he was committed to the Governance of the Lady Cary as before is said And not long after for his better welcom into England he was on the sixth day of January next following commonly called Twelfth-day invested solemnly with the title of Duke of York by cincture of a Sword imposition of a Cap and Coronet of Gold upon his Head and by delivering unto him a Verge of Gold himself with ten others of eminent Nobility having been made Knights of the Bath with all the accustomed Ceremonies the day before 1606. In the sixth year of his Age he was taken from the charge of his Women though not from the Motherly superinspection of the Lady Cary and committed to the Pedagogy of Master Thomas Murray a Scot by Nation sufficiently qualified for that service but otherwise ill Principled in the Rites and Ceremonies in which the Church of England differed from the Kirke of Scotland 1610. Under this Tutor the young Duke advanced exceedingly in the way of good Letters the weaknesse of his lower parts which made him unapt for Exercises and feats of Activity rendring him more retired and studious and more intent upon his Book then he had been otherwise Which Prince Henry taking notice of as he the young Duke Dr. Abbot then newly made Arch-Bishop of Canterbury with many of the Nobility were waiting in the Privie-Chamber for the Kings coming out the Prince to put a jest upon him took the Arch-Bishops Square-cap out of his hand and put it on his Brothers head telling him that if he continued a good boy and followed his Book he would make him one day Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Which the child took in such disdain that he threw the Cap upon the ground and trampled it under his feet not being without much difficulty and some force taken off from that eagernesse This though at first it was not otherwise beheld then as an Act of Childish passion yet when his Brother Prince Henry dyed and that he was Heir apparent to the Crown it was taken up by many zealous Church-men for some ill Presage unto the Hierarchy of Bishops the overthrow whereof by his Act and Power did seem to be foresignified by it But in that their fears were groundlesse and their conjectures no better grounded then their fears there never being a more gracious Patron to the Church nor a more resolute Champion in behalf of the Hierarchy then he proved to be What is presaged if there were any presaging in it in reference to the Archbishops Person may be shewen hereafter 1611 1612. In the eleventh year of his Age he was made Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter and on the sixth day of November Anno 1612. he lost his Brother Prince Henry whom he immediately succeeded in the Dukedome of Cornwall with all the Royalties Rents Profits and Commodities of it according to the entail which was made thereof by King Edward the third when he conferred it upon Edward the black Prince his eldest Son The first solemn Act which he appeared in after this change of his condition was at the Funerall of Prince Henry on the 7. of Decem. following at which he attended as chief Mourner And on the 14 of February then next ensuing being Sunday and St. Valentines day he performed the Office of a Brideman a Paranymph the Grecians call him to the Princesse Elizabeth his Sister married upon that day to Frederick the Fifth Prince Elector Palatine A marriage which drew him afterwards into many cares and great expences of which more hereafter In his Childhood he was noted to be very wilful somewhat inclining to a perversenesse of disposition which might proceed from that retiredness which the imperfection of his Speech not fitting him for publick discourse and the weakness of his limbs and joynts as unfit for Action made him most delight in But now being grown both in years and state he began to shake off that retirednesse and betake himself to all manner of man-like exercises such as were Vaulting riding great Horses running at the ring shooting in crosse bowes Muskets and sometimes in great Pieces of Ordnance in which he became so perfect that he was thought to be the best Marks-man and the most comely mannager of a great Horse of any one in all three Kingdoms And as he shaked off this retirednesse so he corrected in himself the Peccancy of that humour which had grown up with it there being no man to be found of an evener temper more pliant to good Counsel or lesse wedded then he was to his own opinion 1616. On the third of November Anno 1616. He was at White-hall with all the accustomed Solemnities created Prince of Wales Earl of Chester and Flint and put into the actuall possession of all the Regalities Profits and Commodities belonging to them his Houshould being then formed and constituted and all the officers of State which belong unto him appointed to their severall places And now it was expected that he should break out into more glory then he had done formerly and take upon him as the Heir of so great an Empire But considering very wisely that the forward and enterprizing nature of his Brother Prince Henry the popularity which he affected and the great resort of young Noble-men continually unto his Court had been displeasing to his Father resolved to keep himself at a close ward and not to seem so great as he was that when time served he might appear greater then he seemed to be Old Princes do not love to have their eldest Sons too active and to tread too close upon their heels and therefore many times do enterpose the power of a favorite to keep them at the greater distance A policy much used by King James in the whole course of his Government who for that cause in the life-time of Prince Henry took Sir Robert Carr into his most especiall favour whom he first made Gentleman of his Bed-chamber and on the twenty fifth of March Anno 1611. Created Viscount Rochester and the same year made Knight of the Garter also conferring on him all the power and trust he was capable of that by the greatnesse of the one he might keep down the daring nature and confident Spirit of the other Prince Charles understood this well enough and carried himself with so much prudence that he disputed not the power of his Fathers favourites suffering all Honour Offices and other matters at the Court to be carried by them as best pleased the King Which though it was generally ascribed unto Pusillanimity and the defect of Spirit in him yet was it look'd upon as an Act of the greatest wisedom by more knowing men For had he any wayes crost the designs and Councels either of Carr then Earl of Sommerset or of the Duke of Buckingham his Fathers favourites who at that time did much out-shine him he had not only incurred the Kings displeasure but of necessity must have divided the Court and by consequence the
Kingdom also into severall factions each labouring to advance their own though to the Ruine and Destruction of the publick Peace Onely to take off somewhat of the imputation he made so much use of his power and interesse with the King as to prefer three of his servants unto Titles of Honour Anno 1621. viz. Sir Robert Cary Chamberlain of his Houshold to the Title of Lord Cary of Lepington Sir Thomas Howard second Son to the Earl of Suffolk and Master of his Horse to the Honour of Viscount Andover and Lord Howard of Charlton and Sir John Vaughan Controller of his Houshold to the Honour of Lord Vaughan of Molingar in the Realm of Ireland 1618. On the eighteenth day of November Anno 1618. There appeared a great blazing Star the fore-runner of many woful events in these parts of Christendom But the first sad effect thereof which we found in England was the death of Queen Anne which hapned on Tuesday the second of March next following A losse which the Prince bare with great equanimity or evennesse of Spirit neither banishing all shews of grief with a Stoical Apathie nor spending his time in too much womanish lamentation At the Funerall of this great Queen he was principall Mourner and it became him so to be she having always been to him a tender and indulgent Mother expressing more affection to him then to all the rest of her Children 1619. Not long after the death of the Queen King James fell very sick at Newmarket and having a desire to come to London advanced on his way as far as Royston where he was fain to stay till his sickness was over which at last became so dangerous that his death was feared At what time Dr. Andrews Bishop of Winchester attending on him bewailed with great Affliction the sad condition which the Church was like to fall into if God should take away his life the Prince being in the hands of the Scots which made up the greatest part of his Houshold and not well principled by those which had the tutelage of him either as to the Government or Liturgie of the Church of England The King acknowledgeing this sad truth and condemning his own negligence in it made a solemn vow that if God would be pleased to restore him to his health he would take the Prince into his own immediate care instruct him in the Controversies of Religion and set him on so right a bottome that there should be no fear of his disaffection either unto the Hierarchy or the rites and Ceremonies of the Church which he did accordingly And he did it so effectually that at such time as the Prince made his journey into Spain and that some principal persons in all the Places and Offices belonging to him were to follow after Dr. Maw and Dr. Wren two of his Chaplains being appointed for that service came to King James to know his pleasure and commands The King advised them not to put themselves upon any unnecessary Disputations but to be onely on the defensive part if they should be challenged And when it was answered that there could be no reason to engage in such Disputations where there could be no Moderator the King replied that Charles should moderate between them and the opposite party At which when one of them seemed to smile on the other the King proceeded and told them that Charles should manage a point in Controversie with the best studied Divine of them all and that he had trained up George so far as to hold the conclusion though he had not yet made him able to prove the Premisses 1619. On Friday the twenty fourth of March Anno 1619. The Prince with the Marquesse of Hamilton Marquesse of Buckingham divers Earls and others performed great Justing at White-Hall in honour of the day being the day of King James his happy coming to the Crown of England 1620 And on the Sunday after being Mid-lent Sunday he attended his Father to S. Pauls Crosse conducted in a most solemn manner from Temple Bar to that Church by the Lord Major and Aldermen and at the entrance into the Church received by the Dean and Chapter in their rich Copes and other Ecclesiasticall Habits and by them conducted into the Quire where having heard the Divine service for that day most solemnly performed with Organs Cornets and Sagbots they went to a prepared place where they heard the Sermon at the Crosse preacht by Dr. King then Lord Bishop of London and from thence unto the Bishops Palace where they were entertained with a Banquet Infinite was the concourse of People at both those Solemnities and all of them returned with great joy and comfort to see him so bravely accomplisht in the one so devoutly reverent in the other 1622. On Tuesday the eighteenth of February Anno 1622. Accompanied with the Duke of Buckingham M. Erdimion Porter and M. Francis Cottington he took ship at Dover arrived at Bulloign in France and from thence rode Post to the Court of Spain The occasion this Frederick Prince Elector Palatine had inconsiderately taken on himself the Crown of Bohemia An. 1619. and for so doing was by the Emperor deprived of his Ancient Patrimony the Electorall dignity together with the upper Palatinate being conferred on the Duke of Bavaria and the lower on the K. of Spain who possest himself of all of it except the towns of Heidelberg Frankendale and Manheim well manned and Garrisoned by the English For the preserving of which places and the recovery of the whole when all means else had proved ineffectuall it was held most expedient to negotiate a Marriage betwixt Prince Charles and the Daughter of Spain Which being first managed by the Leiger Embassadors in both Courts was afterwards prosecuted with more particular instructions by John Lord Digby well verst and studied in that Court whom the King sent as his Embassador extraordinary to conclude the match But Digby being fed with delaies from one time to another it was resolved by King James without making any of his Councel acquainted with it that the Prince himself should go in Person that he might either speed the Businesse or break off the Treaty According to this Resolution he began his journey no otherwise accompanied or attended then with those three persons above mentioned all of them passing in disguise to avoid discovery Being come to Paris they adventured to see the Court where at a Mask he had a view of that most excellent Princesse whom he after married But no sooner had he left the City then the French King had Advertisement of his being there who thereupon dispatcht away severall Posts to stay him in his journey and bring him back but the Prince had past beyond Bayonne the last Town in France without being overtaken by them and posting speedily to Madrid entred the Lord Embassadors Lodging without being known to any but his Confidents onely News of his safe Arrivall there being brought to the King there was
a present order taken for the sending of some of his Servants of all sorts to attend upon him in that Court that so he might appear amongst them in the greater Lustre But this lessened not the Cares and Feares of the English Subjects who could not be more glad to hear of his safety then they were afraid of the danger which he had incurred For having put himself into the power of the King of Spain it was at the Courtesie of that King whether he should ever return or no it being a Maxime amongst Princes That if any one without leave sets foot on the Ground of another he makes himself his Prisoner Philip the first of Spain and Duke of Burgundy being cast by Tempest on the Coast of England was here detained by King Henry the seventh till he had delivered up the Earle of Suffolk who had fled for Refuge to his Court and Mary Queen of the Scots being forced by her Rebellious Subjects to fly into this Realm was presently seized on as a Prisoner and so continued till her lamentable and calamitous death So in like manner Richard the first of England passing in disguise through some part of the dominions of the Arch-Duke of Austria was by him took Prisoner and put unto an heavy Ransome and not long since Charles Lodowick the now Prince Elector Palatine posting through France in hope to get the Command of Duke Bernards Army was stayed in the middle of his journey by the Kings command and kept so long under Restraint that he lost the opportunity of effecting his purprose This though it was the generall Fear and apprehension of the English Subjects yet no body durst acquaint the King with it but Archee the fool who going boldly to the King as he found him once in a good humour told him that he was come to change Caps with him Why said the King Marry saies Archee because thou hast sent the Prince into Spain from whence he is never like to returne But said the King what wilt thou say when thou seest him come back again Marry saies Archee I will then take off the fools Cap which I put upon thy head for sending him thither and put it on the King of Spains for letting him return At which words it is reported that the King became exceeding pensive never before so much apprehending the Danger of that Adventure as then and afterwards he did 1623. But the generous Spaniard intended to make no such Market of him but gave him all the Royall entertainment which a Princely Suitor might expect Nor was the Prince wanting for his part in all fit Compliances by which he might both gain on them and preserve himself For by his Courtly Garb he won so much on the Affections of the Infanta and by his grave and circumspect behaviour got so much ground upon the King and his Councel that the match went forward in good earnest The Articles of the Marriage with all the Circumstances thereof were agreed upon and solemnly sworn to by both Kings Nor was the Pope wanting in the grant of a dispensation without which nothing could be done writing a Letter to the Prince who returned to him a Civil answer which afterwards was reckoned amongst his Crimes by such as rather would not then did not know the necessity which lay upon him of keeping at that time a plausible Correspondence with the Catholick party But as for his Religion the change whereof was moved by the Pope and much hoped for by the Court of Spain at his first coming thither he shewed so many strong evidences of his constancy in it that those hopes soon vanished And that it might appear that he professed no other Religion then what was agreeable to the Rules of Antiquity and not much abhorrent from the formes then used in the Church of Rome the English Liturgie was by the care of the Lord Keeper Williams translated into the Spanish Tongue and so many Copies of the Book then printed sent into Spain as gave great satisfaction in that point to the Court and Clergy And this I must needs say was very seasonably done the Spaniards being till then perswaded by their Priests and Jesuits that when the English had cast off the Pope they had cast off also all Religion and became meer Atheists the name of God being never used amongst them but with a purpose to expose it unto scorn and prophanation Insomuch that the Constable of Castile being sent to swear the Peace concluded with Spain when he understood the businesse was to be performed in the Chappel where some Anthems were to be sung desired that whatsoever was sung Gods name might not be used in it and that being forborn he was content they should sing what they listed King James himself so relates the story in Arch-Bishop Spotswood fol. 530. But the Prince had another game to play namely the Restitution of the Palatinate which the Spaniard would not suffer to be brought under the Treaty reserving it as they pretended to be bestowed by the Infanta after the Marriage the better to ingratiate her self with the English Nation Which being a point of too great moment to depend upon no other assurance then a Court-Complement he concluded with himself that since he could not prevaile in the one he would not proceed unto the Consummation of the other And hereupon he was much edged on by the Duke of Buckingham who having conceived some deep displeasure against the Conde de Olivarez the speciall Favourite of that King desired rather that all Treaties should be broken off then that any Alliance should be made in which that Conde had appeared so instrumentall But it did concern the Prince so to provide for his own safety that no intimation might be made of the intended Rupture till he had unwinded himself out of that Labyrinth into which he was cast For which cause having desired of his Father that some ships might be sent to bring him home he shewed himself a more passionate lover then ever formerly and made a Proxie to the Catholick King and Don Charles his Brother in his name to espouse the Lady Infanta which Proxie he left with Digby not long before made Earl of Bristol by him to be delivered within some few daies after the coming of the expected dispensation But no sooner had he took his leave and was out of danger but he dispatcht a Post unto him commanding him not to deliver up the Proxie untill further order And having so done he hois'd Sails and came for England arriving at Portsmouth on Sunday the fifth of October Anno 1623. From whence by Post-Horses he past to London the next morning and so by Coach to the King at Royston to the great content of all the Kingdome declared by Bells Bonfires and all other the accustomed expressions of a publick joy The King being made acquainted with all particulars and that no Assurance could be had of the Restitution of the Palatinate by
the advice of his Privy Councel dispatcht a command to the Earl of Bristol not to deliver up the Proxie unlesse the businesse of the Palatinate were concluded also The expectation whereof not being answered by Successe a Parliament is summoned to begin on the sixteenth day of February then next following to the end that all things might be governed in this great Affair by the publick Counsel of the Kingdom Not long after the beginning whereof the Duke declared before both Houses more to the disadvantage of the Spaniard then there was just ground for how unhandsomely they had dealt with the Prince when he was in Spain how they had fed him with delaies what indignities they had put upon him and finally had sent him back not onely without the Palatinate but without a Wife leaving it to their prudent Consideration what course to follow It was thereupon voted by both Houses that his Majesty should be desired to break off all Treaties with the King of Spain and to engage himself in a war against him for the recovery of the Palatinate not otherwise to be obtained And that they might come the better to the end they aimed at they addresse themselves unto the Prince whom they assured that they would stand to him in that War to the very last expence of their lives and fortunes and he accordingly being further set on by the Duke became their instrument to perswade his Father to hearken to the Common Votes and desires of his Subjects which the King prest by their continuall importunities did at the last assent to But in the conduct of this Businesse the Prince consulted more the Dukes passion and the pleasing of the Commons in Parliament then either his own or the Regall interesse For there is nothing more unsafe for a King of England then to cast himself upon the necessity of calling Parliaments and depending on the purse of the Subject By means whereof he makes himself obnoxious to the Humour of any prevailing Member in the House of Commons and becomes lesse in Reputation both at home and abroad The Commons since the time of King James have seldome parted with a peny but they have paid themselves well for it out of the prerogative And this appeared by their proceedings in this very Parliament For though they had ingaged the King in a War with Spain and granted him three Subsidies and three Fifteens toward the beginning of that War yet would they not suffer that grant to passe into an Act of Parliament till the King had yielded to another against Concealments Insomuch as it was affirmed by Justice Dodderidge at the next Publick Assizes held in Oxford that the King by passing that Act had bought those Subsidies and Fifteens at ten years purchase Nor dealt they otherwise with this Prince then they did with his Father those very Commons who had ingaged him in the Warre and bound themselves to make good that ingagement with their lives and fortunes most shamefully deserting him in the first Parliament of his Reign and after working more and more upon his necessities till they had robbed him of the richest Jewels in the Regal Diadem 1624. But to proceed the Treaty with Spain being like to come to a Rupture it was judged necessary to counterballance the Power of that King by negotiating a Match with the Princesse Henrietta Maria the youngest Daughter of France first set on foot by the Mediation of the Earl of Holland who found that Court inclinable thereunto and afterwards concluded at the coming over of the Earl of Carlile joyned in Commission to that purpose It was reported that when she was told that the Prince of Wales had been at the Court and was gone for Spain she Answered that if he went to Spain for a Wife he might have had one nearer hand and saved himself a great part of the trouble And I have read that receiving at one time two Letters from England the one from King James and the other from the Prince she put that from King James into her Cabinet and that from Prince Charles into her Bosom Of which King James being told he was exceedingly pleased with it saying that he took it for a very good Omen that she should preserve his Name in her Memory and lodge Charles in her heart 1625. During these preparations for War and Marriage King James departed this life at Theobalds on Sunday the twenty seventh of March Anno 1625. Immediately upon whose death Prince Charles was proclaimed at the Court-Gates to be King of Great Britain France and Ireland c. The like done presently after at London and by degrees in all the other Cities and Towns of the Kingdom with infinite rejoycings and Acclamations of the People The Funeralls of the deceased King were celebrated on the seventh of May his body being brought from Somerset-House with great Magnificence to Saint Peters Church in Westminster where he was interred the King himself being principall Mourner Which though it were contrary to the Custome of his Predecessours yet he chose rather to expresse his Piety in attending the dead body of his Father to the Funerall Pile then to stand upon any such old Niceties and points of State The Funerall being past he thought it was time for him to quicken the coming over of his dearest Consort to whom he had been married on the Sunday before at the Church of Nostre-Dame in Paris the Duke of Chevereux a Prince of the House of Guise from which House King Charles derived himself by the Lady Mary of Lorain Wife to James the fifth espousing the Princesse in his Name On Trinity Sunday late at night she was brought by a Royall Fleet of Ships from Bulloign to Dover which being signified to the King who was then at Canterbury he went to her betimes the next morning and received her with great expressions of Affection professing that he would be no longer Master of himself then whilest he was a Servant to her The same day He brought her to Canterbury where he gave himself up to those Embraces to which from that time he confined himself with such a Conjugal Chastity that on the day before his death he commanded his Daughter the Princesse Elizabeth to tell her Mother that his thoughts had never straied from her and that his love should be the same to the last On the Thursday after being the sixteenth of June they came from Gravesend to White-hall in their Royal Barges attended with an infinite number of Lords Ladies and other people who could get Boats to wait upon them the Ordnance from the Ships which were then preparing for the Wars those from the Merchants Ships and the Tower of London thundering her Welcome as she past But in the heat of these Solemnities and entertainments the King forgat not the main Concernments of himself and the Kingdome and to that end began his first Parliament on Saturday the eighteenth of June which fell out not unseasonably that
the North it was thought fit they should be gratified with that blood which they so greedily thirsted after And thereupon the Archbishop being voted guilty of High Treason by the House of Commons was condemned to die in such a slender House of Lords that onely seven viz. the Earls of Kent Pembroke Salisbury and Bullingbrook the Lords North Gray and Brewes were present at the passing of the sentence of his condemnation Which being past he was brought unto the Scaffold on Tower-hill on the tenth of January where he ended his life with such a modest confidence and so much piety that his greatest enemies then present who came to behold the Execution with hearts full of joy returned back with eyes as full of tears Last of all comes another Treaty sollicited by the King consented to by the Houses with no small difficulty and that upon condition to have the Treaty held at Uxbâ—idge a Town about fifteen miles from London and more then twice as much from Oxford According unto which appointment the Commissioners met on the thirtieth of January accompanied with some Divines for debating the point of Church Government when it came in question But this Treaty proved as unsuccessefull as that at Oxford had done before the Commissioners for the Houses offering no expedient for an Accommodation nor hearkening unto such as were tendred to them in the name of the King So that there being no hope of bringing the Warre unto an end this way both parties were resolved to proceed in the other The King having wintered his Army at Oxford and the Towns adjoyning it was thought fit to send the Prince into the West to perfect the Association which had been begun in the end of the last summer and in those Countries to advance such further forces as might not onely serve for the defence of themselves but give some reasonable increase to His Mâ—jesties Army In the beginning of April he set forwards towards Bristol accompanied with the Lord Culpeper and Sir Edward Hide as his principall Counsellours and some of the chief Gentry of the West who were of most authority in their severall Countreys But before he had made himself Master of any considerable strength news câ—me of the unfortunate successe of the Baâ—tel of Nasby which much retarded his proceedings and hearing afterwards that Sir Thomas Fairfax with his victorious Army was marching towards him he quitted Somerset-shire and drew more Westward into the middle of Devonshire Bristol being taken and his Majesties affairs growing worse and worse both there and elsewhere he sent a Message unto Fairfax desiring a safe conduct for the Lord Hopton and the Lord Culpeper to go to the King and mediate with him for a Treaty with the Parliament To which after a fortnights deliberation he receives an answer the eight of November to this effect That if he would disband his Army and apply himself unto the Parliament the Generall himself in person would conduct him thither No hopes of doing good this way and lesse the other Exeter being besieged and Barnstable taken by the enemies forces he leaves his Army to the Lord Hopton and withdraws into the Dukedome of Cornwall But finding that Countrey unable to protect him long he passeth into the Isle of Scilly and from thence unto the Queen his Mother whom he found at Paris not doubting but to receive such entertainment in that Court as might be justly looked for by the eldest Son of a Daughter of France Which passages I have laid together in this place that I might follow his Majesties affairs elsewhere with the less interruption The Prince being gone for Bristoll as before is said his Majesty resolved on the approch of Summer to relieve such of his Northern Garrisons as had been left untaken the year before and from thence to bestow a visit on the associated Counties But being on his march and having stormed the Town of Leicester in his way he returned again so far as Daventry upon the news that Sir Thomas Fairfax newly made Generall in the place of Essex was sate down before Oxford Concerning which we are to know that not long after the beginning of this everlasting Parliament the Puritan Faction became subdivided into Presbyterians and Independents of which the Presbyterians at the first carryed all before them The Independents growing up by little and little and being better studied in the arts of dissimulation easily undermined the others and outed their Lord-Generall and all that commanded under him of their severall places under colour of an Ordinance for Self-denyall That done they conferred that command on Sir Thomas Fairfax a man of more Precipitation then Prudence not so fit for Counsell as Execution and better to charge on an Enemy then command an Army With him they joyned Collonel Oliver Cromwel whom they dispensed with in the point of self-denyall by the name of Lieutenant General but so that he disposed of all things as Commander in chief and left Fairfax to his old trade of Execution to which he had been accustomed The like alteration happened also in the Kings Army Collonel Sir Patrick Ruthen a man of approved valour and Fidelity being by his Majesty made Earl of Forth in Scotland was on the death of the Earl of Lindsey made the Lord Lieutenant of his Armies and the next year made Earl of Brentfort for the good service he had done in that place Having both fortunately and faithfully discharged that office for two years and more he was outed of his place by a Court-contrivement made in the favour of Prince Rupert who a little before Christmas last was declared Generallissimo of his Majesties Forces which he most ambitiously aspired unto and at last obtained notwithstanding his late defeat at Marston-Moor his squandring away so brave an army and his apparent want of Age Experience and Moderation for so great a trust By these new Generals the fortune of the War and the whole estate of the Kingdome which lay then at stake came to be decided For Fairfax hearing that the King was come back as far as Daventry which was the matter he desired made directly towards him with an intent to give him battel and at a place neer Naseby in Northamptonshire the two Armies met on Saturday the 14. of June The King had the better at the first but Prince Rupert having routed one wing of the enemies Horse followed the chace so unadvisedly that he left the foot open to the other wing who pressing hotly on them put them to an absolute rout and made themselves Masters of his Camp Carriage and Canon and amongst other things of his Majesties Cabinet in which they found many of his Letters most of them written to the Queen which were after publisht with little honour to them that did it For whereas the Athenians on the like successe had intercepted a packet of Letters from Philp King of Macedon their most bitter enemy unto severall friends all the rest of those Letters
A SHORT VIEW OF THE LIFE and REIGN OF King Charles The second MONARCH OF GREAT BRITAIN From his Birth to his Burial Tacit. Hist. Lib. I. Alii diutius imperium tenuerunt Nemo tam fortiter reliquit LONDON Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivy-lane 1658. A SHORT VIEW OF THE Life and Reign of KING CHARLES The second Monarch of Great BRITAIN from his Birth to his Burial OUr Chronicles tell us of a Man in Queen Elizabeth's time that wrote the Ten Commandments the Creed the Pater-noster the Queens Name and the year of our Lord within the compasse of a Peny and gave the Queen a paire of Spectacles of such an Artificiall making that by the help thereof she did plainly and distinctly discern every Letter The contracting of the Life and Reign of King Charles in so narrow a compasse as I have limited to my self may seem to be a work of no lesse difficulty And yet I hope to do it in such a plain and perspicuous manner that every one who runs may read it without the help of any such Spectacles as our Chronicles speak of To Brevity I am injoyned and it must be my businesse to avoid all Obscurity though I am conscious to my self that I shall draw this Picture with too much shadow But I take the Pencil into my hand and thus form my lines 1600. CHARLES the third Son of James the sixth King of the Scots and of Anne his Wife Daughter of Frederick the second and Sister of Christiern the fourth Kings of Denmark was born at Dunfermeling one of the principall towns of Fife in Scotland on the nineteenth day of November Anno 1600. derived by a long descent of Royall Ancestors from Malcolm Conmor King of the Scots and the Lady Margaret his Wife Sister and sole Heir of Edgar Atheling the last surviving Prince of the English Saxons So that his Title had been good to the Crown of England though he had borrowed no part of his Claim from the Norman Conquerour Which I observe the better to encounter the extravagant follies of some men in the book called Antinormanisme and some other Pamphlets of that time in which it is affirmed that this King had no other Right to the Crown then what he claimed from that Conquest and therefore that the English Nation having got the better of him by the Sword might lawfully free themselves from that subjection which by no other Title then the Sword of the Normans had been laid upon them At his first coming into the world he was so weak and unlike to live that his Christening was dispatcht in haste without attending the performance of those solemnities which are accustomably used at the Baptisme of such Princely infants And as the name of Henry was given to the Prince his Elder Brother with reference to Henry Lord Darnlie the Father of King James by Mary Queen of Scots so was this younger Son called Charles in relation to Charles Earle of Lenox the younger Brother of that Henry and by consequence Uncle to King James 1602. Having received some measure of strength he was at the Age of two years created Duke of Albany Marquesse of Ormond Earle of Rosse and Baron of Ardmanock of which four Titles the two first and the last are wholly at the Kings disposing to be bestowed on whom he pleaseth But the Earldom of Rosse falling unto the Crown in the time of King James the third was so setled in the Crown by Act of Parliament that it is not lawfull for the King to sell alienate or dispose the same unto any other then to the second Son of Scotland 1603. On the 26. of March next following Anno 1603. King James had news by Sir Robert Cary one of the younger Sons of the Lord Hunsdon who had stole a posting journey thither that Queen Elizabeth was dead contrary to the opinion of many of his Scottish Courtiers who being wearied with the tediousnesse of their expectation did believe at last that it should never be acknowledged by the Lords of England that the Queen was dead as long as there was any old woman of that Nation left to weare good Clothes and take the name of Queen upon her For bringing which news the Duke of Albany as if he were more concerned in it then all the rest of the Kings Children as indeed he was was afterwards committed to the Governance of Sir Roberts Lady and he himself from that time forwards of principall esteem and place about him This news being seconded by that of the Proclaiming of King James for her true and lawfull Successor in the Imperiall Crown of this Realm the King prepared himself for England At what time as I have been told by some Persons of Quality a certain Laird of the Highlands though of very great Age came to his Court to take his leave of him whom he found accompanied with all his Children the young Duke being then held in his Nurses Armes His Addresse unto the King consisted of Prayers for his long life and Prosperity and those Prayers intermixt with some desires that in the midst of the Felicities and Glories of the English Court he would not be unmindfull of his Native Countrey Which having said without taking any great notice of the Prince he applyed himself wholly to the Duke whose hands he kist with such an Ardency of Affection as if he meant they should grow for ever to his lips And when the King told him that he had mistook himself in his Addresses to the infant as not being his eldest Son and Prince of Scotland he answered that he knew well enough what he did and that it was this Child in whom his Name and Memory was to be perpetuated to succeeding Ages with other Speeches of like nature Which being then either unregarded or imputed unto age and dotage were called to mind after the death of Prince Henry and then believed to have something in them of a Prophetical spirit 1603. But to proceed On the fifth day of April in the year 1603. King James began his journey for England and in the end of May the Queen accompanied with Prince Henry and the Lady Elizabeth set forwards also finding at Berwick a Noble Train of Lords and Ladies sent thither from the Court to attend her coming and wait upon her in her journey 1604. The next year order was given for bringing the young Duke to the Court of England But before such as had the Charge of him could begin their journey the young Duke was taken with a feaver Which being signified to the King he sent thither Doctor Atkins one of his Physicians who in six weeks restored him to such a degree of health as made him fit to be removed to a Warmer Aire and a more comfortable Climate On the sixteenth of July this Remove began which brought him by short and easie stages in the first week of October to Windsor Castle where the King then was by whom
noise of a Declaration which they had then upon the Anvil he dissolved the Parliament on the eighteenth day of June then following No sooner was he freed from this but the necessity of his Affairs involved him in another Embroylment The French Priests and Domesticks of that Nation which came into England with the Queen were grown so insolent and had put so many affronts upon him that he was forced to send them home in which he did no more then what the French King had done before him in sending back all the Spanish Courtiers which his Queen brought with her But the French King not looking on his own example and knowing on what ill termes the King stood both at home and abroad first seized on all the Merchants ships which lay on the River of Burdeaux and then brake out into open war So that the King was fain to make use of those Forces against the French which were designed to have been used against the Spaniard and to comply with the desires of the Rochelers who humbly sued for his protection and Defence But the Fleet not going out till after Michaelmas found greater opposition at the Sea then they feared from the Land being encountred with strong Tempests and thereby necessitated to return without doing any thing but onely shewing the Kings good-will and readinesse toward their assistance 1627. But the next yeare this design was followed with greater vigour by the Duke of Buckingham who hoped thereby to make himself of some consideration in the eyes of the people The gaining of the Isle of Re which lay before the Town of Rochel and imbarred their Trade was the matter aimed at and he had strength enough both for Sea and Land to have done the work if he had not followed it more like a Courtier then a Souldier suffering himself to be complemented out of the taking of their chief Fort when it was almost at his mercy and standing upon points of Honour in facing those Forces which were sent from the French King to raise the siege when he might have made a safe retreat unto his ships without losse or danger In the mean time his Majesty neither neglected his Affairs at home nor his Friends abroad At home he found the Puritan faction to be much increased by the remisnesse of the goverment of Archbishop Abbot whom therefore he suspended from all his Metropoliticall Jurisdiction and confined him to his House at Ford in Kent committing the exercise thereof to the Bishops of London Durham Rochester Oxford Bath and Wells by Letters Patents bearing date the 9. day of October Anno 1627. Abroad he found the Princes of Germany wormed out of their Estates one after another by the Emperours Forces the King of Denmark whom they had made the Head of their League being driven out of the Countrey by Count Tilly and hardly able to defend his own Dominions No Prince so fit for the prosecution of that cause as Gustavus Adolphus King of Sweden whom therefore he elects into the Noble Order of the Garter and solemnly invests him with it in the midst of his Army then lying at the Siege of Darsaw a Town of Pomerella belonging to the Crown of Poland on Sunday the twenty third of October of the same year also At which time he laid the grounds of that Confederacy which being seconded by the French the States of the Vnited Provinces and the distressed Princes of the Empire brought that King into Germany where he gave the first great check to the Emperours fortunes and had restored the Prince Elector Palatine to his ancient Patrimony if he had not fallen unfortunately at the Battell of Lutzen 1628. Being thus ingaged and embroiled he gave a beginning to his third Parliament on the seventeenth of March and freely declares to them the necessities under which he lay in Answer whereunto the Commons voted five Subsidies but meant he should pay dearly for them before he had them Such grievances as they thought fit to insist upon were cast into the mold of a petition by them called a Petition of Right which if the King granted he must lose his prerogative if he denied it he must lose all hopes of their supply in his great extremities The consideration of which last induced him to yield to their desires and confirm that petition by Act of Parliament the Prerogative never so much descending from Perch to popular Lure as by that concession But though this Act of grace might have given satisfacton even to supererogation as one well observeth yet the Commons were not so contented but were preparing a Remonstance to take away his Right of Tonnage and Poundage as disclaimed by him in that Act which coming to the Kings knowledge on the twenty sixth of June he adjourns the Parliament till the twentieth day of October then next ensuing In the mean time the Duke prepares for the relief of Rochel both by Sea and Land and being ready to set sail was suddenly cut off at Ports-muth by the hand of one John Felton a discontented Officer of the last years Army alledging no other reason for that bloody act but that the Duke had been declared an Enemy to the Common-wealth in a Remonstrance tendred to the King in the former Session But such was the constancy of the Kings temper and the known evenness of his spirit that this sad Accident made little or no stop in the proceedings of the Fleet which at the last set forwards under the command of the Earl of Lindsey who found the Haven of Rochel so strongly barred that it was utterly impossible for his Ships to force their way though it was gallantly attempted and give relief to the besieged who thereupon set open their Gates and received their King into their Town without more delay To smooth his way to the next Session of Parliament adjourned again till the twentieth of January Arch-bishop Abbot is admitted to kisse his hand by whom he is commanded not to fail of his attendance at the Councel table Dr. Barnaby Potter a through-paced Calvinian is made Bishop of Carlisle and Mr. Mountagues book called Appello Caesarem for which he had been questioned and molested in the beginning of the Kings first Parliament must be supprest and called in by Proclamation But this little edified with the faction in the house of Commons who not onely took upon them the reforming of the Church and State but called the Customers in question for levying Tonnage and Poundage not then granted nor ever likely to be granted as it had been formerly by Act of Parliament and distraining such Merchants goods as refused to pay it And in this point they went so high that fearing they should be dissolved before they had vented their own passions in that particular upon the second day of March they lockt the Doors of the Parliament-house kept the key thereof in one of their pockets and held the Speaker by strong hand in his Chair till they had
thundred out their Anathemaes not onely against such as should dare to levie it but those also who should willingly pay it The news of which riotous proceeding being brought immediately to the King he sent his Band of Pensioners accompanied by his ordinary Guard to force open the doors and going himself to the House of Peers he dissolved the Parliament not having continued in that Session above forty dayes At the end of the former Session he had admitted Sir John Savill of Yorkshire a busie man in the House of Commons but otherwise a politique and prudent person to be one of his Privy Council created him Lord Savill of Ponfract and made him Comptroller of his Houshold in the place of Sir John Suckling deceased And a little before the beginning of the following Session he took into his Council Sir Thomas wentworth of Wentworth Woodhouse in the same County whom be created Viscount Wentworth and made Lord President of the North and within two years after Lord Deputy of Ireland also A man he was of prodigious Parts which he made use of at the first in favour of the Popular Faction But being gained unto the King by Sir Ri. Weston then Chancellour of the Exchequer afterwards Lord Treasurer and Earl of Portland he became the most devout friend of the Church the greatest Zelot for advancing Monarchichall Interesse and the ablest Minister of State which our Histories have afforded to us On the judgement of these two his Majesty did much rely in Civil matters as he did on the advice of Doctor Neile then Bishop of Durham and Doctor Laud then Bishop of Bath and Wells in matters which concerned the Church These last he had called unto his Council in the beginning of April 1627. and finding them to be of as great abilities to advise as sincere affections to his person he advanced the first to the See of Winchester and afterwards to the Archbishoprick of York Anno 1631. the second to the See of London and from thence to Canterbury Anno 1633. 1629. But whilest it was such hot weather at home it grew cold abroad the breach betwixt him and France being closed up at the same time by the prudent and seasonable intervention of the State of Venice And not long after he concluded a Peace also with the King of Spain all things being left on both sides in the same condition in which they were before the war but that the Spaniard did ingage that he would make use of all his Interest with the Emperour for restoring the Prince Elector Paâ—â—â—ine to his lost Estate And now the King having thrown away his Crutches which had as often deceived him as he trusted to them he began to stand on his own legs and in short time became more considerable in the eyes of the world then any of his Predecessors The Spaniard sent hither yearly in English Bottoms no lesse then six hundred thousand Crowns in Bullion for the use of his Army in the Netherlands redounding very much to the Kings benefit in the coinage and no lesse to the profit of the Merchants also most of the money being returned into Flanders in Leather Cloth Lead Tinne and other the manufactures and Native Commodities of this Kingdome The Dutch and Easterlings looke upon London as the safest Bank not onely to lodge but increase their Treasure so that in short time the greatest part of the Trade of Christendom was driven up the Thames 1630. To make him yet more estimable in the sight of his People God blest him with a Son the presumptive Heir of his Dominions on the twenty ninth of May Anno 1630. and seconded that blessing with the birth of a Daughter on the fourth of November in the next year after as afterwards with a plentifull issue of both Sexes 1633. Nor did he meet with any check in his Prosperity till the year 1633. at what time the Coles of Faction and Sedition which seemed for some years to have been raked up in the ashes of contentment kindled the next combustible matter and brake forth again to the inflaming of both Kingdoms Scotland burneth first and takes fire on this occasion In the minority of King James the Lands of all Cathedrall Churches and Religious Houses which had been setled on the Crown by Act of Parliament were shared amongst the Lords and great men of that Kingdome by the connivence of the Earl of Murray and some other of the Regents to make them sure unto the side And they being thus possessed of the said Lands with the Regalities and Tithes belonging to those Ecclesiasticall Corporations Lorded it with pride and insolence enough iâ— their severall Territories holding the Clergy to small stipends and the poor Paisant under a miserable vassalage and subjection to them King Charles ingaged in War at his first coming to the Crown and having little aid from thence for the maintenance of it by the advice of his Council of that Kingdome was put upon a course of resuming those Lands Tithes and Regalities into his own hands to which the present Occupants could pretend no other Title then the unjust usurpation of their Ancestors This he endeavoured first by an Act of Revocation but that course not being like to speed he followed it in the way of a legal processe which drew on the Commission for surrendering of Superiorities and Tithes to be retaken from the King on such conditions as might bring some profit to the Crowne some Augmentation to the Clergy and far more ease and benefit to the common people But these proud Scots chuse rather to expose their Countrey to the danger of a publick Ruine then to part with any of that power it might be called a Tyranny rather which they had exercised on their Vassals as they commonly called them and thereupon conspired together to oppose the King in any thing that should be offered in the following Parliament which had relation to the Church or to Church-affaires But because Religion and the care thereof is commonly the best bait to catch the vulgar they must find out some other means to divert the King from the prosecuting of that Commission then the consideration of their own personall and private interesse and they found means to do it on another occasion which was briefly this King James from his first coming to this Crown had a design to bring the Kirk of Scotland to an uniformity with the Church of England both in government and forms of worship And he proceeded so far as to settle Episcopacy amongst them naming thirteen new Bishops for so many Episcopal Sees as had been anciently in that Church three of which received Consecration from the Bishops of England and conferred it on the rest of their Brethren at their coming home Which Bishops he armed also with the power of an High Commission the better to keep down the insolent and domineering Spirit of the Presbyterians In order to the other he procured an Act to be passed
the pleasure of the Houses are extorted by tumults And by the terrour of the like the Act for Knighthood is repealed and the imposition for ship-money condemned as an illegall Tax and abolished also The like Acts passed against the office of the Clerk of the Market the Court of Stanneries his propriety in the making of Gun-powder the authority of the Council-Table the Courts of Star-Chamber and High Commission the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiasticall Courts as also the Presidiall Courts held for a long time in York and the Marches of VVales And finally that he might lose both his strength in Parliament and his power with the People they extorted the passing of two Acts the one for taking away the Bishops Votes and place in the House of Peers the other for disclaiming of his power in pressing Souldiers enjoyed by all his Predecessors for defence of his Person and the Realm And that they might the better awe the King to their Concessions the Army of the Scots must be maintained with pay and plunder till there was almost nothing left for them to crave or the King to grant But being at the last sent home his Majesty followed not long after to settle his affairs in that broken kingdom where to oblige that Nation to him he confirmed not onely all his former concessions by Act of Parliament but all such things also as had been acted by them in their Assembly held at Glasco And more then so he parted with so much of his Eoyall Prerogative invaded usurped by them in the late Confusions that he had allmost nothing left remaining to him but the empty title the having of a Sword carried before him and some other outward pomps of Court which signifie just nothing when the power is gone This good successe of the Scots encouraged the Irish Papists to attempt the like and to attempt it in the same way as the Scots had gone that is to say by seizing his Towns Forts and Castles putting themselves into the body of an Army banishing or imprisoning all such as oppose their practises and then petitioning the King for a publick Exercise of their Religion The 23. of October Anno 1641. was the day designed for the seizing of the City and Castle of Dublin and many places of great importance in the Kingdom But failing in the main design which had been discovered the night before by one Ocanelle they break out into open arms dealing no better with the Protestants there then the Covenanters had done with the Royall party in Scotland Of this Rebellion for it must be called a Rebellion in the Irish though not in the Scots the King gives present notice to his Houses of Parliament requiring their counsel and assistance for the extinguishing of that flame before it had wasted and consumed that Kingdome But neither the necessity of the Protestants there nor the Kings importunity here could perswade them to levie one man towards the suppression of those Rebels till the King had disclaimed his power of pressing souldiers in an Act of Parliament and thereby laid himself open to such acts of violence as were then hammering against him Which having done they put an army of Scots their most assured Friends into the Northern parts of Ireland delivering up into their hands the strong Town and Port of Carickfergus one of the chief keys of that Kingdom and afterwards sent a small body of English to preserve the South which English forces having done notable service there against the Rebels were kept so short both in respect of pay and other necessaries by the Houses of Parliament who had made use of the mony raised for the relief of Ireland to maintain a War against their King that they were forced to come to a Cessation and cheerefully returned home again to assist the King in that just War which he had undertaken for his own defence The ground and occasion of which War we are next to shew At such time as he was in Scotland and expostulated with some of the chiefs among them touching their coming into England in an hostile manner he found that some who were now leading men in the Houses of Parliament had invited them to it And having furnished himself with some proofs for it he commanded his Attorney Generall to impeach some of them of high Treason that is to say the L. Kimbolton a Member of the House of Peers Mr. Hollis Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr. Hambden Mr. Pym and Mr. Strode of the House of Commons But sending his Serjeant at Arms to arrest their persons there came a countermand from the House of Commons by which the Serjeant was deterred from doing his office and the Members had the opportunity of putting themselves into the Sanctuary of the City The next day being the 4. of January his Majesty being no otherwise attended then with his ordinary Guard went to the House of Commons to demand the five Members of that House that he might proceed against them in a way of justice but his intention was discovered and the birds flown before his coming This was voted by the Commons for such an inexpiable breach of priviledge that neither the Kings qualifying of that Action nor his desisting from the prosecution of that impeachment nor any thing that he could either say or do would give satisfaction Nothing must satisfie their jealousies and secure their fears but the putting of the tower of London into their hands together with the command of the Royal Navie as also all the Forts Castles and the Train-bands of the Kingdome all comprehended under the name of the Militia which if his Majesty would fling after all the rest they would continue his most loyall subjects On this the King demurs a while but having shipt the Queen for Holland and got the Prince into his own power he becomes more resolute and stoutly holds on the denyal Finding the Members too strong for him and London by reason of the continuall Tumults to be a dangerous neighbour to him he withdraws to York that being in a place of safety he might the better find a way to compose those differences which now began to embroil the kingdome At Hull he had a Magazine of arms and ammunition provided for the late intended war against the Scots and laid up there when the occasion of that War was taken away Of this Town he intended to possesse himself and to make use of his own Arms and Ammunition for his own preservation but coming before the gates of the Towne he was denyed entrance by Sir John Hotham who by the appointment of the House of Commons had took charge of that place The Gentry of York-shire who had petitioned the King to secure that Magazin became hereby more firmly united to him The like had been done also by the Yeomandry and those of the inferiour sort if his proceedings had not been undermined by the Committee of four Gentlemen all Members of the House and all of them
being broke open before the Common Council of Athens one of which was subscribed to the Queen Olympias was returned untoucht the whole Senate thinking it a shamefull and dishonest act to discover and betray the Conjugall secrets betwixt man and wife A modesty in which those of Athens stand as much commended by Helladius Bisantinus an ancient Writer as the chief leading men of the Houses of Parliament are like to stand condemned for the want of it in succeeding Histories But we return unto the King who having saved himself by flight gathered together some part of his scattered Forces but never was able to make head against the conquerors losing one place after another till his whole strength was almost reduced to Oxford and some few Garrisons adjoyning I shall take notice onely of some of the principal viz. Chester Conway Hereford Bristol and Exeter on which so great a part of his affairs did most especially depend Chester first comes within the danger a City of great importance in those parts of the Kingdom To the relief of this place then besieged by Sir William Brereton Collonel Jones and others of that party and at that time brought to some distresse he made all the convenient speed he could but was pursued upon the way and charged in front by the besiegers betwixt whom this small Army was routed at a place called Bauton-Heath and the Lord Bernard Stuart newly created Earl of Lichfield killed upon the place the last of three brethren that had lost their lives in their Princes quarrell On this discomfiture the King draws towards the North-East and commands the Lord Digby with the Remainder of his Horse to march for Scotland and there to joyn with the Marquesse of Montrosse who with small strengths had acted Miracles in that Kingdome But at a Village in Yorkshire called Sherbourn a fatall name but pointing to another place where he surprized 700 of the Parliaments Foot he he was set upon by Collonel Cotly his Forces made drunk with the good fortune of the day very easily mastered and he himself compelled to fly into Ireland never returning since that time to his Native Country But notwithstanding the Kings misfortune before mentioned which happened on the twenty ninth of September the Lord Byron who had the command of the Garrison in Chester held it out gallantly till the first of February and then perceiving that there was no hopes of any Succour came to an honourable composition and gave up the Town the greatest part of the Countrey falling into the same condition with their mother City Before we leave the North-west parts we must look upon the fortune of the Town and Castle of Conway a place of principall Command on that narrow Channell which runneth between the County of Carnarvon and the Isle of Anglesey Before this Town being then besieged by Collonel Mitton came Doctor John Williams formerly Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England and at that time Arch-bishop of York Who to ingratiate himself with the Houses of Parliament and to save the charges of compounding for Delinquency came with some forces to the aid of the Besiegers some say in Armour and encamped there till the place was taken to the Amazement of the world and the eternall infamy and Reproch of his Person Bristol comes next a place conveniently seated for the Trade of Spain the River capable of great Ships and the port well guarded At the taking of this City by the Kings Forces to such strengths as before it had there was added a Fort Royall as they called it then conceived impregnable into this City Prince Rupert who had spent there too much of the year before had put himself at the present and was besieged not long after by Sir Thomas Fairfax who came before it on the twenty fourth of August and had it surrendred to him without any memorable resistance together with the old Castle and Royall Fort on the thirteenth of September The quick surrendry of which place being so well fortified and furnisht with victuall Arms and Ammunition and the weak defences which were made to preserve the same created some suspicion of disloyalty in Prince Rupert towards the King his Uncle There had before passed some Letters betwixt the King and him touching the Kings coming to a speedy agreement with his Houses of Parliament in which the King was prest so far that he seemed to be displeased at it And now this news coming on the neck of those Letters startled him into such a distrust of his Nephews Loyalty that he dispatcht a messenger with all speed to the Lords at Oxford to displace Collonell William Legg one of the Confidents of Prince Rupert who had succeeded Sir Henry Gage in the Government of that City and to put into his place Sir Thomas Glenham a Gentleman of known extraction and more known fidelity Nor were the Lords of the Council lesse amazed at the news then his Majesty was who thereupon when Prince Rupert and his Brother Maurice returned to Oxford commanded them to be disarmed and would not suffer them to walk the streets with their Swords by their sides as they had done formerly though afterwards by the Kings great goodnesse they were restored to all apparences of favour though not to any speciall places of Command or Trust Hereford followes the same fortune which having in vain been besieged by the Scots from the 13 of July to the first of September was suddenly surprized by Collonel Birch and Collonel Morgan this last then Governour of Glocster on the eighteenth of December Exceter holds out longest and was last attempted such blocks as lay in the way between Fairfax his Army and that City being first in the course of war to be removed Which took up so much time that it was the twenty fifth day of January before Fairefax could come neer enough to give it a Summons and being summon'd it held out till the thirteenth of April and then was yielded upon as honourable Conditions as any other whatsoever all other Garrisons in the West being first surrendred the Princes forces worsted at Torrington not long after disbanded upon Composition and he himself retired into France for his personall safety All these mischances thus hapning on the neck of one another all the Kings hopes and expectation rested upon the coming of Sir Jacob Astley created Lord Astley of Reading two years since Who having kept together some Remainders of the Kings Forces since the Fight neer Chester and increasing them with the Accession of some fresh supplies marched towards the King and was to have been met upon the way by Sir John Campsfield with the Oxford Horse But either through the want of intelligence or the necessity of fate or some occasionall delayes it was so long before Campsfield was upon his march that the newes came of the Lord Astleys being vanquish'd at a place called Donnington neer Stow on the Wold on the 21 of March In which fight
to London to quit the Parliament and to betake themselves to their Protection incouraged wherewith they resolved upon their march towards London to restore those members to their Houses and those Houses to the Power and Freedom of Parliaments Upon the noise of whose Approach the Citizens who before spake big and had begun to raise an Army under the Command of the Lord Willowby of Parham sent their Petitions for a peace and gladly opened all their works between Hide-Park Corner and the Thames to make an entrance for the Army who having placed their Speakers in their severall Chaires and supprest those of the opposite party made a triumphant passage through the chief Streets of the City with Trumpets sounding Drums beating and Colours flying The King removed from one place to another was brought in the course of those Removes to Casam Lodge an House of the Lord Cravens not far from Reading where he obtained the favour of giving a meeting to his Children at Maydenhith and there they dined together the Generall willingly consenting and the Houses then not daring to make any denyall From thence he was at last brought to his own Palace of Hampton Court where being terrified with the Apprehension of some Dangers which were given out to be designed against his person by the Agitators who for a time much governed the lower part of the Army he left that place accompanied onely with two or three of his servants and put himself unfortunately into the power of Collonel Hammond in the Isle of Wight where no relief could come unto him Being secured in Carisbrook Castle Propositions are sent to him from the Houses of Parliament as had been done before at Newcastle and Holdenby-House to which he returned the same Answer now as he did before their Demands being nothing bettered and his condition nothing worse then before it was Provoked wherewith the Houses past their Votes of Non-Addresses to his Majesty and take the Government upon themselves as in the times of Vacancy and Inter-regnum in the State of Rome wherein they were confirmed by a Declaration from the Army binding themselves to stand to them in defence of those Votes During the time of these restraints he betook himself to meditation and then composed that most excellent Book entituled {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or the Pourtraiture of his sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings The Honour of this work some mercenary Sticklers for the two Houses of Parliament have laboured to deprive him of and to transfer it to some other though they know not whom But it is well known to all that knew him that his Majesty had alwayes a fine stroke with his pen which he practised at all times of leasure and recesse from businesse from before his coming to the Crown to these last extremities By which means he became Master of a pure and elegant Stile as both his intercepted Letters and those to Mr. Henderson at New-Castle in the point of Episcopacy where he could have no other helps but what he found in himself do most clearly evidence 1648. And now the Subjects of both Kingdoms which before had joyned in Arms against him began to look upon his Estate with Commiseration and seeing they could obtain no favour or freedom for him in the way of Petition they resolved to try their fortunes in the way of Force And first a very considerable part of the Royall Navy encouraged by Captain Batten formerly Vice-Admirall to the Earl of Warwick was put into the power of the Prince of wales to be made use of for his Majesties service in that sad condition and next the Kentish who twice or thrice before had shewed their readinesse to appear in Arms on his behalf put themselves into a posture of War under the conduct of one Master Hales an Heir of great hope and expectation and after under the command of George Lord Goring Earl of Norwich The â—arl of Holland whom he had cherisht in his Bosome and who unworthily deserted him in the first beginning of his troubles repenting when it was too late of his great disloyalties began to raise some small Forces in the County of Surrey Langhern Poyer and Powel who before had served under the pay of the Houses seized on some strong Towns and Castles in South-VVales and declared against them the Castle of Pomfret was surprized by Stratagem and kept by them who had surprized it for his Majesties service And finally the Marquesse of Hamilton not long before created Duke Hamilton of Arran having raised a strong Army of Scots confederated himself with Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Sir Thomas Glenham and others of the Kings party in the North and having Garrisoned the Towns of Berwick and Carlisle past into England with his Forces under colour of restoring the King to his Crown and Liberty But these eruptions in both Kingdoms though they might give hiâ— Majesty some hopes of a better condition yet did they not take him off from looking seriously into himself and taking into Consideration those things which had formerly passed him and which might seem most to have provoked Gods displeasure against him And what they were which most particularly grated on his Conscience appeareth by the Prayer and Confession which he made for the times of his Affliction and is this that followeth viz. Almighty and most mercifull Father as it is only thy goodnesse that admits of our imperfect Prayers and the knowledge that thy mercies are infinite which can give us any hope of thy accepting or granting them so it is our bounden and necessary Duty to confesse our Sins freely unto thee and of all men living I have most need most reason so to do no man having been so much obliged by thee no man more grievously offending thee that Degree of knowledge which thou hast given me adding likewise to the guilt of my Transgressions For was it through ignorance that I suffered innocent blood to be shed by a false pretended way of Justice Or that I permitted a wrong way of thy worship to be set up in Scotland and injured the Bishops in England O no but with shame and grief I confesse that I therein followed the perswasions of worldly wisdome forsaking the Dictates of a right-informed Conscience Wherefore O Lord I have no excuse to make no hope left but the multitude of thy mercies for I know my repentance weak and my Prayers faulty Grant therefore mercifull Father so to strengthen my repentance and amend my Prayers that thou maist clear the way for Thine own mercies to which O let thy Justice at last give place putting a speedy end to my deserved Afflictions In the mean time give me Patience to endure Constancy against temptations and a Discerning Spirit to chuse what is best for thy Church and People which thou hast committed to my charge Grant this O most mercifull Father for thy Son Jesus Christs sake our onely Saviour Amen Now as the King thus
At first his Majesty conceived that the Bishop had made choice of that Chapter as being very agreeable to his present condition But when he understood that it was the Chapter which the Church had appointed for that day in her publick Kalendar he seemed to apprehend it with some signes of rejoycing No sooner had he done his Devotions but he is hurried to VVhite-Hall out of the Banqueting-house whereof a way was forced to a Seaffold on which he was to act the last part of his Tragedy in the sight of the people Having declared that he died a Martyr for the Lawes of this Kingdome and the Liberties of the Subjects he made a Confession of his Faith insinuating that he died a true Son of the Church of England he betook himself to his private Devotions and patiently submitted that Royal Head to an Executioner which had before been crowned with so much outward Pomp and Splendour The Members of both Houses had often promised him in their Petitions Messages and Declarations that they would make him a great and glorious King and now they were as good as their words changing his fading but painfull Crown of Thorns which they first platted for him to an immarcessible Crown of Glory At his first coming to the Crown one of his Chaplains in Ordinary and now a Bishop in this Church taking good heed unto the close contrivances of some and the seditious actings of others in his two first Parliaments thought fit to give him and his Council such an item of it as might awaken them to prevent those mischiefs which otherwise might ensue upon it And thereupon he preached before them on these words of S. Matthews Gospel viz But when the husbandmen saw the Son they said among themselves This is the heir come let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance Mat. 21.38 In the dissecting of which Text he made such an Anatomy of the Husbandmen whom he had in hand with reference to some Plots and Practises which were then on foot and his whole discourse upon the same that he gave the King and those about him such Remembrances as might make them have an eye unto themselves and the publick safety But then withall though he carried on the matter with great care and prudence he drew so much danger on himself from some leading Members in the second Parliament who thought themselves as much concerned in the Sermon as the chief Priest and Pharisees did in the Parable that he was upon the point of leaving the Kingdome when he had news that his Majesty had dissolved the second Parliament in no small displeasure What he then preached concerning the said Husbandmen was after practised and that he then fore-signified was accomplished now Which shewes him to have been both a Priest and a Prophet if at the least the name of a Prophet may be given unto any man who foretelleth not of things to come by Divine Revelation but out of a deep insight into businesse But we return unto the King whom if we looke on in his Children the most lively Images and Representations of deceased Parents we shall find him to have been the Father of four Sons and five Daughters 1. CHARLES-JAMES born at Greenwich on Wednesday the 13. of May 1629. but died almost as soon as born having been first christened by Dr. Web one of the Chaplains in Attendance and afterwards a Bishop in Ireland 2. CHARLES Duke of Cornwall by Birth Prince of Wales in Designation and Knight of the Garter born at his Majesties house of Saint James neer VVestminster May 29. 1630. solemnly crowned King of the Scots at Edenburgh on the first day of January Anno 1650. But being invaded by an Army from England under the command of Generall Cromwell he was forced to quit that Kingdome and try his fortunes in the other so closely followed by the Army which compelled him to that Expedition he was fought with neer VVorcester on the third of September 1651. before the Earl of Darby and some others of his party here could come to aid him with their Forces In which Battel though he acted beyond the expectation of his Friends and to the great applause of his very Enemies yet it so pleased the Divine Providence that he lost the day and being miraculously preserved notwithstanding the diligent search which was made after him he passed safely over into France to the Queen his Mother Finding that Court unsafe for him he passed into Flanders accompanied with his Brother the Duke of York Anno 1654. where they have continued ever since 3. JAMES born in the same place on the 13. day of October Anno 1633. entituled Duke of York by his Majesties command at the time of his birth created so by Letters Patents bearing date at Oxford January 27. Anno 1643. and not long after made Knight of the Garter Taken prisoner at the surrendry of Oxford June 24. 1646. he was carried to his Majesties house of Saint James and there kept under a Guard with his Brother and Sister but being attired in the habit of a young Lady he was conveyed thence about two years after by one Collonel Bamfield who brought him safely into Holland and presented him a most welcome guest to the Princesse of Orange from whence he past afterwards into France to his Mother and Brother 4 HENRY born on the eighth of July designed to the Dukedome of Glocester and so commanded to be called Left by his Majesty at the House of Saint James the place of his birth at such time as he withdrew towards the North Anno 1642 he remained there till the Death of his Father and some years after and then upon the promise of an Annual pension was permitted to go into France to his Mother and the rest of the Kings Children But in the year 1654. almost as soon as his two elder Brethren had removed themselves into Flanders he found a strong practise in some of the Queens Court to seduce him to the Church of Rome whose Temptations he resisted beyond his years and thereupon was sent for by them into Flanders 5. MARY born on the fourth of November 1631. and married to Count VVilliam of Nassau Eldest Son to HENRY Prince of Orange on Sunday the second of May Anno 1641. conveyed by the Queen her Mother into Holland in February following where she stil remains Her Husband having succeeded his Father in all his Titles and Estates died young and left her the hopefull Mother of a Son now Prince of Orange 6. ELIZABETH born the twenty eighth of January 1635. survived her Father but died with hearts grief not long after 7. ANNE born the seventeenth of March 1637. died before her Father 8. KATHARINE who died almost as soon as born 9. HENRIETTA born at Exceter June the sixteenth 1644. conveyed not long after into France by the Lady Dalkeith to the Queen her Mother where she still remains It is observed of the VVolf that as