into by a faction against the Consent of King Charles a Covenant to defend themselves and their Religion against all the Usurpations of Rome and the other solemnly nay rather tumultuously and riotously taken against compliance with the Church of England the greatest Bulwark against Rome and all its Encroachments upon the true Government of Christ the Head which I think the Zeal Learning and Divinity of the Members of the Church of England did sufficiently demonstrate the last Reign Away Sir with such stuff as this is and do not fancy the whole Race of Mankind to be so blind as to be lead into such Ditches as such blind and malicious Guides as you are endeavour to seduce them Come Sir the Story is too long for my designed brevity in this Answer and therefore I will give you in short the Sence and Judgment of Mr. Whitlock upon it an Author I suppose none of you will disallow and then leave it to the Candid Reader to think whether this Scotch Rebellion deserves to be extolled and magnified at that rate you have done it He tells you pag. 26. Memor That the King studying tho highly offended at these Asfronts how to compose the Discontents sends Marquess Hamilton his High Commissioner for setling the Peace who when he came thither and asked them what they expected in satisfaction for their Grievances they answered after pretences of Loyalty as all Rebels ever have done till they got Power in their hands that they would sooner renounce their Baptism than their Covenant An admirable sign of their knowledge of the difference of Covenants And pag. 27. he tells you in the King's Name the Marquess proposed moderate and healing things for so I must call them which he contracted into two Proposals which you may read there he afterwards upon a further Consultation with the King to whom he posted came back with a Declaration of the Kings wherein he ordered the Service-Book to be nulled together with the Book of Canons and the High Commission with a great many other things mightily gracious and condescending in particular a General Assembly to be held at Glasgow Nov. the 8th and a Parliament at Edenburgh May 5th wherein all by-gone Offences should be pardoned and a General Fast indicted Yet all this would not satisfie these new and blessed Reformers but as the King grants so they lay their Heads together and resolve to make further Demands and that they may encrease their Party Pag. 28. we find their Seditious Remonstrances Declarations and Pamphlets were dispersed and their Emissaries and Agents insinuated into the Company of all those who were any ways discontented or galled at the Proceedings of the State of England And withal he tells us particularly pag. 29. That the Gentlemen who were imprisoned for the Loan disrained for the Ship-money or otherwise disobliged had Applications made to them from the Covenanters and secretly favoured and assisted their Designs so did many others especially those inclined to the Presbyterian Government or whom the Publick Proceedings had any ways disgusted And afterwards when the King had justly raised an Army to suppress these notorious Disorders yet for all that he consents to a Treaty such was his inclinations to do good to his undeserving Subjects and Commissioners are appointed on both sides and they come to a conclusion agreeing upon Seven Articles which the Reader may find pag. 29 which were signed by the Scots Commissioners and a present performance on their part promised and expected though immediately notwithstanding the King as he tells us justly performed the Articles on his side The Scots publish a Paper very seditious and against the Treaty which as it deserved was burnt by the common Hangman and not with standing the first Article agreed upon was To Disband the Forces of Scotland within Twenty four hours after the first Agreement yet these perfidious Persons he tells us kept part of their Forces in a Body and all their Officers in Pay and kept up their Fortifications at Leith And now let the Reader judge by this how deserving these Men are such Commendations as this pestilent and bold Letter-Writer gives them And whereas this scandalizing Person has the Confidence to assert That the king when he came home burnt by the common Hangman the Pacification he had made I must tell him he talks as he hath done all along throughout his Letter falsely and against his own Reading and Knowledge And for this I appeal to Bishop Burnet in his Memoirs of the two Hamiltons where pag. 782. he acquaints us That the Scots published a false and scandalous Paper entituled Some of His Majesties Treaties with his Subjects of Scotland so untrue and seditious that it was burnt by the Hands of the common Hangman And are not you a base Person then to obtrude such a Lye upon the World as you have done but it is no wonder the Father whose Cause you have served in this rude and seditious Libel is the Father of Lies Well Sir after various Rudenesses and Assaults of the Peace and honour of His Majesties Government the Scotch Covenanters sent new Commissioners to the King who pag. 31. had great resort to them and many secret Councils held with them by the discontented English especially those who favoured Presbytery and were no Friends to Bishops I and those who inclined to a Republick had much correspondence with them and they courted all and fomented every Discontent and made large Religious Promises of future happy Days and after all these steady and zealous Enemies to Rome as you esteem them he tells you proclaimed their Discontents and implored Aid from the French King by a Letter under the Hands of many of their principal Actors which they the less doubted upon Confidence of Cardinal Richelieu Con the Pope's Nuncio which I think is much worse than sending a Civil Letter to the Pope as the King when Prince of Wales did and which considering in whose Country he was he could not safely avoid and which is more than you can charge the Memory of Bishop Laud withal but you know Some Men can better steal a Horse then others look on And it has been the Custom of your Party always to sanctifie the vilest of Actions Nay he tells you further that it was said they were encouraged to take up Arms from this Cardinal Richelieu by his Chaplain Chamberlaine whom he sent to them and by a Letter which Hepburn Page to his Eminency brought to divers both here and in Scotland And now Sir I appeal to all the ingenuous and considering to all the wise and unprejudiced part of this Age who read over this Story who were in fault the King or the Covenanters And whether His Majesty had not just reason after such Discoveries as these were to clap up some of them in Prison and whether he had been to blame if for such traiterous Correspondencies with a Popish Prince and a Popish Favourite he had chopt off some of
A SECOND DEFENCE OF King Charles I. BY Way of Reply to an Infamous Libel CALLED LUDLOW'S LETTER to Dr. Hollingworth Let the lying lips be put to silence which cruelly disdainfully and despitefully speak against the righteous Psal. 31. As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness 1 Pet. 2. LONDON Printed for S. Eddowes under the Piazza's of the Royal Exchange and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1692. TO THE Most Reverend and Right Reverend Fathers in GOD the Lords Archbishops and Bishops of the Provinces of Canterbury and York to the Nobility Gentry Clergy and Commons of England who have any Honour for the Pious Memory of King CHARES the First My Lords and Gentlemen c. THE Dutiful and Devoted Children of the Church of England having in the late Reign with so much Zeal and Courage as well as with such variety of Learning defended the Doctrines and Reasons of the Reformation against all the Accusations of her Romish Adversaries and some of them also exposing themselves to great Dangers rather than truckle to Will and Power against the Laws and Liberties of their Country did together with many others think when their Present Majesties came to the Throne that great Numbers of those who had sucked in Prejudices against the Church by reason of their Education would either have come into her Communion as now being convinced the Clamours against her were false or else at least would have treated her and her Members with a greater Civility and Respect then through their false Conceits of Things they did before but we quickly found ourselves mistaken and that the AEthiopian could not change his Skin nor the Leopard his Spots for presently hoping they had an opportunity to play over their Old Game again out comes two Books the one against Diocesan Episcopaty and the other against Liturgies two things they themselves knew the most moderate amongst us that are honest will not part withal these Books were carried up and down in Triumph and the poor Church of England had met with a Blow that not only stunn'd her but quite knocked her on the Head but in a convenient time they had their just Doom and were I may with great Truth say unanswerably answered the one by Dr. Comber the present Dean of Durham the other by the late Dr. Maurice Professor of the Chair at Oxford After this that the State might have a state of their Civility and Breeding as well as the Church a leud Pamphlet against King Charles the First was sent out into the World under the name of Ludlow whom an Act of Parliament calls one of the most detestable Traytors that ever was and this dedicated to Sir E. S. Kt. which Libel was spread abroad and cried up with all the Zeal imaginable and according as it was designed it had its effects and the Party who have left the Communion of our Church in all Places and Companies opened their wide Mouths against the Name and Memory of that excellent Prince upon hearing of which both in my own private and accidental Conversation and from many of my Friends whose Reports I durst credit I having by Reading the Actions and Sufferings of that King received other Impressions of him was resolved if no better Pen prevented me to vindicate that Great Man and accordingly the latter end of the last Year put out a little Book in the Defence of that Prince having nothing more in my eye then by so doing to preserve the Honour and Safety of the Present Government in Church and State which Book no sooner was spread but I was loaden with a thousand Reproaches which I thank God I was the less affected withal because of the Cause I was engaged in and withal because I had provided myself against them and within three Months after as if Hell had broke loose out comes a Letter under the same Name of the Traytor Ludlow directed to myself and as pretended occasioned by my honest Defence which Letter when I seriously read over I could not contain myself from wonder and amazements yea I found myself in various Passions to wit of Anger and Grief I of Ioy too not I assure you for the sin of the Book for that I abhor but that by the Book the Government might see the Spirit of the Party and how far to trust and when to suspect them Now My Lords and Gentlemen c. you would admire to hear how this Libel was brought up lent from one hand to another with the Character of a delicate and unanswerable Book and the well-meaning Author of King Charles's Defence was a Knave and a Fool and utterly lost as to his Credit and Interest in the New and True Friends of King William and Queen Mary and the Good Old Cause was now revived and upon its Legs again and glorious Days are coming and all by Virtue of the Influence of this Letter from Ludlow Well in a few days I set myself to a more close Consideration of the Book and presently found the Author an Imposer upon his Reader and that he had belyed King Charles in plain Matters of Fact upon which I was resolved to expose him and in a convenient time by a close application I drew up this Reply which I now present to you hoping thereby to have done something to prevent the spreading of this vile Man's Poyson And now my Lords and Gentlemen c. give me leave to be so plain as to tell you That if this Spirit be not discouraged but once again get within the Walls of St. Stephen's Chappel back'd and assisted with Power it will my Lords Spiritual Vote you presently out of the House of Peers and soon after out of your Bishopricks and afterwards will vindicate its barbarous usage of you by declaring you the Catterpillars of the Earth and the Locissts that ascend out of the bottomless Pit And for you my Lords Temporal Gentry Clergy and honest Commoners it will after it has branded you with the Names of Malignants Popish Counsellors and Adherents to the Interest of the Beast this Spirit I say when in the Chair will force you to Compositions Sequestrations Decimations Banishment Imprisonment and some of you to a Scaffold at Tower-hill or the Palace-yard and therefore I cannot but upon this Account open my whole Heart to you and tell you and I care not what Censures I undergo for it that next to the Eternal Laws of Nature and the Reasonableness and Excellency of the Christian Religion founded in and purchased by the Blood of Christ God Man I think we ought to be zealous in the Defence of this Great King upon whose Reputation or Dishonour and the Principles that maintain the one or those that propagate the other depend the Being and Well-being of our present Church and State and consequently of the Life and Preservation of our present King and Queen together with all their Successors in the English Throne and
this I say upon the greatest deliberation of Mind without passion or prejudice to any Party of Men whatsoever and upon this score have I taken upon me the Defence of this Great Man not in the least wishing ill to or desiring the Oppression of any sort of Men who will live quietly and peaceably under Their Majesties happy Government nor any ways envying their Liberty of Conscience as long as they make a modest and thankful use of it My Lords and Gentlemen Desiring your candid Thoughts of this honest and well-designed Vndertaking I take my leave of you by subscribing myself Your humble Servant and Faithful Country-man Richard Hollingworth A REPLY TO THE Author of a Letter CALLED A LETTER from Ludlow to Dr. Hollingworth c. SIR I Have met with your Book without the Civility of your fencing me one but I quickly found reason not to wonder at that for upon reading you over I found Civility none of your Talent and tho' I am so far from being in the least concerned at your ungentile Behaviour and unhandsome Usage of myself that I think it really an Honour to be reflected on by a Person of your Principles and should have the worse Opinion of myself if I had the good word either of you or those of your Party yet Sir when I read over your barbarous dealing with that excellent Prince King Charles I. your dirty and Tinker-like Names by which you call him and those many undeserved Indignities you load his Sacred Memory withal truly Sir it makes my Heart ake and my Flesh tremble to think at this time of the Day and under such a Government there should be found so bold so impudent and so unmannerly a Person in the Kingdom that dares belch forth such leud such dishonourable and false Things against one who was the Lord's Anointed and your own lawful and undoubted Soveraign What Sir do not you know that the greatest part of the Nobility Gentry and Commons of England do to this very Day continue and preserve a great Veneration for the Name and Memory of King Charles the First Have you forgot when the Nation was restored to its Rights and Laws not over-awed by an Insolent and Threatning Army that they chose a Representative that presently expressed the Sence of the Nation as to that Prince and condemned by an Act of State all those who had any hand in his Murther and appointed a Day which you like yourself scornfully call a Madding-day for ever to bewail the Sin and thereby to prevent those Judgments which they thought that Horrid Act might be justly attended withal Cannot you further remember or have you not heard that Their present Majesties had two Sermons preached before them the last Thirtieth of Ianuary that both They and the rest that heard them might the better be engaged to renew their just Sence of as well as deep Sorrow for the detestable Fact And Sir did not the Lords and Commons appoint two Preachers to help their sorrowful Meditations that Day the one the Right Reverend Bishop Kidder and the other the Reverend Dr. Sherlock And have you not read those Sermons for which the two Houses thanked them and ordered them to be Printed for the Good of the Nation that the Memory of that Great Man might be kept alive and the Sence of his Horrid Murther preserved in the Breasts of the People Come Sir if you have not read them I will give you an Account of some Passages in them both and I beseech you for your Soul 's good to mind them for 't is pity any one Body in the Kingdom should not know them that so they may be preserved from the Poyson and Infection of such scurrilous Books as this of yours is Pag. 20 says the good Bishop On this Day it was that our Soveraign of blessed Memory fell by the Hands of Violence and Wickedness then was his Righteous Blood shed and tho' we gave no explicit Consent to this barbarous Murther and perhaps with the Iews have said That if we had been in the Days of our Fore-fathers we would not have been Partakers with them yet all this while we may deceive ourselves and others if we do not confess this Sin with great humility and abandon all propensity to so great a Wickedness And Pag. 22. says this good Man We may learn what cause we have to be humbled for our Fathers Sins and more particularly for the Wickedness committed on this Day then was the Nation stained with the Righteous Blood of an innocent and excellent Prince that Bloud God will require of the principal Criminals and Accessories also of the first Offenders and their Associates and as we would not be charged with it let us humble ourselves before God the Stain can be removed no otherways than by Tears of Repentance and the Blood of Jesus And truly Sir before I cite the next passage let me tell you here is very bad News for you and all your Adherents and therefore instead of vindicating thorough the hardness of your Hearts I pray you humble yourselves before God that so the continuance in this Sin may not be your Ruin Pag. 25. Speaking further of this Murther he says thus It will admit of no extenuation it was an Action foul and deformed barbarous and cruel without excuse or plea he must be lost to the Reason of a Man and the Tenderness of a Christian whom it strikes not with Horrour Pag 26. We are all concerned in this Day 's Work to bewail the Wickedness of Men and improve the amazing Providence of God And once more We have since this Fatal Blow was given suffered severely and what the Iews say of the Calf in the Wilderness That there is something of it in all their Sufferings may with as much Truth be said of the barbarous Murther of this Day Our Sufferings have been the Product of the horrid Sin of this Day for many of them they bear the Mark and Signatures of it And truly Sir let me tell you if the Bishop be in the right as all good Men conclude he is I am sure you are very much in the wrong and ought to repent and give Glory to God by confessing your great Fault in so villanously bespattering such a Man as this Great and Good King was If after this you look into the Sermon preached the same day before the Commons by that great and well-studied Divine Dr. Sherlock you will find pag. 5. these words The Sin we this Day lament I shall make no scruple to call it what you have this Day in your Publick Prayers to Almighty God confessed it to be the barbarous Murther of an excellent Prince And Pag. 10. If we add to this the Character of his Person and those Princely Vertues which adorned his Life such Vertues as are rarely found in meaner Persons nay which would have adorned even an Hermit's Cell it still aggravates the Iniquity of his Murther And at the bottom
of the Page you will find something that truly concerns yourself and upon that score I have transcribed it There is a Spirit of Zeal and Faction the Principles of which if not restrained will ruin the best Princes and overturn the best Government in the World for they make little difference between Princes when they can find Pretence and Power Now Sir I say again have you not read or at least heard of these two Sermons And durst you then venture out into the World thus armed with hellish Revenge and black Malice to stab the Memory of and murther a-fresh a Prince for whom so great so wise a part of the Nation have so unspeakable and withal so just a Value and Veneration Good God! when Men are once hardned in Sin and by living long in it have contracted Habits and Customs what bold and impudent things will they not both say and do God Almighty open your Eyes and shew you the Evil of your ways before it be too late that so you may not perish in and by this your great Iniquity And now Sir I come to Examine your Letter it self The Title page is General Ludlow's Letter to Dr. Hollingworth Pray Sir how durst you assume this Name for we are not so ignorant who you are as it may be you think we are Pray Sir do not you know that Ludlow for the Name of General belongs not to him hath stood condemned for above Thirty Years as an execrable Traytor by Act of Parliament and that when he had the Confidence to come lately to London the Spirit of the Nation rose so up against him that the then Parliament addressed to the King to issue out his Proclamation in order to apprehend him that he might suffer that Death his Treason deserved and the Law had provided upon Notice of which you know he fled Now certainly Sir you are a very bold Man and 't is pity the Government does not take you at your Word and hang you up in his stead for there is a Debt due from Ludlow to the Justice of the Nation and I know no Man fitter to pay it than he that is so fond of the Traytor as to personate him and in his Name to vindicate those Actions for which he stands condemned There is one thing more I cannot but observe in your Title-page and that is your Quotation out of one of Bishop Burnet's Sermons and by which you would seem to justifie your calling the Thirtieth of Ianuary the Madding-day the Words are these which I transcribe on purpose to let the World see what a Cheat you are willing to put upon your Readers and thereby suppose them to be the most silly Persons in Nature I acknowledge it were better if we could have Iob's Wish That this Day should perish and the Shadow of Death should cover it that it should not see the dawning of the Day nor should the Light shine upon it it were better to strike it out of the Calender and make our Ianuary terminate at the 29th and add these remaining Days to February Now I appeal to any Man of Common Sence and Ingenuity whether he can wrest these words to your malicious Design when they appear at first fight only a Rhetorical Flight whereby that Right Reverend Person would express the detestableness and horridness of the Fact which he bewailed that Day a way that all Orators have given themselves the liberty to declaim against any thing that was notoriously bad in its Nature and Consequences and yet so fond are you of these words in hopes by them to impose upon your credulous Reader that you repeat them again pag. 9. and sillily tell me you hope by them to have offered something to cool my red-hot Zeal for the Observation of that day Poor Man how much are you mistaken when these very Words carry so much in them of the Bishop's abhorrence of the Fact that if it was possible to raise my Opinion of the necessity of still keeping that Day they would contribute towards it The next thing that offers in your Book is an Epistle Dedicatory and pray let us see who are the Persons that are thought worthy to Patronize this modest and harmless Book that tells the Truth the Whole Truth and nothing but the Truth sure either the King and Queen or else the Lords of the Council are only fit to have their Names prefixt to a Book that defends the Rights of the Nation their Laws and Liberties against the Encroachments and Usurpations of a proud Nimrod and hardened Pharaoh and in plain English a merciless Tyrant as you are pleased in your wonted mannerly way to stile King Charles the First pag. 68. No no Sir your Common-wealths-Men are always for encreasing their Party and courting the Populace and therefore this famous Tract must be dedicated To all sincere Lovers of Old England inhabiting in the Parish of St. Buttolphs Aldgate London tho' when we come to examine these Words well I believe you will find you have mistaken your Men and will miss of your Aim in this Dedication If indeed you mean Old England as I am sure you ought to do and which really I believe and that upon good grounds you do not namely the Government of England by King Lords and Commons I do then assure you we have and I thank God for it abundance of those in Aldgate Parish who scorn to suffer themselves to be put upon by such insinuations as these are they love their Country and its Laws and Liberties and desire no more to see the Day wherein Ordinances supersede Acts of Parliament and Kings forced by Tumults from their Palaces and Subjects with armed Force assaulting their Natural Prince and Armies turning their Masters out of Doors and the Faithful and Loyal Nobility and Gentry thrown by the Hands of Violence and against all Law out of House and Home and many of them seeking their Bread in strange Countries who desire no more to see the Day when worthy Persons are forced up to London to compound for their Estates at Goldsmiths and Haber-dashers-Halls only for doing their Duties and standing by their Prince according to the Laws of the Land and the Oaths they had taken no more to see the Day wherein their King is Imprisoned denyed the Comfort of his Servants and Chaplains and at last murthered by a vile Brood a Generation of Vipers who neither fear God nor Man Sir If these be the Men you address to you have lost your Aim and your Letter will find no Welcome to my knowledge in the Parish of Aldgate as for others in my Parish and I know but few of them that are Lovers of Old England in your Sence that is Lovers of Old England as it consists of a very few Lords and half a House of Commons in opposition to and in an actual War with their Lawful Soveraign or as it consists of a Rump made up of Forty eight Persons assuming the Confidence to
vain they inveighed against Gondomar because he had informed the King and State that the Prince had a Disposition easie to be wrought upon to be made a Catholick Caba p. 329. But Sir these are real Truths and therefore not fit for the Pen of such a designing Demigogue as you are your business is by degrees to destroy the Monarchy and hope the wounding of this Great and Good Man's Reputation will contribute toward it and therefore no wonder we hear of none of his Vertues and in particular that of his constancy to the Religious Perswasions of his Mind It may be now you expect I should give myself the trouble to answer your first Letter but I will spare my self the labour because I understand it is recommended to a better Hand who understands the Records and Transactions of those times thoroughly and who I do not doubt in time will do you and your leud Book Justice for so I will still call it because it was leudly designed and had as leud an effect for it was the occasion of most of those unmannerly and undutiful Reflections that have been lately made against this excellent Prince both in City and Country which indeed was the only thing that provoked me to the Defence of that King and therefore Sir you that unprovoked began the Quarrel and stirred the Coles are the Makebate and not I who honestly defended a wronged and injured Person which is the Duty of every good Christian Man and will have the Answer of a good Conscience let such as you are rage and foam at Mouth never so much at it The next thing I shall take Notice of is the punishment of Doctor Leighton by representing of which in the blackest Colours you would beget in your Readers bad Thoughts of this excellent Prince and his Reign Sir It may be I am something of your mind that he met with hard Fate and such as if I had been in the World and one of his Judges with my present sence of things I should not have consented to But after all this Sir let me tell you Dr. Leighton was a great Transgressor and deserved a severe Punishment if it be true what Mr. Whitlock writes as I do not in the least question but it is for Mem. p. 14. he tells you his Crimes in these words Dr. Leighton a Scotchman for his Book entituled Sion's Plea dedicated to the last Parliament counselling them to kill all the Bishops by smiting them under the Fifth Rib and railing against the Queen calling her a Canaanite and Idolatress had the Sentence of the Star-Chamber Good Sir must it be Persecution to call such a foul-mouthed Person to an Account and to punish him Why truly then Laws and Governments are very silly and precarious things and Men may say and do what they lift which will certainly make a blessed World and the King's Reign must be bloody that secures itself against the Violence and Railing of the worst of Malefactors Sir Had any Man said or writ at this rate against your beloved Rump I know what Fate he must have met withal and you yourself would have called it Justice and not Persecution And now Sir before I come to your Scotch Affair a few words with you about Pryn Bastwick and Burton whose Story you recite at large in your Book and all with a design to blacken this Prince Sir I have looked into the Story of these three Men with some care and here if you please I will make you my Confessor And I must tell you it is no Credit to you for if I was to choose one for Modesty and Honesty I would as soon pitch upon a Jesuit as your self I do upon a full Consideration of the whole wish from my Heart that their Punishment had been some other way I do not think if it be lawful for a private Person as I am to pass a Judgment upon the Publick Actions of a then Legal Court that the way of punishing those Persons was not at all politick or prudent because not for the Interest as things then stood either of the King or the Church it gave too great an occasion for the designing Men of that Age to open their mouths and thereby to alienate the Hearts of the Common People from the Government and consequently prepared them to joyn with them in any Action of Revenge when time and opportunity should serve and if Bishop Laud had kept in his Study at that time and not appeared at all either to hear the Tryal or assist in the Sentence it had been better both for him and those Designs of Uniformity he had so much set his Heart upon Yet Sir for all that I do not think these three Men were wholly to be passed by because of their several Characters and Professions or that the Justice of the Nation ought to have been afraid of accounting with such bold Men as they shewed themselves Pray let any Man read over their several Writings which were the occasion of those severe Censures and if he be an unprejudiced and undesigning Person and yet commend them I will forfeit a great deal more than I am willing to lose Certainly more violent rude and unbecoming Reflections were never uttered such Sarcasms and Invectives such bare-faced Abuses as if they had got a Pattent from the Powers below to speak evil of Dignities Mr. Burton speaking of the Bishops instead of Pillars calls them Catterpillars instead of Fathers Step-Fathers with abundance of other Aspersions that truly are not fit to be named Dr. Bastwick breathes nothing but Fire and Brimstone and throws down his Thunderbolts upon the Heads of the Bishops as if he was the great Commander of the Clouds And I beg the Reader to take a taste of all the rest from one particular passage which I find in Mr. Whitlock Mem. p. 25. in his Answer to the Information against him in the Star-Chamber you have these words That the Prelates are Invaders of the King's Prerogative Contemners and Despisers of the Holy Scripture Advancers of Popery and Superstition Idolatry and Prophaneness also they abuse the King's Authority to the Oppression of his Loyal Subjects and therein exercise great Cruelty Tyranny and Injustice and in execution of those impious Performances they shew neither Wit Honesty nor Temperance nor are they either Servants of God or the King but of the Devil being Enemies to God and of every living thing that is good Which the said Dr. Bastwick is ready to maintain and Mr. Whitlock adds immediately to shew the wilfulness of the Man That none of his Friends could prevail with him to expunge this and other-like passages out of his Answer Now Sir pray tell me who can plead for such a Spirit as this is or what Government can suffer such Indignities and Provocations as these are As for Mr. Pryn he lived to see and rectifie a great many of his Errors and to be a Thorn in the sides of such Men as
Thousands flock at their Call and beset the Parliament and White-Hall it self not only to the Prejudice of that Freedom which is necessary to Great Councils and Judicatories but possibly to some Personal Danger of your Majesty and the Peers The vast Consequence of these Persons Malignity and of the Licentiousness of those Multitudes which follow them considered in most deep Care and zealous Affection for the Safety of your Sacred Majesty and the Parliament Our humble Petion is That in your Wisdoms you would be pleased to removed such Dangers by punishing the Ringleaders of these Tumults that your Majesty and the Parliament may be secured from such Insolencies hereafter For the suppressing of which in all Humility we offer our selves to wait upon You if You please hoping we shall appear as considerable in the way of Defence to our Gracious Sovereign the Parliament our Religion and the Establish'd Laws of the Kingdom as what Number soever shall audaciously presume to violate them So shall we by the Wisdom of your Majesty and the Parliament not only be vindicated from precedent Innovations but be secured from the future that are threatned and likely to produce more dangerous Effects than the former And we shall ever Pray c. And this I hope is enough to satisfie the World what a Calumniator our Author is as to this particular Another thing you offer to impose upon the World withall and to vilifie this great Prince is as if he was under no necessity by reason of the Tumults to leave White-Hall for you tell us they passed in a peaceable way armed with no other Weapons than Petitions and therefore they could not justly be called Tumults Certainly you are the most partial Man in the World but I do not wonder at it 't is your passionate Affection for the Good Old Cause that makes you at every Turn leap over Hedge and Ditch and stick at nothing tho never so false if it serve but to recommend your Cause to the heedless and unthinking Vulgar What did they pass peaceably when they with Clubs and Staffs in their Hands cryed out they would have no Groom-Porters Lodge at White-Hall but would speak with the King himself when they pleased When they beset the House of Lords Door and cryed out in a riotous manner Iustice Iustice when they entred the Abby at Westminster and broke the Organ and tore in pieces the Vestments of the Church when they threw stones at the Bishops as they were coming to do their Duties at the House of Lords when they beset the Bishop of Durhams Coach and in all probability if a Lord of their Party had not interposed between them and their fury they had murdered him he telling them he was a good Bishop and they answering him But hang him he is a Bishop for all that These were peaceable Men with a witness as innocent as wild Boars and as harmless as Tygers The truth of it is Sir you have been so bold in this assertion that you have given the Lye to almost all the Historians that have writ the Transactions of those Times even to your Friend Mr. Whitlook who in his Memorials gives quite another Account of these things as the Reader may inform himself if he pleases to consult him And Sir to let the World know how false your Relation as to this matter is I refer them to the Votes of the then Common-Council Decemb. 31. 1641. wherein after they had cleared themselves that neither the Court nor any particular Member had any hand in those tumultuous and riotous Proceedings and that they and every of them did disavow and disclaim the same they resolve That this Court as the Representative Body of the whole City do promise from henceforth their best endeavours to prevent and suppress in time to come as far as in them lies all such or the like tumultuous Assemblies and all mutinous and rebellious Persons Now Sir had these Men been such peaceable Men certainly the whole Representative Body of the City would never have dishonoured their Judgments by laying that to their Fellow-Citizens charge they were no ways guilty of But Sir some body owes you a shame and therefore helps you to vent such Lies as this is namely that the Citizens went in a peaceable manner armed with nothing but Petitions And truly from such apparent Falshoods as these are the Reader may better know how to rely upon any thing you assert Another Calumny with which you endeavour to reproach the Honour and Memory of this pious Prince is his unwillingness to issue out his Proclamations against the Irish Rebels and when he did commanding but forty to be Printed for which you produce an Order of Secretary Nicholas to the Printer The truth of it is was this Story true as you represent it and was it designed as you would fain make the World believe it was it would be an unexcusable fault in the King and strengthen the suspicion of too many bad Man as to his consenting to or at least conniving at that horrid Rebellion and therefore Good and Great Prince thou that didst so often bewail this Rebellion and didst offer to go in Person to suppress it thou whose Righteous Soul was vexed and grieved with the thoughts of thy Protestant Subjects Hardships and Sufferings by the hands of those notorious and Blood-thirsty Villains thou shalt here speak for thy self and by thy own Pen confute such a Diabolical Reflection as this Husbands Exact Coll. p. 247. TO countenance those unhandsome Expressions whereby usually they have implied our connivance at or want of Zeal against the Rebellion of Ireland so odious to all good Men they have found a new way of Exprobration That the Proclamation against those bloody Traytors came not out till the beginning of Ianuary tho' that Rebellion broke out in October and then by Special Command from us but forty Copies were appointed to be printed It 's well known where we were at that time when that Rebellion brake forth viz. in Scotland that we immediately from thence recommended the Care of that Business to both Houses of Parliament here after we had provided for all fitting Supplies from our Kingdom of Scotland That after our Return hither we observ'd all those Forms for that Service which we were advised to by our Council of Ireland or both Houses of Parliament here And if no Proclamation issued out sooner of which for the present we are not certain but think that others were issued out before that time by our Directions it was because the Lords Justices of the Kingdom desired them no sooner and when they did the Number they desired was but twenty which they advised might be sign'd by us Which we for Expedition of the Service commanded to be printed a Circumstance not required by them thereupon we signed more of them than our Justices desired all which was very well known to some Members of One or Both Houses of Parliament who have
the more to answer if they forbore to express it at the passing of this Declaration and if they forbore to express it we have the greater reason to complain that so envious an Aspersion should be cast on us to our People when they knew well how to answer their own Objection And now let the Reader judge what this piece of Impudence deserves for laying such a groundless flander at the Door of such a Person as King Charles was I could be very severe upon you for this horrid Lye and the more because your Party all over the Town hug this Falshood and make great use of it to reak their Malice upon the Name and Memory of this blessed Prince and Martyr I have but one thing more of this nature to take Notice of and that is who were the first Beginners of the War I know very well you and your whole Party have always vindicated the Justice of your Proceedings as if you were necessitated to take up Arms against the King because he first raised an Army to bring in Arbitrary Power Sir I have read over the Story as well as you and according to the best Information I can give myself from the best Authors the Parliament did really and indeed first draw the Sword and sound the Trumpet to Battel Was not mustering the Militia and seizing of Hull and denying the King Entrance into his own Garrison and the Command of his own Magazine entring into a State of Hostility and bidding Defiance to all just Subjection to their lawful Soveraign Did not they Vote before the King levied Men any other wise than to have a Guard of Gentlemen about his Person which any King in the World ought to have especially in such dangerous Times as those were That he intended to wage War against his People And afterwards did not they Vote an Actual War with him which I think implies a necessity or else it was done without Reason as I am very well satisfied it was And you need not have fallen so scurrilously upon me for the mistake of a word as to give me the Lye but good Manners I will never expect from a Man of your turbulent Temper and Principles And whereas the King set up his Standard at Nottingham in August did not the Lords and Commons in Iune before make an Order for bringing in of Money or Plate to maintain Horses Horse-men and Arms naming a General and other subordinate Officers which I think was beginning the War to purpose And truly Sir let me tell you I will believe that pious Prince and afterwards patient and couragious Martyr before Ten thousand such pestilent Persons as you by this Letter appear a Person of so venemous a nature that you turn every thing to Poyson you touch which good King tells us upon their voting his Intentions to enter into a State of War with his Parliament that he had no more Intentions to do any such thing than he had to make War with his own Children And who further when he came to look Death in the face with all his Holy Solemn and Divine Thoughts about him which is a time when we are ready and that upon good grounds to give Credit to the Assertions of Men who have lived very bad Lives much more of a Person whose Life in his Retirements had been so much with God as we may be satisfied from his heavenly Soliloquies and Meditations I say who even then discourses of this thing namely who were the Beginners of the War at this rate upon the mournful and dismal Scaffold I think it is my Duty to God first and then to my Country to clear myself both as an honest Man a good King and a good Christian I shall begin first with my Innocency All the World knows I did never begin a War with the Two Houses of Parliament and I call God to witness unto whom I shall shortly give an Account that I did never intend to encroach upon their Priviledges they began upon me it is the Militia they began upon they confessed the Militia was mine but they thought it fit to have it from me And to be short if any Body will look to the Date of Commissions of their Commissions and mine and likewise to the Declaration he will see clearly they began these unhappy Troubles and not I. And now all you Nations and Kindreds upon the Earth I appeal to you all whether a King just going to appear before the Great God of Heaven and Earth so prepared and so assured within himself of an incorruptible Crown is not to be believed before such a foul-mouthed such a scandalous and leud Miscreant as this Letter-writer is who values not the Reputation of Innocence itself if it stand in the way of his Lusts and Passions of his Revenge against Monarchy and Episcopacy And thus Sir I have answered and I hope to satisfaction your grand Impeachments and Accusations of this great and excellent Prince As for the other things with which you have stufft your Libel as The giving up the City for a Spoil to the Army c. tho' I wonder you missed the blowing up the Thames to drown the City I say alas Sir you must not think to catch some Birds and there are thanks be to God great Numbers of them in the Kingdom with such Chaff as this is And for the several Petitions and Addresses they made to His Majesty which you quote at large why all the World knows that the worst Undertakings have always been covered with the most specious and glittering Pretences that is a very bad Cause indeed that a Man of Wit and Parts a Man of Interest and Design cannot paint out in seemingly fair and taking colours But pray Sir how comes it to pass that we hear not one word from you of the King's Answers and the Noble Defences he made for himself against all those Pretences of Glory and Honour to him and of Peace and Happiness to the Kingdom No Sir your business was not to do Right to his Memory but to draw him out in the blackest hue that so you might serve the future Designs of your Party namely to extirpate Monarchy and overthrow the Ancient Constitution of the Kingdom And therefore I desire some good Man would with the leave of him who has Mr. Royston's Right to those famous Works of King Charles print some of those Declarations of his and especially that large one of August 1642 wherein all his Enemies Cheats and Tricks are display'd and discovered to the full Or else I wish That every Parish in England at the Publick Charge of the Parish would buy the whole Book itself and chain it up in some Publick Place so that all good Men might have recourse to it in order to inform their Minds of the true Merits of the Cause betwixt this great Prince and his Enemies which if done I am sure the good People of England would quickly be convinced what little reason