established among Christian Princes as might enable Us all to resist the common Enemy Given at Our Palace at Westminster the two and twentieth day of February in the first year of Our Reign c. This did something allay the heat and hopes of the Iesuits and their correspondents but it made way for dark and more secret Contrivances which afterwards they put in practice On the contrary another Proclamation came out for Vniformity in Religion according to the Law established to reduce those to Conformity that had not received satisfaction at the last Conference The Bishops thought themselves unsecure while so many opposites unblameable in their conversations by their Pens and Preaching gained upon the people striking at the very Root of Hierarchy that it was a hard Question whether the Iesuits whose Principles would advance their Greatness or these that would pluck it down were most odious to them And now Proclamations are the activest Agents some go abroad to please the people some the King All Monopolies like diseases that crept in when the good old Queen had not strength enough to keep them out must be purged away and such protections as licentious liberty had granted to hinder proceedings in Law must be taken off Saltpeter-men that will dig up any mans house by authority where they are not well fee'd must be restrained and Purveyors Cart-takers and such insolent Officers as were grievances to the people must be cryed down by Proclamation A Prince that is invited or comes newly to a Kingdom must have his Chariot wheels smooth shod And yet the liberty of Hunting must be forbidden the Kings Game preserved and a strict Proclamation threatens the disobeyers Indeed take this Kings Reign from the beginning to the end and you shall find Proclamations current Coin and the people took them for good payment a great while till the multitude of them lessened their valuation The Bishops could not be so wary but some Courtier or other would commend a Preacher to the King if they knew any of excellent parts so that some preached before him that were averse to the Bishops ways Among the rest one Mr. Burges an excellent Preacher and a pious man moderately touching upon the Ceremonies said They were like the Roman Senators Glasses which were not worth a mans life or livelihood For saith he this Senator invited Augustus Caesar to a Dinner and as he was coming to the Feast he heard a horrid Out-cry and saw some company drawing a man after them that made that noise the Emperor demanded the cause of that violence it was answered their Master had condemned this man to the Fish-ponds for breaking a Glass which he set a high value and esteem upon Caesar commanded a stay of the Execution and when he came to the House he asked the Senator whether he had Glasses worth a mans life Who answered being a great lover of such things that he had Glasses he valued at the price of a Province Let me see them saith Augustus and he brought him up to a room well furnished The Emperor saw them beautiful to the eye but knew withal they might be the cause of much mischief therefore he broke them all with this expression Better all these perish than one man I will leave it saith he to your Majesty to apply But the Bishops got this and some other things against him by the end and silenced him for venting any more such comparisons So that for many years after he practised Physick and grew an excellent Physician Put upon second considerations he was admitted again to Preach retaining both his Piety and Integrity though he writ a book for the moderate use of the Ceremonies ending his days in a good old age at Sutton Cofeld in Warwick-shire after a journey into the Palatinate as shall be exprest in its time The fifth of August this year had a new title given to it The Kings Deliveries in the North must resound here Whether the Gowries attempted upon the Kings person or the King on theirs is variously reported It may be he retained something of his Predecessor and great Parent Henry the seventh that made Religion give way to Policy oftentimes cursing and thundring out the Churches fulminations against his own Ministers that they might be received with the more intimate familiarity with his Foreign Enemies for the better discovery of their designs I will not say the celebration of this Holy-day had so much Prophaneness for Fame may be a slanderer But where there is a strength of Policy there is often a power of worldly wisdom that manages and sways it The King forgot not the services there done him or the secret contrivances acted for him for Erskin and Ramsey two of his then deliverers were not long after rewarded with wealth and honour the one made Earl of Kellie the other Earl of Holderness the first prime Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber to the King and second got to his Bedfellow one of the prime Beauties of the Kingdom daughter to Robert Earl of Sussex and both of them had their Masters purse at command yet in our time the one died poor with many children the other poor and childless The Kings first going abroad was privately to visit some of his houses for naturally he did not love to be looked on
tidings and setled us in the fruition of all good things He whose depth of Knowledge as well as Conscience deserves the Title of Fidei defensor whose numerous Issue makes Foreign Princes study to keep their own not look abroad He that hath shut the back-door of the Kingdom and placed two Lions a red and a yellow to secure it who would have us live under our own Olive that we may laetari benefacere That none will wonder at the Want or startle at the supply but such as study to serve their own turns and believe nothing but what they find written in the stories of their own ignorance Among which those are to be reckon'd who hearing of an Order to bind up the printed Proclamations in a book that the better notice may be taken of the things contained in them have raised a bruit that it was intended this Parliament to make Proclamations equal to the Laws which never entred into the Kings heart who is so far from governing by will and power that he will yield to any motion from them wherein they shall hold a just Diameter and proportion among themselves and observe those Duties due to a great and gracious King Thus these Lords did please themselves and the King by striving to keep the people in the milky way of Obedience which they had long suckt in and found the sweet of it tending to nourishment not yet meeting any Callous or Brawny-constitution which must harden them by degrees nor yet finding their own Tempers grown Robust enough by so harsh a diet as afterwards they met with They therefore are willing to go on in the way pointed out to them as Pupils follow their Masters minding rather the smoothness of the Tract they saw than the roughness of the end Yet some of them whose hopes were not so high mounted and their spirits more spoke plainly That the whole wealth of England would not serve the Kings vast Bounty therefore it was a vain thing to give him that would give it away again That Gold and Silver in Edenburgh now in our Solomons time are like the stones in the streets never so much glittering there like a perpetual spring-time Besides they look upon the Kings incroachments upon the publick liberty by undermining the Laws taking notice of some expressions that fell from him publickly at his dinner in derogation of the Common Law extolling highly the Civil Law before it and approving a Book lately written by Doctor Cowell a Civilian against it Which netled our great Lawyers that had not some of them been raised so high that they could not with that Court-gag look downwards it had bred a contest The High-Commission also began now to swell into a Grievance which the Parliament complained of Seldom is Authority and Power exercised with Moderation Every man must conform to the Episcopal way and quit his hold in Opinion or safety That Court was the Touch stone to try whether men were metal for their stamp and if they were not soft enough to take such impressions as were put upon them they were made malleable there or else they could not pass current This was the beginning of that mischief which when it came to a full ripeness made such a bloody Tincture in both Kingdoms as never will be got out of the Bishops Lawn sleeves And though these Apples of strife thrown in the way did a little retard the course in hand yet they carried not the prize For the King according to his old wont like a cunning Hunter when they began to run counter called them off and at White-hall by one of his Lectures he strives to bring them into the way again By laying himself open as in a Glass wherein if they could not see his heart they might scent out his meaning and so follow the chace which was to be pursued He tells them though the Kings heart be in the hands of the Lord yet he will set it before the eyes of the people Assuring them that he never meant to govern by any Law but the Law of the Land though it be disputed among them as if he had an intention to alter the Law and govern by the absolute Power of a King He knew said he the Power of Kings resembling it to the Power Divine For as God can create and destroy make and unmake at his pleasure so Kings can give life and death judg all and be judged of none They can exalt low things and abase high things making the subjects like men at Chess a pawn to take a Bishop or a Knight But he left out the power of a Pawn to take a Queen or check a King And when he had raised the Kings power to the height with Vos dii estis he brings them down again with They shall die like men And that all Kings who are not Tyrants or perjur'd will bound themselves within the limits of their Laws and they that perswade them the contrary are Vipers and Pests both against them and the Common-wealth Yet as it is Blasphemy to dispute what God may do so it is Sedition in Subjects to dispute what a King may do in the height of his power And as he will not have his subjects discourse of what he may do so he will do nothing but what shall be consonant to Law and Reason Then he strives to mitigate the sharpness of the words dropt from him at his Table to the disparagement of the Common Law and assures them though he likes the Civil Law very well as being Lex Gentium which maintains intercourse with foreign Nations and sitted to the Ecclesiastical Courts Court of Admiralty and Courts of Request yet he is so far from disavowing the Common Law that he protests if he were to chuse a new Law for this Kingdom he would prefer it before any other National Law yea the Law of Moses nay without blasphemy the very Law of God Then he recalls himself and tells them That though for this Nation he had preferred the Common Law to the Law of God yet it is inferiour to the Iudicial Law For no Book or Law is free from corruption but the Book and Law of God And therefore he could wish that three things specially were purged out of Common Law First That it were written in the vulgar Tongue and made plain to the peoples understanding that they might know what to obey that the Lawyers in the Law like the Romish Priests in the Gospel might not keep the people in ignorance Secondly That the Common Law might have a setled Text in all Cases for being grounded upon old Customs Reports and Cases of former Iudges called Responsa prudentum which are not binding for divers times Iudges disclaim them and recede from the Iudgment of their Predecessors it were good upon mature deliberation that the Exposition of the Law were set down by Act of Parliament that the people might know what to depend upon Thirdly There is in