Polo Dic divina mihi tractans aenigmata coeli Haec oriens nobis quid sibi stella velit Magnus in occiduo Princeps modo nascitur orbe Moxque sub eclipsi regna oriâ—ntis erunt When to Paul's Cross the gratefull King drew near A shining Star did in the Heavens appear Thou that consult'st with divine Mysteries Tell me what this bright Comet signifies Now is there born a valiant Prince i' th' West That shall eclipse the Kingdoms of the East But this Star now appearing some say was the Planet Venus others Mercury the Sign of Merlin's Prophecy The splendour of the Sun shall languish by the paleness of Mercury and it shall be dreadfull to the beholders Any Planet says the Astrologer within its Degrees of the Sun is very unfortunate And Mercury being the Lord of the Ascendent and Mid-heaven was a chief Significator of the Prince his person who being afflicted by the presence of the Sun yet miraculously God did by his power make this Star shine bright in a clear Sun-shine day which was contrary to Nature The German Empire much weakned from the former greatness partly by the Popes in Italy advancing themselves and the Papal Authority besides the translation of the Seat to Constantinople and much diminished by several pretexts of Provinces and Towns and Kingdoms have loosened themselves from this great Body But the principal subject of all is drawn from the diversities of Doctrines heretofore resolved into two Professions Roman Catholick and the Confession of Auxburgh or Lutheran with the ambition of the House of Austria too powerfull both in Spain and the Low-cuntreys Theâ— temperament in Religion was concluded in the Contract of Passavia the Protestants to enjoy all their former Ecclesiastical Possessions and to rest in perpetuity to the Catholicks but not performed And Complaints arising by many of the States of Germany against the House of Austria continuing their greatness about two hundred years in Imperial Dignity as if hereditary and having increased Victories by humbling the King of Denmark and the Protestant party chastized Bethlem Gabor destroyed the Peasants of Austria deprived the Prince Palatine of his States Mansfield dead and the Empire at quiet The Emperour too much partial to the Catholick Complaints against the Protestants concerning their Divisions in reference to the Composition of Passavia which the Protestant Princes were resolved not to be wrested from them and for the maintenance of which they were resolved to call in Strangers The Emperour the sixth of March 1629. commands the render of all Ecclesiastical Goods taken after the Contract of Passavia This Sentence was so hard of digestion to the Protestants somewhat like the Exaction of the Tenth Penny upoâ— the Low-countreys by the Duke d' Alva that they protest to oppose it and petition for Suspension till the Decision of a general Diet at Ratisbone at the same time when News came thither of the King of Sweden's entrance with an Army into Germany which made the Protestant Ambassadors peremptory for the Revocation of the former Edict and it being refused they got all away and met at Leipsick Herein the Emperour receives his first check and prosecuted with Confederations and Leagues and Strangers called in the ambition of Spain was universally canvased nay the People in general Protestant and Papist were wilde for a change according to their several self-interests The Prince Electour Palatine had invitation to put in his Plea for his Restauration and thither he sends his Agent not without his particular address hither to his Uncle King Charls to countenance his entertainment at the Diet with an Ambassadour of his own for mediation and the Imployment fell upon Sir Robert Amstroder concerning the Pressures and Relief of the Palsgrave whose Message was in effect That nothing could affect his Master the King of Great Brittain more than the consideration of the daily calamities undergone by his Brother in Law the Prince Elector his Wife and Children That no place was more expedient to treat of Reconâ—iliation and re-establishment than in the Diet therefore he made it his most ardent Request to his Imperial Majesty that having regard to the many Intercessions of his late Father and other Kings and Princes he would remit the displeasure conceived against his Brother and recall the Proscription issued out against him True it was his Brother had offended and was inexcusably guilty unless the rashness or precipitation of youth may somewhat plead for him but others had been as culpable whom yet his Imperial Majesty had received into favour And would he be pleased to extend to him the same clemency it would oblige his Master to demonstrations of deepest gratitude and raise a glorious emulation in others to imitate so excellent a Patern That the Palsgrave would entertain this favour with an heart so firmly devoted to his service as all the intention of his spirit should be disposed to compensation and reparation of his former miscarriage That his Master held nothing so dear as the affection of his Imperial Majesty and establishment of a durable Peace between them And as upon all occasions he hath been forward to represent himself solicitous for it so at this time he is ready to give more ample testimony if his Imperial Majesty be pleased to incline to a Treaty This was fair and full of respect which gained civilities to the Ambassadour But that the present affairs of Germany which occasioned the Diet were so important as may not admit any foreign debate and yet when opportunity and leisure afforded the King of Great Brittain should receive such satisfaction as would be agreeable to their honour and assurance they hoped to his content And this was all the form and effect of his Ambassie Doctor Leighton a Presbyterian Scot full of fire had intituled a Book Sions Plea and dedicated it to the last Parliament counselling them to make quick work to kill all the Bishops by smiting them under the fifth rib Railing at the Queen whom he called a Canaanite and Idolatress How he might have sped with them then his confidence gave him good hopes But now in power of the King he was sentenced in Star-chamber his Body to be whipt his Forehead stigmatized his Ears cropt and his Nose slit but though he escaped out of the Fleet he was got again by the Warden in Bedfordshire and these Punishments executed upon him to the full purpose The Peace with Spain was pieced in November the same in effect formerly made up by King Iames and Philip the third but for the Palatinate that the King of Spain should dispose all his interest in the Emperour towards the Restitution of the Prince Electour this was so much as for that present could be gotten and as the Kings affairs permitted more could not be quarrelled The end of November Sunday the 27. proclaimed it in great solemnity and two days after sworn unto in the Chapel at Whitehall the King and the
the Sea of blood as he was to deliver the three Children from the Furnace and I most humbly thank my Saviour for it my Resolution is now as theirs was then They would not worship the Image the King had set up nor I the Imaginations which the people are setting up I will not forsake the Temple and truth of God to follow the bleating of Jeroboams Calf in Dan or in Bethel As for this People they are at this day miserably mis-led God of his mercy open their eyes that they may see the right way for now the Blinde do lead the Blindâ— and if they go on both will certainly fall into the ditch For my self I am and I acknowledg it in all humility a most grievous sinner many wayes by thought word and deed and I cannot doubt but God hath mercy in store for me a poor penitent as well as for other sinners I have now upon this sad occasion ransacked every corner of my Heart and yet I thank God I have not found among the many any one sin which deserves death by any known Law of this Kingdom And yet hereby I charge nothing upon my Iudges for if they proceed upon proof by valuable witnesses I or any other Innocent may be justly condemned but I thank God though the weight of the sentence lyes heavy upon me I am as quiet within as ever I was in my life And though I am not only the first Arch-bishop but the first man that ever died by an Ordinance of Parliament yet some of my Predecessors have gone this way though not by this meanes For Elphegus was burried away and lost his head by the Danes Symon Sudbury was beheaded in the fury of Wat Tyler and his fellows and long before these St. John Baptist had his head danced off by a lewd woman And St. Cyprian Arch-bishop of Carthage submitted his head to the persecuting sword Many examples great and good and they teach me patience for I hope my Cause in heaven will look of an other dye then the colour which is put upon it here And some comfort it is to me not only that I go the way of these great men in their several generations but also that my Charge as foul as it is made looks like that of the Jewes against St. Paul Acts 25. For he was accused for the Law and the Temple that is the Law and Religion And like that of St. Stephen Acts 6. for breaking the Ordinances which Moses gave that is Law and Religion the holy place and the Law verse 13. But you 'l say do I compare my self with the integrity of St Paul and St. Stephen No far be it from me I only raise a Comfort to my self that these great Saints and Servants of God were laid at in their several times as I am now And it is memorable that St. Paul who helped on the Accusation against St. Stephen did after fall under the very same Accusation himself Yea but here 's a great Clamour that I would have brought in Popery I shall answer that more fully by and by In the mean time you know what the Pharisees said against Christ himself If we let him alone all men wâ—ll believe in him Et venient Romani and the Romans will come and take away both our place and Nation Here was a Causelesse Cry against Christ that the Romans would come And see how just the judgment of God was they Crucified Christ for fâ—ar the Romans should come and his death was it which brought in the Romans upon them God punishing them with that they most feared and I pray God that this Clamour of Venient Romani of which I have given no cause help not to bring them in for the Pope never had such a Harvest in England since the Reformation as he hath now upon the Sects and Divisions that are amongst us In the mean time by Honour and dishonour by good report and evil report as a deceiver and yet true am I passing through this world 2 Cor. 6. 8. Some other particulars I think not amisse to speak of And first for His Sacred Majesty the King our gracious Soveraigne He also hath been much traduced for bringing in of Popery but on my Conscience of which I shall give God a very present accompt I know him to be as free from this Charge as any man living and I hold him to be as sound a Protestant according to the Religion by Law established as any man in this Kingdom And that He will venture His Life as far and as freely for it and I think I do or should know both His affection to Religion and His grounds for it as fully as any man in England The second particular is concerning this great and Populous City which God bless Here hath been of late a fashion taken up to gather hands and then go to the great Court the Parliament and clamour for Iustice as if that great and wise Court before whom the Causes come which are unknown to the many could not or would not do Iustice but at their appointment A way which may endanger many an Innocent man and pluck his blood upon their own heades and perhaps upon this City also and this hath been lately practised against my self the Magistrates standing still and suffering them openly to proceed from Parish to Parish without Check God forgive the abetters of this with all my heart I beg it but many well meaning people are caught by it In St. Stephen's case when nothing else could serve they stirred up the people against him and when Herod had killed St. James he would not venture on St. Peter till he found how the other pleased the people But beware you that cry so much for Justice lest when you cry for your selves you have nothing but Justice take heed take heed of having your hands full of blood for there is a time best known to Himself when God above other sins makes inquisition for blood and when that inquisition is on foot he Psalmist tels us That God remembers that 's not all He Remembers and forgets not the complaint of the poor that is him whose blood is shed by oppression verse 9. take heed of this It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God but then especially when he is making inquisition for blood And with my praiers to avert it I do heartily desire this City to remember the prophesie that is expressed Jer. 26. 15. The third Particular is the poor Church of England It hath flourisheâ— and been a shelter to other neighbouring Churches when storms have driven â—pon them But alas now 't is in a storm it self and God only knowes whether or how it shall get out and which is worse then a storm from without it 's become like an Oaâ— cleft to shivers with wedges made out of its own body and at every cleft Prophaness and Irreligion are entering in while as
Against abuses committed on Sundays The King to make Leases of Lands parcel of his Dutchy of Cornwall For ease of obtaining Licences of Alienation and in the Pleadings of Pardon in the Exchequer or else where For restraining Misbehaviour in Inns and Alehouses That this Session shall not determine by his Majesties royal assent to these Acts. Then passed a Bill in the Lower House of Tonnage and Poundage but because it was limited to one year whereas former Grants to his Majesties Predecessors were for Life It was foundred in the Upper House The Reason of this Restraint was thus In a Parliament the 18. of King Iames the Kings learned Councill culled out of that Act reasons for pretermitted Customes and other Impositions which were accounted Grievances to the Subject and an Imoderate charge upon those Customes and therefore their Design was to reduce them to the rate settled long since tempore Mariae but they wanted time enough to mold it now The next Assembly met the first day of August at Oxford The Divinity School for the Commons and the Gallery above for the Lords Hence is observed a pretty Note To give up the Divinity-School to the Commons and that Chair to their Speaker put them into an usurpation of Determinations of Divinity and henceforward no Parliaments without a Committee of Religion of Lay-Persons not onely to mannage controversies of Divinity but to ruine the old and to establish a New And because the Kings designes required Expedition He summons both Houses to Christ-Church Hall where he urged to them his Necessities for setting forth his Fleet. But his desires found no other consideration than for a formal Petition against Recusants and the causes of their increase with the Remedies Most Gracious Soveraâ—gn IT being infallibly true that nothing can more establish your Throne and assure the peace and prosperity of your People then the unity and sincerity of Religion We your Majesties most humble and loyal Subjects and Commons in this present Parliament assembled observing that of late there is an apparent mischievous encrease of Papists within your Dominions hold our selves bound in conscience and duty to present the same unto your sacred Majesty together with the dangerous consequences and what we conceive to be the most principal causes and what may be the remedies thereof 1. Their desperate ends being the subversion both of Church and State and the restlessness of their Spirits to attain those ends The Doctrine of their Teachers and Leaders perswading them that therein they shall do God good Service 2. Their evident and strict dependance upon such Foreign Princes as no way affect the good of your Majesty and this State 3. An opening a way of Popularity to the ambition of any who shall adventure to make himself head of so great a party The principal causes of the increase of Papists 1. The want of due execution of the Laws against Iesuits seminary Priests and Papists Recusants occasioned partly by Connivance of the State partly by many abuses of Officers 2. The interposing of foreign Princes by their Ambassadours and Agents in favour of them 3. Their great Concourse to the City and their frequent conventicles and conferences there 4. The Education of their children in Houses and Seminaries of their Religion in foreign parts which of late have been greatly multiplied and enlarged for the entertainment of the English 5. That in many places of this your Realm your people are not sufficiently instructed in the knowledge of true Religion 6. The licentious publishing of Popish and seditious Books 7. The imployment of men ill affected in Religion in places of Government who countenance the Popish party The Remedies be these 1. That there be great Care taken in the choise and admitting School-Masters and that the Ordinaries make diligent inquiries of their demeanours and proceed to the removing of such as shall be faulty 2. That the antient Discipline of the University be restored being the famous Nursery of literature 3. That for the propagation of the Gospel such able Ministers as have been formerly silenced may by fair entreaty of the Bishops be reduced to the service of the Church and that Non-residency Pluralities and Commendums may be moderated 4. That a straight provision may be made against transporting of English children to Popish Seminaries beyond Seas and for recalling such as are there already 5. That no Popish Recusant be permitted to come within the Court unless upon special occasion agreeable to the Statute 3â— Iacobi 6. That all Jesuits Priests and others having taken Orders from the See of Rome may be banished by Proclamation and in case of disobedience may be proceeded against according to the Laws of the Land 7. That none by any authority derived from the See of Rome be permitted to confer Orders or exercise any Ecclesiastical function within your Majesties Dominions 8. That all former Grants of Recusants lands made to the use and interest of such Recusants may by the advice of your Majesties Council be voided 9. That all Recusants may be excommunicated and not absolved but upon conformity 10. That all Recusants be removed from places of authority and government 11. That all Recusants be disarmed according to the provision of the Law 12. That they may be all confined to remain at their Country habitations and not to travel above five miles from thence 13. That none of your Majesties natural born Subjects be suffered to repair to the hearing of Masses or other superstitious service at the Chappels or houses of foreign Ambassadours or elsewhere 14. That all such insolencies as any Popishly affected have lately committed to the dishonour of our Religion be exemplarily punished 15. That the penalâ—y of 12. d. every Sunday for default of coming to Divine Service in the Church without lawful excuse may be put in Execution Lastly that your Majesty would be pleased to order that the like courses may be taken in Ireland for the establishing of true Religion there The Kings Answer was so satisfactory and sodain to each particular being heretofore branched to his Father and the remedies resolved upon them and now so reasonably required as that the King took him from hence to speak for himself and to put them to it to supply his very urgent Necessities to set forth his Navy It found affection in some earnest to give and to satisfie the present occasion with expedition Others having no heart to deny nor willing to contribute but cunningly to gain convenient time as to prejudice the Design which was to be sodain and there were these the most averse that quarreled not the Expedition for it was secret and so ought to be but old Sir Robert Mansel a quarrelous person for his interest in the Glass house then in dispence must be set up a Man of great Experience and sound Judgement but where in the Narrow Seas And he by Guess had declared against the Design and tendered some overtures
solely intrusted with the person of the prince should leave behind him in a foreign Court so much scandal by his ill behaviour 10. That he hath been a great part the cause of the ruine of the Prince Palatine and his estate in so much as those affairs concern this kingdom 11. That he hath in his relation to both Houses of Parliament wronged the Earl of Bristow in his honour by many sinister aspersions 12. Lastly that the Earl of Bristow did reveal to his late Majesty both by word and letter in what sort the Duke had misdemeaned himself and abused his trust and the King by several wayes sent him word he should rest assured that he would hear the said Earl in due time and that four dayes before his sicknesse he signified to the Earl that he would hear him against the Duke as well as he had heard the Duke against him And not long after the King died having been much vexed and pressed with the said Duke Here is no High Treason herein mentioned if the charge were proved then no Traytor at all neither most nor least for indeed had this done it the Commons needed not their new Impeachment which followes and never amounted to more than Misdemeanors Misprisions Offences and Crimes Nothing rare with favourites and therefore never such pursued upon any before this person and these times Which might occasion an antient Baron the Lord Spencer To start up that was no upstart Lord and to demand Is this all you have to say against the Duke The Earl replyed Yes my Lord and I am sorry it is so much then quoth the Lord Spencer If this be all Ridiculus Mus and so sat down again Upon this a Crotchet took the Lord Cromwel in the Crown and out he goes to Mr. Richard Spencer a younger Son of that Lord and a great Zelot in the Lower house against the Duke Dick said he What is done in your House to day against the Duke My Lord said he he is charged with high Treason Tush Dick quoth the Lord High Treason If this be all Ridiculus Mus. The Charge I say might occasion this story of the Lords complements which out of doubt was told to the Historian for truth though couched in this wanton stile not usuâ—l with his gravity I confess And indeed if Mr. Richard Spencer have not forsaken his Memory he professes there was never any such confabulation with any Crotchet of Cromwells Crown and desires the Author to expunge it out of his next impression and me to excuse him in this But such a Charge as it was It served the turn for that time but not to prevent the Attornies Charge against the Eaâ—l which to my knowledge was framed long before and therefore needed no speeding as to prevention Yet being ready It was put in the next day abating one of the Earls number against the Duke for these were but Eleven Articles First That the said Earl being imployed by the late King Iames as his Ambassadour unto Ferdinando Emperour of Germany and unto Philip the fourth King of Spain in the years 1621 1622 and 1623. with Commission to treat with them for the plenary restitution of the Palatinate to the Count Palatine who maried the Lady Elizabeth the onely Daughter of his late Majesty and also to treat with the King of Spain for a Mariage to be had between his now Majesty then Prince of Wales and the Lady Donna Maria the Infanta of Spain did falsly trayterously and confidently inform the late King by sundry Letters That the said Emperour and King of Spain would really make restitution of the Dominions and Electoral dignity of the said Count Palatine and that the said King of Spain did really intend the Mariage aforesaid Whereas in truth the said Emperour and King or either of them never really intended such restitution and the King of Spain never intended the said Mariage whereof the Earl could not be ignorant whereby the the Dominions and Electorall Dignity aforesaid were utterly lost Secondly That the said Earl having received from his late Majesty particular directions to put the King of Spain to a speedy and punctual answer touching the Treaties aforesaid did nevertheless continue those Treaties upon Generalities without effectuall pressing the King of Spain to particular Conclusions sutable to his Instructions Thirdly that the said Earl to the intent to discourage the late King from taking up of Arms or entring into Hostility with the said King of Spain did many times both by word and letters to him and his Ministers extoll the greatnesse and power of the King of Spain and did cunningly strive to retard the late Kings Resolutions of declaring himself an Enemy to the King of Spain Fourthly That the said Earl being told upon his dispatch out of this Realm that there was little probability that these Treaties would have any good successe he then replyed He cared not what the successe thereof would be for he would take care to have his instructions perfect and to pursue them punctually and howsoever the businesse went he would make his fortunes thereby Fifthly that the said Earl on purpose to advance the Romish Religion did during the time aforesaid often by Letters and otherwise counsell and perswade his late Majesty to set at liberty Iesuits and Priests of the Romish Religion which were imprisoned according to the laws of the Land and to grant the Papists a Toleration of their Religion Sixthly That by the said Earls false Informations and Intelligences given to the late King and now his Majesty then Prince they were put into hopes and by long delayes they were put into jealousies concerning the said Treaties that there was not that sincerity in them which they expected Whereupon the said Prince his now Majesty was enforced to undertake in his own person a long and dangerous Journey into Spain intending either speedily to conclude the said Treaties or to discover the feigned Intentions of the Emperoâ—r and King of Spain and thereupon to dissolve them By which Journey the Person of the said Prince and in Him the peace and safety of this Kingdom was brought into apparent danger Seventhly That at the Prince his first coming to the said Earl in Spain he asked the Prince For what he came thither The Prince at first not conceiving the Earls meaning answered You know as well as I. The Earl replyed Sir Give me leave to tell you they say here in Madrid that you mean to change your Religion and added further Sir I do not speak this that I will perswade you to it or that I will promise to follow your example though you do it but as your faithful servant if you will trust me with so great a secret I will endeavour to carry it in the secretest way I can At which the Prince being moved said unto him I wonder what yoâ— have ever found in me that you should conceive I would be so base as for a wife to change
my Religion The Earl replying desired the Prince to pardon him if he had offended him saying It was but out of his desire to serve him Whereas it had been the duty of a faithful servant to God and his Master to have disswaded the Prince from it had he found him staggering in his Religion Eighthly That he afterward having Conference with the Prince about the Romish Religion trayterously endeavoured to perswade him to turn Romish Catholique using an Argument to that end That the State of England never did nor could possibly do any great thing but when obedient to the Pope of Rome Ninthly That during the time aforesaid the Prince advising with the Earl about a new Offer by the King of Spain That the Prince Palatine should marry the Emperours Daughter â—e brought up in his Court and so should be restored to the Palatinate The Earl said It was a reasonable Proposition And when the danger of changing his Religion was objected the Earl replyed That without some such great Act the peace of Christendom could never be procured Tenthly That the Prince departing from Spain and leaving the Powers of Disposorios with the said Earl to be delivered upon the return of his Dispensation from Rome the Prince fearing lest after the Dispensation the Infanta might be put into a Monastery wrote a Letter back to the Earl commanding him not to make use of those Powers untill he could give him assurance that a Monastery should not rob him of his Wife which Letter the Earl receiving returned an answer disswading that Direction Shortly after which the Prince sent another Letter discharging him of his former Command But his late Majesty by the same Messenger sent him a more express Direction Not to deliver the Disposorios until a full conclusion had concerning the Palatinate adding this expression That he would never joy to marry his Son and to leave his onely Daughter weeping In which Dispatch though there was some mistake yet in the next following it was corrected and the Earl tied to his former Restrictions which he promised punctually to observe Neverthelesse contrary to his Duty and Allegiance he after set a day for the Disposorios without any assurance or so much as treating of those things to which he was restrained and that so short a day that if extraordinary diligence with good successe in the Journey had not concurred the Princes hands might have been bound up and yet he never sure of a Wife nor the Prince Palatine of Restitution Lastly That in an high an contemptuous manner he hath preferred a scandalous Petition to this Honourable House to the dishonour of the late King and his now Majesty especially one Article of that Petition wherein he gives his now Majesty the Lye by denying and offering to falsifie what his Majesty had affirmed There needs no strain of partiality to implead the difference of these charges assuredly if the Earls charge against the Duke could have served the turn It might have spared the Commons Impeachment the other comming far short of the designe which was to do it to the purpose And therefore This weighty Cause was managed by six Members Mr. Glanvil Mr. Herbert Ma. Selden Mr. Pim Mr. Wans ford Mr. Sherland to them was added Sr. Dudly Diggs as Prolocutor and Sr. Iohn Elliot brought up the Rear And so though the matter of the Prologue may be spared being made up with Elegancy yet rather then it shall be lost you may please to read it at this length My Lords THere are so many things of great importance to be said in very little time this day that I conceive it will not be unacceptable to your Lordships if setting by all Rhetorical affectations I onely in plain Country language humbly pray your Lordships favour to include many excuses necessary to my manifold infirmities in this one word I am commanded by the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Commons house to present unto your Lordships their most affectionate thanks for your ready condescending to this Conference which out of confidence in your great wisdoms and approved Justice for the service of his Majesty and the welfare of this Realm they desired upâ—â— this occasion The House of Commons by a fatal and universal concurrence of complaints from all the Sea-bordering parts of this Kingdom did find a great and griâ—vous interruption and stop of Trade and Traffique The base Pirats of Sally ignominiously infesting our Coasts taking our ships and goods and leading away the Subjects of this Kingdom into barbarous Captivity while to our shame and hinderance of Commerce our enemies did as it were besiege our Ports and block up our best Rivers mouths 〈◊〉 Friends on flight pretences made embargoes of our Merchants goods and every Nation upon the least occasion was ready to contemn and slight us So great was the apparent diminution of the ancient honour of this Crown and once strong reputation of our Nation Wherewith the Commons were more troubled calling to remembrance how formerly in France in Spain in Holland and every where by Sea and Land the Valours of this Kingdom had been better valued and even in latter times within remembrance when we had no Alliance with France none in Denmark none in Germany no Friend in Italy Scotland to say no more ununited Ireland not setled in peace and much less security at home when Spain was as ambitious as it is now under a King Philip the second they called their wisest the House of Austria as great and potent and both strengthened with a malitious League in France of persons ill-affected when the Low-countreys had no being yet by constant counsels and old English wayes even then that Spanish pride was cool'd that greatness of the house of Austria so formidable to us now was well resisted and to the United Provinces of the Low countreys such a beginning growth and strength was given as gave us honour over all the Christian World The Commons therefore wondring at the Evils which they suffered debating of the causes of them found they were many drawn like one Line to one Circumference of decay of Trade and strength of Honour and of Reputation in this kingdom which as in one Centre met in one great man the Cause of all whom I am here to name the Duke of Buckingham Here Sir Dudly Diggs made a stand as wondring to see the Duke present Yet he took the Roll and read the Preamble to the charge with the Dukes long Titles and then went on My Lords This lofty Title of this mighty Man me thinks doth raise my spirits to speak with a Paulo majora canamus and let it not displease your Lordships if for foundation I compare the beautiful Structure and fair composition of this Monarchy wherein we live to the great work of God the World it self in which the solid body of incorporated Earth and Sea as I conceive in regard of our Husbandry Manufactures and Commerce by Land and Sea may
Ships richly laden in their usual course of Trade the Duke moved the Lords then assembled in Parliament to know whether he should make stay of those Ships for the Service of the State which motion being approved by the Lords the Duke accordingly did stay those ships and after procured a joynt Action to be entred in the Court of Admiralty in the name of the late King and himself as Lord Admirall against 15000 lib. pretended to be Pyratically taken by some Captains of the said Merchants ships and in the hands of the said Captains and accordingly an Attachment was served upon the said Merchants Whereupon the said Merchants being urged to bring in the 15000 lib. or to go to Prison made new suit to the Duke for the release of their ships who pretending that the Parliament must be moved therein the Merchants much perplexed and considering that they should lose much by unlading their ships and the losse of their voyage resolved to tender to the said Duke ten thousand pounds for his unjust demand who by colour of his Office extorted and exacted from them the said ten thousand pounds and upon receipt thereof and not before released the said ships That the motion in Parliament about the stay of the East-India ships was onely upon apprehension that they might be serviceable for the defence of the Realm That the Action entred in the Court of Admiralty against the East-India Company was not after as is suggested but divers moneths before that motion in Parliament yea before the Parliament began That the composition mentioned in this Article was not moved by the Duke but made by the late King and that the Company without any menaces or compulsion agreed to the Composition as willing to give so much rather then to abide the hazzard of the suit That of the said sum all but two hundred pounds was imployed by his late Majesties Officers for the benefit of the Navie And lastly that those ships were not discharged upon payment of the said sum of ten thousand pounds but upon an accommodation allowed that they should prepare other ships for his Majesties service whilest they went on their Voyage which accordingly they did VII Reply 7. That the Duke being great Admirall of England did by colour of the said Office procure one of the principall ships of the Navy-Royal called the Vant-guard and six other Merchants ships of great burthen to be conveyed over with all their Ordnance Ammunition and apparel into the Kingdom of France and did compell the said Masters and Owners of the said ships to deliver the said ships into the possession and command of the French King and his Ministers without either sufficient security for their redelivery or necessary caution in that behalf contrary to the duty of his Office and to the apparent weakening of the Navall strength of this Kingdom That those Ships were lent to the French King without his privity that when he knew thereof he did what appertained to his Office That he did not by menace nor any undue practice by himself or any other deliver those ships into the hands of the French that what errour hath since happened was not in the intention any way injurious to the State nor prejudicial to the interest of any private man VIII Reply 8. That the Duke knowing the said ships were intended to be imployed against the Rochellers and the Protestants else-where did compel them as aforesaid to be delivered unto the said French King and his Ministers to the end that they might be imployed against those of the Reformed Religion as accordingly they were to the prejudice of the said Religion contrary to the intention of our Soveraigne Lord the King and to his former promise at Oxford and to the great scandal of our Nation That understanding a discovery that those ships should be imployed against Rochel he endevoured to divert the course of such imployment and whereas it is alledged that he promised at Oxford that those ships should not be so imployed he under favour saith he was mis-understood for he onely said that the event would shew it being confident in the promises of the French King and that he would have really performed what was agreed upon IX Reply 9. That he hath enforced some who were rich though unwilling to purchase honours as the Lord Roberts Baron of Trure who was by menaces wrought to pay the summe of Ten thousand pounds to the said Duke and to his use for his said Barony He denyeth any such compulsion of the Lord Roberts to buy his honour and that he can prove that as the said Lord did then obtain it by the solicitations of others so was he willing formerly to have given a great sum for it X. Reply 10. That in the 18. year of the late King he did procure of the late King the Office of High Treasurer of England to the Viscount Mandevil now Earl of Manchester for which Office he received of the said Viâ—count to his own use the sum of 20000 l. of money and also did procure in the 20. year of the late King the Office of Master of the Wards and Liveries for Sir Lionel Cranfield afterward Earl of Middlesex and as a reward for the said procurement he had to his own use of the said Sir Lionel Cranfield the sum of 6000 l. contrary to the dignity of his late Majesty That he had not nor did receive any penny of the said sums to his own use that the Lord Mandevil was made Lord Treasurer by his late Majesty without any Contract for it and though his Majesty did after borrow of the said Lord 20000. pounds yet was it upon proviso of repayment for which the Duke at first past his word and after entred him security by Land which stood ingaged untill his late Majesty during the Dukes being in Spain gave the Lord satisfaction by Land in Fee-farm of a considerable value whereupon the Dukes security was returned back And that the 6000 l. disbursed by the Earl of Middlesex was bestowed upon Sir Henry Mildmay by his late Majesty without the Dukes privity who had and enjoyed it all entire XI Reply 11. That he hath procured divers Honours for his kindred and Allies to the prejudice of the antient Nobility and disabling the Crown from rewarding extraordinary virtues in future times That he believeth he were rather worthily to be condemned in the opinion of all generous minds if being in such favour with his Majesty he had minded only his own advancement and had neglected those whom the Law of Nature had obliged him to hold most dear XII Reply 12. That he procured and obtained of the late King divers Mannors parcels of the Revenues of the Crown to an exceeding greâ—â— value and hath received and â—o his own use disbursed great sums of money that did properly belong unto the late King and the better to colour his doings hath obtained severall privie Seals from
semblance of hardship or Invasion upon the Subjects Liberties which the very Papists in this the better Partners seemed more really to resent and offered in lieu of some favour to them in the penal Lawes not Toleration to contribute very largely to the safeguard of the Narrow Seas which put the State into present condition rather to collect their Arrears of Thirds due to the King by Law It appeared not for private gain but extream necessity of State which involved all and therefore with possible endevours the Naval Forces were to be compleated for the summer But let us passe over to Ireland to see what they do there It was Michaelmas Term in Ireland when the Papists there offered Propositions to maintain five hundred Foot for a more Toleration of Religion but the Protestants to pertake in some measure of the charge To that end a great concourse of the Nation of both professions appeared before the Lord Deputy Fawkland in the Castle of Dublin but the Primate and Bishops in their Assembly prevented their further proceedings subscribing to a Protestation as their judgement concerning Toleration of Popery That the Religion of the Papists is Superstitious and Idolatrous their Faith and Doctrine erronious and hereticall their Church in respect of both Apostaticall To give them therefore a Toleration or to consent that they may freely exercise their Religion and professe their Faitb and Doctrine is a grievoâ—s sin and that in two respects For first It is to make our selves accessary not only to their superstitious Idolatries Heresies and in a word to all the abominates of Poperty but also which is a consequent of the former to the perdition of the seduced people which perish in the Deluge of the Catholique Apostacy 2. To grant them Toleration in respect of any money to be given or Contribution to be made by them is to set Religion to sale and with it the souls of people whom Christ our Saviour hath redeemed with his most precious blood And as it is a great sinne so also a matter of most dangerous consequence the consideration whereof we commend to the wise and judicious Beseeching the zealous God of Truth to make them who are in Authority zealous of Gods Glory and of the advancement of true Religion zealous resolute and couragious against all Popery Superstition and Idolatry Amen Ja Armachanus Auth Medensis Ro Dunensis c. Richard Cork Cloyne Rosses Tho Kilmore Ardagh Mich. Waterford Lismore Mal Casohellen Tho Hernes Laughlin Geo Deceus Andr Alachadeus Theo Dromore Franc Lymrick Conferred and agreed upon 6 Nov. 1626. And this their judgement in April 23 after 1627. Dr. Downham Bishop of Derry at the next Assembly and before the Lord Deputy Falkland and his Council took occasion to publish in the midst of his Sermon His preamble herein was That many amongst us for gain and outward respects are ready to consent to a Toleration of false Religion and are guilty of putting to sale their own and others souls and so unwilling to deliver his own private opinion onely but the judgements of the Arch-Bishop and Bishops which he thinks good to publish to them to cleer themselves from consenting To which the people gave their vote Amen But then he went on Not hereby said he to hinder the Kings service for we desire that not onely the sole Army of 5500 may be maintained but also a far greater Army besides the trained Souldiers onely he wished that the King would reserve to himself the most of those peculiar Graces of late offered and granted to the dishonour of God and the King the prejudice and Impeachment of true Religion and what is wanting might be supplied by the County to which he exhorted all good Christians and faithfull subjects The Text the Bishop took was Luke 1. 25. 23 24 25. verses speaking against mens subordinating Religion and the keeping a good Conscience for worldly respects and to set their souls to sale for gain of earthly things The L. Primate preached the next day before the same Auditory and took his Text 1 Ioh. 5. 15. Love not the World nor the things that are in the World when he made the like application as the Bishop did rebuking such who for ready gain like Iudas sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver or as Balaam following the wages of unrighteousnesse c. foretelling as he had often the judgement for these our Inclinations to such permissions and Tolerations and spake as Ieremiah did to Baruch of Gods being about to pluck up what he had planted and to break down what he had built and his bidding him not to seek great things for himself he applied to these times Indeed the judgement of the Bishops prevailed much with the Protestants that the Proposals sank by degrees and therefore induced the Lord Deputy to desire the Primate as the fittest person of the Assembly and a Privy Councellor and so concerned to promote the Kings affairs to summe up the state of the Business and to move them to an Absolute Grant of some competency to the Kings Necessities without any such former Conditions which was so done with much prudence and to this effect his Speech followeth My Lords THe refusal of those Gentlemen to contribute supply to the Army for defence of this Nation minds me of the Philosophers observation That such as have respect to a few things are easily misled Their minds so intent to ease themselves of a petit burthen without regard to the desolation of a heavy war which an Army may prevent forgetting the lamentable effects of our late Civil War by famine rapine and what not and now again the storm is foreseen which if not prevented our state may prove irrecoverable The Dangers are from abroad and from home Abroad we being now at odds with two potent Princes France and Spain to whom heretofore our dis-affected persons have offered this Kingdom to their Conquest In the daies of Henry the eight the Earl of Desmond did it to the French King the Instrument in the Court of Paris yet extant expresses so much and the Pope afterwards transferred the Title of Ireland to Charles 5. and so afresh confirmed to his Son Philip in the time of Queen Elizabeth with a resolution to settle this Crown upon the Spanish Infanta These Donatives though of no value yet they serve for a colour to a potent Pretender powerfully to supply what is defective And of late even when our Match was on foot with Spain a Book was countenanced there the Author a Spaniard Philip O Sullevan wherein he concludes the only way to establish that Monarchy first to set upon Ireland the Conquest of Scotland then of England and after of the Low Countries will easily follow Nor is the fear more from abroad then the like danger at Home Domestick Rebellion but lest I be mistaken now as your Lordships have been lately I must distinguish the Inhabitants Some
Statutes were verbatim recited the substance of the Petition was this 1. THey do pray your most excellent Majesty that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yeeld any Gift Loan Benevolence Tax or such like charge without common consent by Act of Parliament and that none be called to make answer or to take such oath or to give attendance or be confin'd or otherwise be molested or disquieted concerning the same or for refusal thereof 2. And that no freeman be taken and imprisoned or be disseised of his free-hold or liberty or his â—ree customs or be out-lawed or exiled but by the lawfull judgement of his Peer or by the law of the Land 3. And that your Majesty would be pleased to remove the Souldiers and Mariners now Billitted in divers Counties and that your people may not be so burthened in time to come 4. That the late Commissions for proceeding by Martiall-Law may be revoked and annulled and that hereafter no Commission of like nature may issue forth to any person or persons whatsoever to be executed lest by colour of them any of your Majesties subjects be destroyed and put to death contrary to law and the franchises of the land All which they most humbly pray of your most excellent Majesty as their rights and liberties according to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm and that your Majesty would also vouchsafe to declare that all awards doings or proceedings to the prejudice of your People shall not be drawn hereafter into consequence and example And now indeed their Lordships Eyes were opened and fearing the eminent mischief to the King and in him to themselves as having more interest in Prerogative then the Commons their first existence present subsistence and yet not altogether to leave the publique without remedy they annexed to the Petition this addition of Salvo We present this our humble Petition to your Majesty not onely with care to preserve our own Liberties but with regard to leave intire that Soverain Power wherewith your Majesty is trusted for the Protection safety and happinesse of your People But the Commons refused this and procured a Conference and Mr. Noy is sent with reasons and resolutions of the Lower-House which signified little but at a second meeting managed by Sr. Henry Martin and Serjeant Glâ—nvile the Lords did comply and so presented without that saving To which the King took a little leasure ere he returned them this for answer THe King willeth that right be done according to the laws and Customs of the Realm and that the Statutes be put in due execution that his Subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrong or oppressions contrary to their just Right and Liberties to the preservation whereof he holds himself in conscience as well obliged as of his Prerogative Certainly the sense was as the very Essence the matter being the Main aud was excepted against as too firm but not full enough without their own formalities of the old Model for which they agreed to Petition but were surprized with this Item from the King My Answer was made with so good deliberation and approved by the judgement of so many wise men that I wonder it hath not satisfied you to the full but to avoid all ambiguities and to clear my just meaning I am willing to please you even in Words as well as Substance Read your Petition and receive an Answer I am sure will please you Which was Le droict soit faict comme iâ— est desire This I am sure is full yet no more than in my first you may see now how ready I shew my self to satisfie your demands so that having done my part if this Parliament have not a happy conclusion the sin is yours I am free Hereto the Houses shout with mighty acclamations of joy testified also with the usuall consent of the publique Bonefires and Bellsâ—inging â—inging over all the Cities and the Upper-House finding this a fit time of reciprocal contexture the King glad to see them satisfied with little aâ—doe procured his Majesties Grace to extend even to those Lords in former disfavour To Abbot Arch-Bishop of Canterbury William Bishop of Lincoln the Earl of Essex Lincoln Warwick Bristow and him that was alwayes out the Lord Say This did the King do the fifth Presage from the King vailing his Crown to the Parliament which doth so astonish the Historian that he breaks out into Ravishment That this session that Gallant Standard of Common Liberties the Petition of Right was granted That never did Arbitrary Power since Monarchy first founded so submittere fasces so vail its Scepter Never did the Prerogative descend so much from Perch to Popular Lure as by that Concession a Concession able to give satisfaction even to supererogation for what was amisse in all the Kings by-past Government But what did they do having now thus sentenced all Illegalities they fell to Execution of Commission of Loan and Excise and cancelled them in the Kings presence And now thus secured they yet ride on ripping up all manner of Grievances and Grievers in a large Remonstrance 1. THe danger of Innovation and alteration in Religion This occasioned by 1. The great esteem and favours many professors of the Romish Religion receive at Court 2. Their publique resort to Masâ—e at Denmark house contrary to his Majesties answer to the Parliaments Petition at Oxford 3. The Letters for stay of proceedings against them Lastly the daily growth of the Arminian faction favoured and protected by Nele Bishop of Winchester and Laud Bishop of Bathe and Wells whilest the Orthodox parts are silenced or discountenanced 2. The danger of Innovation and alteration in Government occasioned by the Billetting of Souldiers by the Commission for procuring one thousand German Horse and Riders as for the defence of the Kingdom by a standing Commission granted to the Duke to be General at land in times of peace 3. Disasters of our Designes as the expedition to the Isle of Rhe and that lately to Rochel wherein the English have purchased their dishonour with the waste of a million of treasure 4. The want of Ammunition occasioned by the late selling away of thirty six Last of Powder 5. The decay of Trade by the losse of three hundred ships taken by the Dunkyrkers and Pirates within these three last years 6. The not guarding the narrow Seas whereby his Majesty hath almost lost the Regality Of all which evils and dangers the principall Cause is the Duke of Buckingham his excessive power and abuse of that power And therefore they humbly submit it to his Majesties wisdom whether it can be safe for himself or his Kingdom that so great power both by Sea and Land as rests in him should be trusted in the hands of any one Subject whatsoever This and the Bill of Subsidies went cheek by joll and were presented to the King in the Banquetting house at White-Hall which being read out with some regret in
the Kings looks He told them plainly He expected not such a Romance to answer his gracious consent to their Petition of Right But for their just Grievances they would deserve his consideration And so suddenly rose up and stepping down short from the degrees of steps raised under the Cloth of State the Duke stayed him by the hand which now is supposed to be given him to kisse in spight of the Parliament or otherwise rather but his low Congie to his Majesties hand which in Court-complement was too much But in truth I saw that passe and that other Lords near the King offering as much as the Duke did which I well know was then devised to lodge upon him against whom their inbred dislike increased to all exceptions even of Circumstance or Shadow But how suddenly the Commons House incroach upon the Lords Liberties excluding the words the Lords spiritual and Temporal in the very Grant of the Bill of Subsidies which they resented with very high Indignation though the Commons were known to be cunning enough to palliate the designe if discovered with an excuse of bare mis-omission yet the most of them stood it out pretending ever more in such cases That heretofere some Acts had so passed which they knew well enough how to avoid the proving But if their good Lordships would return the Bill their names should be inserted as if they were not able to put themselves in as the others were cunning to leave them out During these disputes and the Kings necessities in purse was the main cause of his consenting so much to raise the Parliaments and lessen his own Power One Doctor Manwaring observing the Clench meant to mend all by marring it with his two false Assertions The one to be preached before the King That the Kings Royal Command imposing without common consent of Parliament Taxes and Loans doth so farre binde the conscience of the Subjects of this Kingdom that they cannot refuse the payment without peril of damnation The other he preached at his Parish Church That the Authority of Parliament is not necessary for the raising Aydes and Subsidies To these he was questioned by a Committee and in reason justly sentenced 1. Imprisonment during the pleasure of the Parliament 2. Fined one thousand pounds to the King 3. To make such submission as shall be set down in writing at the Lords Bar and Bar of Commons 4. To be suspended three years from the exercise of the Ministry 5. Never to preach at Court hereafter 6. Never to have Ecclesiastical dignity or Secular Office 7. To move his Majesty for calling in of his Book and to be burnt And truly I remember the Kings answer to all He that will preach other then he can prove let him suffer I give them no thanks to give me my due and so as being a Parliament businesse he was left by the King and Church to their Sentence But why this case must be marked out for a sixth Presage from the Kings vailing his Crown to the Parliament by suffering the House of Comâ—mons to set up sayes he a Committee for Religion to question Manwaring and Sibthorp and others for Doctrinal matters more proper to be censured in the High-Commission or Convocation to which Courts the cognizance do belong and not unto a Consistory of Lay-Elders which perhaps wise men but never the greatest Clerks We may consent to his opinion in the Main for matters of Divinity and Orthodox points But that the Preacher is Iure Divino not to be censured but by themselves smells of the Presbyter or Papâ—st both alike their Tenets and so to ingrosse all into their General Assembly which was wont to be above Privy-Counsel Parliament and King But the King bent his busie time to frame an Answer to their late Remonstrance so tart that the Commons resolved to double upon him against Tonnage and Poundage which he would not indure bnt prorogued the Parliament unto the twentieth of October delivering his minde to them before his Assent to their Bills My Lords and Gentlemen IT may seem strange that I come so suddenly to end this Session therefore before I give my assent to the Bils I will tell you the cause though I must avow I ow an account of my actions to none but God alone It is known to every one that a while ago the House of Commons gave me a Remonstrance how acceptable every man may judge and for the merit of it I will not call that in question for I am sure no wise man can justifie it Now since I am certainly informed that a second Remonstrance is preparing for me to take away my profit of Tunnage and Poundage one of the chief maintenances of the Crown by alleadging that I have given away my right thereof by my Answer to your Petition This is so prejudicial to me as I am forced to end this Session some few hours before I meant it being willing not to receive any more Remonstrances to which I must give an harsh answer And since I see that even the House of Commons begins already to make false constructions of what I granted in your Petition lest it be worse interpreted in the Country I will now make a Declaration concerning the true intent thereof The Profession of both Houses in the time of hammering this Petition was no waies to trench upon my Prerogative saying They had neither intention nor power to hurt it Therefore it must needs be conceived that I have granted no new but onely confirm the ancient Libertie of my Subjects Yet to shew the clearness of my intentions that I neither repent nor mean to recede from any thing I promised you I do here declare That those things which have been done whereby men had cause to suspect the Liberty of the Subject to be trencht upon which indeed was the true and first ground of the Petition shall not hereafter be drawn into example for your prejudice and in time to come in the word of a King you shall not have the like cause to complain But as for Tonnage and Poundage it is a thing I cannot want and was never intended by you to ask never meant I am sure by me to grant To conclude I command you all that are here to take notice of what I have spoken at this time to be the true intent and meaning of what I granted you in your Petition But especially you my Lords the Judges for to you onely under me belongs the interpretation of the Laws for none of the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate what new doctrine soever may be raised have any power either to make or declare a Law without my consent This Session were enacted these Laws and first of all For further Reformation of Divers abuses committed on the Lords day commonly called Sunday 2. To restrain the passing or sending any to be Popishly bred beyond Seas 3. For the better suppressing unlicensed Ale-House Keepers 4. For
Designs he passed into Silesia after Galasso with the Body of his Army surprized him near Stenaw defeated his numerous Horse and surrounded the Foot which yielded with sixscore Colours Baggage and Artillery and so all Silesia submitted And now by his following progress gave more than suspition what he had hatched for his own ambition and revenge of former disgraces for having collected his Forces at Egnar in Bohemia paid them three Moneths Money and took their Oath to himself without 〈…〉 〈…〉 Two of his Colonels Gordon and Lesly Scots and Butler an Irish Officer invite his chief Generals his Creatures to a Supper at Egnor where they were soon dispatched for their Masters sake the Emperour Butler comes to Wallestein thrusts open his Chamber-door he dressed for his Bed so staggered and hared him with this Reproach O Traitor to the Emperour and Empire Art thou there and therewith â—an him through with his Partizan stark dead and threw him out at the Window Thus ended that ambitious ungratefull Servant raised to this height from an ordinary Gentleman to be Prince of the Empire and Gâ—neralissimo of all his Forces in Germany Ambitious persons falling into perfidy are justly thus served which we mention here to close up the story though it happened the next year And so this Year remarkable for the Death of three Kings Sigismund of Poland who pâ—ously departed the nine and twentieth of April Gustave of Swede who was slain on the Bed of Honour the sixteenth of November And Frederick of Boheme who died of the Infection the nineteenth of November The Fundamental Laws of the Dane give a double Portion to the eldest Children of either Sex and to the rest equal shares and so by the death of Sophia Queen Dowager of Denmark our Kings Grand-mother there was due to him and his Sister Elizabeth in right of Queen Ann their Mother one hundred and fifty thousand pounds which was promised to our Ambassador the Earl of Leicester sent to that King partly to condole the old Queens death and by the way to demand his Portion The Complement of asking of him received another of owning to him being he was remembred of that Contract made with him 1625. of thirty thousand pounds a Moâ—â—th unpaid and yet due for support of his Army yet it seems was thus boldly concluded to draw on other Subscribers Confederates in that War and as usual not fully paid by any and so we may well be then in Arrear as I am sure the Dutch and French are to this day with him and us also The King had been very humbly solicited by the Scots earnest and affectionate supplications to chear and comfort them with his Court and to honour them with his Personal Coronation which he now resolves Not that that Crown was of 〈…〉 But the King to make good his own Inclination and Reason of State the main Arguments He sets out the thirteenth of May with a Princely Train the best of Nobility of England and all those here of Scotland and with them remarkable the English Treasurer and Secretary of State His motions were most certain not foreslowed His Guests were setled to their time and places otherwise He had made a mad Moneths Progress and many Entertainments would have been too sudden without such lawfull warning specially that of the Earl of Newcastles at Welbeck which he says cost the Earl six thousand pounds No such time place or provision But what he means was in Iuly the next year at Balfour Castle in Derby shire for the King Queen and their several Courts most sumptuous indeed And the King comes to Edenburgh the tenth of Iune and the eighth after designed for the solemn Celebrating of His Coronation glorious and bravely attended A little Metropolitan City God knows a long street rather But for a show It sets it forth at length from the Castle still descending to the Kings Palace Holy-rood House at a view the whole Triumphant Train a Mile and more where He was Crowned with all possible outward affection to his Person dissimulative for so it soon discovered And from this time we shall sum up the Scots perfidies smothered heretofore For now they begun secretly to consult and so to vent their â—islike of the Kings former Innocent Râ—vocation of Things scrambled from the Crown in his Fathers minority and his beneficial Commission of surrenders of Superiorities and Titles as before remembred But these Two Exceptions not sufficient to ground a Mutiny they mustered many such and feigned more And fell foul on some fears suggestions Innovation of Religion to be attempted this Parliament now assigned And withal politickly assured that nothing but calumnies could soil with suspicious jealousie or interrupt or relaxe the present joy of the common people grounding it on nothing more or other than a New Ratisioation of old Acts concerning the present Religion the Churches Liberties and priveledges assented unto by most voyces yet a wonder to many that soon dissented such as from that time became the great promoters of the after-Covenant shewing then the distemper of the heart that boyled out with too much heat at their mouth which seriously resolved it self into sedition soon after for having little more to do the King gratifies the greatest suitors with new Titles of Honour and no doubt consented unto by such as seemed disloyal to his just proceedings in Parliament there And yet these began to mutter but not as yet to mutiny till his departure which was not long after his visitation of Falkland Sterling Dumferling and other places eminent for any pleasure though none of them deserving the hazard the King had from danger of drowning in his passage over the Frith from Brunt-Island to Edenburgh and so came home to the Queen at Greenwich the 20. of Iuly But we may not forget whilest he was in Scotland the condition and behaviour of Sr. Iohn Stuart of Trahair lately made Baron Trahair Privy Councellor and Deputy Treasurer upon the resignation of the Lord Nappier a worthy states man Grand-childe to the afterwards renowned Matcheston and brother in law to the right famous Earl of Montrosse being in dislike of the times and aged and yet not without a considerable reward But Trahair acted his game more cunningly than honestly and now came into much favour with the King at this time He was created Earl of Trahair and in some years after Lord Treasurer of Scotland for upon the Earl of Mairs death Lord Treasurer Trahair was substituted in his place Marr was a Man of little Action and loving the Court of England was the lesse skilful to manage the affair of the Treasury But Trahair managing all tripled his own Estate in few years so faithful he was to himself not without complaint of the people And now in this Parliament There was a Tax granted to the King to be paid as formerly in four years amounting to one hundred thousand pounds Scots per
the King countenance an Assembly where Episcopacy is abjured though the prophetical Government of the Church from Christ and his Apostles the onely support of the Crown and in lieu thereof an Estate erected in the Kingdom Independent from the King which rejects his Supremacy and power in Elections which holds he may be Excommunicated by their Assembly censured and deposed by their Parliament which maintains most treasonable tenets with a discipline which was never yet in a Monarchy without Rebellion 10. Shall the King go to Scotland to do against his Oath at his Coronation to doe against his royal word and promise in open and Printed Proclamations to grant that that in his Declaration he professeth to all the world he never will endure 11. Shall the King go to Scotland where he is not able by power or prayer so much as to do Justice to the oppressed to obtain peace for his own servants exiled as Traytours to their Countrey for adhering to the King to re-establish the Prelates in their places or any one Orthodox conform or Loyal Preacher or professor in any Church or Colledge of this his Native and ancient Kingdom 12. Shall the King countenance that Assembly which is onely free from Gods Laws and his own where all the members are inviolably tyed by Covenant Oath and Band in alteram partem contradiction where deliberation can have no place all parties coming with prejudice and predetermination of the businesse in question 13. And yet this Assembly thus free from all Law and authority so hardly obtained so highly honoured with his Majesties presence howsoever contrary to his conscience and honour shall be the most solemn Assembly that ever was in Scotland and that be a president for England and Ireland 14. Shall the King go to Scotland to break Laws make Laws take Laws at the pleasure of lawlesse Rebells to absolve the Traytours with what Justice to condemn the Innocent with what conscience and both with what honour this is no lesse then to lay royalty at the feet of rebellion 15. Shall the King go to Scotland to hear see and suffer the honour of his Royal Father with the integrity of whole Parliaments the equity of his Laws quarrelled and questioned by those whom his Clemency hath imboldened to all villany 16. Shall the King go to Scotland to encourage the Rebells to futher mischief to discourage all his Loyal Servants and to make it a time never to be faithful to a King hereafter this is as much as to Un-King himself with his own hands 17. Now all this and worse if worse can be shall infallibly fall out if His Majesty go to Scotland for having him in their power they shall either force his approbation of their will or use him as their prisoner for thus they served his Royal Father of happy memory 18. As they wish to be absolved from Treason and have all their Rebellious proceedings justified as fervently must they desire to have the King at home among them 19. And having the King in their power can any man think that so desperate Rebels who have gone on in all this businesse with so high a hand with such contempt of authority with such successe that they have eluded all his Majesties Councels contemned his forces frustrate his Intentions and interpreted all this as Gods blessing upon their good cause I say can any man imagine that having so fair an occasion they will be deficient to themselves and not rather attempt or do any thing to Crown all their knavery with the Kings approbation 20. Now for so Mighty a Monarch to involve himself without any necessity into such a labyrinth of misery as shall presently burst out either upon his Majesties condiscendence to the Rebels or upon his detention by them is me thinks to tempt God 21. At any rate though at the highest that can be authority must be vindicated and redeemed from contempt the life of government is reputation make sure this and the other prospers 22. What will neighbour Princes say and think of the managing of this matter wherein all the honour and eminency of Majesty consists what will not posterity abhorre in all these proceedings if Royal honour for want of Councel or courage shall become a prey to Rebellion 23. Rebellion never leaveth Authority without addition or diminution of dignity 24. Usurped Royalty was never laid down by perswasion from Royal clemency for in armis jus omne regni 25. O that there were found so much Loyalty wisdom and valour in the whole Monarchy as to suppresse the Rebells and put the King out of these straits 26. This is the sorest blow that ever our Religion received and the greatest advantage that ever our adversary had this doe all Protestants owe to the Reformation of Scotland that no Christian Prince shall hereafter trust our profession 27. The King cannot go to Scotland with honour untill the Covenant be abjured the Assembly of Glasgow renounced and all things re-established as they were before the Covenant THE VOTE And upon all It was unanimously Voted To force them to their Duty Whereupon soon after the King resolved to call a Parliament and that it was so called and appointed hereafter let no man Imagine but that besides his Councellours advice his own Inclination was most affected thereto as himself hereafter professeth After this comes four covenanting Commissioners from Scotland Dunfirmlin Loudon Sir W. Douglas Mr. Robert Berkley of Derreyn The King receives a handsom Petition with humble thanks in the general and to be heard in their further desires but absolutely refuse to appear before a Committee of the Council without the Kings own personal presence And to him Loudon makes a long Speech of the Independency of the Parliament of Scotland subject to no Iudicature A Profession of their Loyalty and Affection to the King A Iustification of their Assembly and Parliament agreeable to the Articles of Pacification the Laws and practice of the Kingdom And thereupon they desire that the King would ratifie and confirm their Proceedings and that their Parliament might proceed to determine of all the Articles or Bills brought to them to the establishing of Religion and Peace c. But the Council examining their Commission it was found short of impowring them in any consideration to oblige those that sent them onely they produced a Paper authorizing Dunfermlyn and Loudon therein but their Parliament now not sitting they could have no other and indeed to avoid their clamour it was accepted and they went on Deans answer First for a free Parliament It was answered Not to pass the bounds of the Ecclesiastick and civil Laws to fly at Monarchical Government to rob the Crown of the fairest flowers and to destroy all regal power Dean They assume that liberty by the Kings allowing of their Covenant to which his former Commissioner Hamilton had signed and other Subjects Answer That Covenant subscribed by him is the same Covenant and
habit and with a great Train wherewith they are disguised from notice yet are Jesuits and Members of the Conspiracy All the Papists of England contribute to this Assembly lest any thing should be wanting to promote the Enterprise upon whose Treasury a Widow Owner of the Houses where now Secretary Windebank dwelleth and dead above three years since conferred forty thousand pounds and for the driving on of the business others contribute as they are able Besides the foresaid Houses there are also other close Conventicles kept but very distrustfull of themselves lest they should be discovered First every of them one not knowing of the other are directed to certain Inns and thence led by Spies to the place of meeting being otherwise ignorant of the place for fear of surprise The Countess of Arundel a strenuous she-champion of the Romish Faith bends all her powers for this Universal Reformation nothing is done secretly or openly at Court but she imparts it to the Legate with whom she meets thrice a day sometimes at Arundel's house now at Court or at Tart-Hall The Earl himself being called about three years since this year must go to Rome without doubt to consult there of matters pertinent to the Design At Greenwich at the Earls cost a feminine School is erected which is but a Monastery of Nuns for the young Girls therein are sent forth hither and thither into foreign Monasteries beyond the Seas Master Porter of the Kings Bed-chamber most addicted to the Popish Religion is an utter Enemy of the Kings revealing all his Secrets to the Legate by his Wife for he rarely meets with him himself In all his actions he is nothing inferiour to Toby Matthew it is unexpressible how diligently he intends this business His Sons are secretly principled in the Romish Belief but open Professours of the Reformed the Eldest is now to receive his Fathers Place under the future King A Cardinals Hat is provided for the other if the Plot takes Three years since Master Porter was to be sent away by the King to Morocco but was prohibited by the Society lest the business should suffer delay He is a Patron of the Jesuits providing Chappels for them to exercise their Religion in both at home and abroad Secretary Windebank a fierce Papist is the greatest Traitour to the King of all He not onely revealeth the Kings greatest Secrets but also communicates Counsels by which the Design may be best advanced He at least thrice every Week converseth with the Legate in the Nocturnal Conventicles and revealeth what is â—it to be known to which end he hireth an House near to the Popes Legate to whom he often resorts through the Garden-door for by this vicinity the Meeting is facilitated He is bribed with Gifts to be a Partner in the Conspiracy by whom he is sustained that he may more sedulously attend his Charge His son is sent expresly to Rome on purpose to insinuate himself into his holinesse Digby and Winter Knights Mr. Mountague who hath been at Rome the Lord Sterlin a Kinsman of the Earl of Arundel a Knight the Countesse of New-port the Dutchesse of Buckingham and many others who hath sworn to this Conspiracy are all most vigilant in the plot Some are enticed with hope of Court others of Political Offices others attended to the sixteen Cardinals caps vacant which are detained so to feed with vain hopes those who expect them The president of the said Society was the Lord Gage a Jesuited Priest dead some three years since He had a palace adorned with wanton pictures as pretending to profaneness but palliating thereby a Monastery wherein fourty Nunns were maintained concealed in so spacious a Palace It is situated in Queens street The Jesuits have bought all this street and have reduced it to a quadrangle where a Jesuiticall Colledge is tacitely built with this hope that it might be openly finisht assoon as the General Reformation was accomplisht The Popes Legate useth a threefold Character one common to all Nuncio's Another peculiar to himself and Cardinal Barbarino A third wherewith he covers some greater secrets to be imparted Whatsoever things he receiveth from the Society or spies he packeth up in one bundle with this addresse To Monsieur Stravio Archdeacon of Cambrai from whom they are sent to Rome These particulars considered it will be evident to all 1. That the Conspiracy against the King and Lord Archbishop is detected and the means threatning ruin to them both is demonstrated 2. The imminent Dangers to both Kingdoms is declared 3. The Rise and Progress of the Scotish Fire is related 4. Means are suggested whereby their Troubles may be appeased for after the Scots shall see by whom and to what intents their Spirits are provoked they will speedily look to themselves neither will they suffer the Forces of both Kingdoms to be subdued lest a middle party interpose which seek the ruine of both 5. With what Sword the Kings Throat is assaulted even when these Stirs shall be ended Con's Confession and visible Demonstration sheweth 6. The place of Assembly in Captain Read's House is named 7. The eight Days Dispatch by Read and the Legate is described 8. How the names of the Conspiratours may be known 9. Where this whole Congregation may be circumvented 10. Some of the principal unfaithfull ones of the Kings party are notified by name and many whose Names occur not yet their Habitations being known their Names may be easily extorted from Read If these things be warily proceeded in the strength of the whole business will be brought to light so the Arrow being foreseen the Danger shall be avoided which that it may prosperously succeed the Almighty Creatour grant The matter of this Information is conform to their old practices in all former Times and in some respects to be likely enough but truly far from any wise mans faith to give it too much credit in the particulars which is so notoriously mistaken as it marrs the story And for that Objection and Result thereon that the Arch-bishop of Canterbury had too much favoured the Romish Faction not their Faith is his own opinion the Information says quite contrary But his Observatour and others have shewed how and upon what account King Iames and King Charls too had Reasons and in what manner to connive at the Popish Faction in reference to the favours afforded the foreign Reformed Churches And so the great Ministers and Officers in State doing but their duty therein might be thought to favour their Faith See History complete Mary Queen of Scots and King Iames. And to ballance the Puritan Non-conformist the ancient usefull Ceremonies of the Primitive Church were fuller restored in this Arch-bishops Time than of late before but not so thereby for the Arch-bishop to be forthwith cried up by the Romanists for their Proselyte for they know that this Reformation did in Ceremonies rather undo them No Sir it was the Scots first and Presbytery
are contained in our late printed Declarations which were sent to your Lordship which summarily we here repeat That the late Acts of Parliament may be published in his Majesties Name with the States of Parliament That Edenburgh Castle and other Strengths of Scotland may as to their first foundation be fortified and used for our defence and security That our Countreymen in England and Ireland may not be pressed with Oaths and Subscription warranted by your Law and contrary to their National Oath and Covenant That the common Incendiaries the Authours of Combustions in his Majesties Dominions may receive their Censure That our Ships and Goods with all the Dammage thereof may be restored That the wrongs losses and charges which all the time we have sustained may be repaired That the Declarations made against us as Traitours may be recalled That by the advice and consent of the States of England to be convened in Parliament the Garrisons may be removed from the Borders and any Impediment that may stop free Trade and settle Peace for our Religion and Liberties against all Fears of Molestation and the undoing of us from year to year or as our Adversaries shall take the advantage And that the meeting of the Peers the four and twentieth of this instant will be too long ere the Parliament will be convened the onely means of settling Peace the sooner they come the more shall we be enabled to obey his Majesties Prohibition of our advancing with our Army Nothing but invincible necessity hath brought us out of our Countrey to this place and no other thing shall draw us beyond the Limits appointed by his Majesty wherein we hope your Lordship will labour for our Kings honour and the good of our Countrey Leaguer at New-castle Septemb. 8. 1640. Your Lordships loving and humble Servants and Friends c. Those English Lords that meant not to fight either for necessity or honour fearing that their next Meeting might prevent a Parliament had this while devised their Petition to the King in effect for a Parliament the great aim on all sides answerable to the Scots desire before they set out from home which they published at the head of their Army in a Pamphlet called The Intentions of their Army viz. Not to lay down Arms till the Reformed Religion were settled in both Nations upon sure grounds the Causers and Abetters of their present Troubles be brought to publick justice and that in Parliament And these Abetters were the Papists Prelates and their Adherents in general but more particular the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the Lieutenant of Ireland And therefore to answer them comes out a correspondent Petition from a Compound of six Earls one Viscount and four Barons being a Descant on the Scots Plain-song And to back these Petitions are poasted from London and other places presently after The Lords Petition was thus Most gracious Sovereign The zeal of that duty and service which we ow to your Sacred Majesty and our earnest affection to the good and welfare of this your Realm of England have moved us in all humility to beseek your Royal Majesty to give us leave to offer to your Princely wisdom the apprehension which we and others your faithfull Subjects have conceived of the great Distempers and Dangers now threatning the Church and State and your Royal Person and of the fittest means by which they may be removed and prevented The Evils and Dangers whereof your Majesty may be pleased to take notice are these 1. That your Majesties Sacred Person is exposed to Hazzard and Danger in the present Expedition against the Scotish Army and by occafion of this War your Majesties Revenue is much wasted your Subjects burthened with Coat and Conduct-money billeting of Souldiers and other Military charges and divers Rapines and Disorders committed in several parts of this your Realm by the Souldiers raised for that Service and your whole Kingdom become full of Fears and Discontents 2. The sundry Innovations in matters of Religion the Oath and Canons lately imposed upon the Clergy and other your Majesties Subjects 3. The great increase of Popery and the imploying of Popish Recusants and others ill-affected to the Religion by Laws established in Places of power and tâ—ust especially in commanding of Men and Arms both in the Field and sundry Counties of this your Realm whereas by Law they are not permitted to have any Arms in their own Houses 4. The great Mischiefs which may fall upon this Kingdom if the intentions which have been credibly reported of bringing in Irish and foreign Forces should take effect 5. The urging of Ship money and prosecution of some Sheriffs in the Star-chamber for not levying of it 6. The heavy charge upon Merchandise to the discouragement of Trade the multitude of Monopolies and other Patents whereby the Commodities and Manufactures of the Kingdom are much burthened to the great and universal grievance of your people 7. The great grief of your Subjects by long intermission of Parliaments and the late and former dissolving of such as have been called without the happy effects which otherwise they might have produced For remedy whereof and prevention of the dangers that may arise to your Royal Person and to the whole State they do in all humility and faithfulness beseek your most Excellent Majesty that you would be pleased to summon a Parliament within some convenient time whereby the causes of these and other great grievances which your people lie under may be taken away and the Authors and Counsellors of them may be there brought to such legal trial and condign punishment as the nature of their several offences shall require And that the present War may be composed by your Majesties wisdom without blood in such manner as may conduce to the Honour and safety of your Majesties Person the comfort of your people and the uniting of both your Realms against the common Enemy of the Reformed Religion And your Majesties petitioners shall ever pray c. Concluded the 28. of August 1640 Francis Bedford Roberâ— Essex Mulgrave Say Seal Edward Howard The Earl of Bristow William Hartford Warwick Bulling brook Mandevil Brook Paget The Kings Answer was BEfore the receipt of your Petition his Majesty well foresaw the danger that threatens himself and Crown and therefore resolved to summon all the Peers to his presence upon the 24 of this September and with them to consult what in this case is fittest to be done for his honour and safety of the Kingdom where they with the rest may offer any thing that may conduce to these ends And so accordingly the Lord Keeper had command and did issue out Writs of summons for their appearance at York the 24. of September And to meet them there comes To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of your Majesties Loyal Subjects the Citizens of London Most Gracious Soveraign BEing moved by the Duty and Obedience which by Religion and Laws your Petitioners owe unto
scorn and the most hated man of all the Hierarchy where his turn came to be last devoured after he had eaten up some of his brethren The Earl of Strafford though in durance yet found friends abroad very active to serve him and accordingly it was the nineteenth day moved First That he might be bailed by divers Lords who offered caution But it was answered by the Lord Paget that it was against the Laws of the Land and the priviledge of the House and so passed the Major votes not to be admitted But was assigned Council and a solicitor in reguard of his restraint The one and twentieth one Iohn Iames son of Sir Henry Iames of Feversham in Kent a Romish Catholique stabbed Mr. Howard a Justice of peace of Westminster in Westminster-hall not unto death which was attempted because Mr. Howard had drawn a Catalogue of such Recusants as were within the Liberties of Westminster which he was to deliver up to the Committee of Religion for which fact Iames was secretly punished The eight and twentieth Mr. Pryn and Mr. Burton were conducted into London from their several Prisons in great pomp by many thousands of horse and foot with Rosemary and Bayes in their caps in despight and defiance of the course of Justice which had sentenced them and the third of December they presented their Petitions to the House of Commons for dammage against their Prosecutors This Parliament of Inquisition began to appear terrible to all that lodged but under suspition of guilt but insufferable to the conscience condemning which Sir Francis Windebank Secretary of State not able to bear having been questioned and mainly convinced for reprieving Iesuites and Priests and of worse matters suspected guilty got over into France where he remained to his death a professed Roman Catholique The seventh day unanimously in the Commons House was voted 1. That the Charge imposed upon the Subject for the providing and furnishing of Ships and the Assessments for raising moneys for that purpose commonly called Ship-mony are against the Laws of the Realm the Subjects right and property contrary to former resolutions in Parliament and the Petition of Right 2. That the extrajudicial opinion of the Iudges published in the Star-chamber and enrolled in the Courts of Westminster are in the whole and every part of them against the Laws of the Realm c. ut prius 3. That the writs commonly called Ship writs are against the Laws of the Realm c. ut pius 4. That the Iudgment in the Exchequer in Mr. Hamdens case is as to the matter and substance thereof against the Laws of the Realm c. ut prius And so was it voted in the House of Lords And the next day a Committe was appointed to draw up a charge of High Treason against such as had been abetters therein the Lord Keeper Finch and the rest of the Iudges But though the Parliament was thus severe against the legality of Ship-mony yet it is observed that amongst the best Lawyers the matter was justifiable ascribing much to the Judgment of that learned Lawer Mr. Noy who first preferred it Secondly All the Judges subscribing to it in time of danger of which danger the King was declared to be Judge Thirdly And being argued in the Courts of Justice and by all the Judges in the Exchequers Chamber it was definitively sentenced for the King 4. Nor was it voted down by Parliament but in a meer arbitrary way without review or Council heard as the Judges reason of their opinion so much as required 5. And yet the arguments of the two Justices Crock and Hutton for the Illegallity was by vote of the house of Commons put in print but the opinion of the other eight Judges which were for the legality of it continue suppressed which gave most men occasion to conceive the greater reason in those arguments which were kept in the dark 6. And in all this design to vote it down the Parliament was fain to have recourse to the King and to crave an act of Parliament to secure them from it for the future and to countenance their cause the Judges were impeached in order to the pretext not merit of punishment And now the eleventh of December Alderman Lack-land or Pennington with some hundred at his heels a rable of petty Shop-keepers and Prentices presented their Citizens Petition subscribed by fifteen thousand pittifully perplexed at the Ecclesiastical Discipline and sundry Ceremonies of the Church of England which was wholly debarred but was transmitted till a cooler time And because it was thought sit to strike while the Iron was hot this Petition ushering in much worke of Reformation It was thought convenient to condemn the illegallity of the proceedings in the late Convocation and their Canons which being canvased on both sides the houses and all of one party few Arguments need to be urged where the prevailing sence of the House opposed and so resolved the fifteenth of December That the Clergy in a synod or Convocation hath no power to make Canons Constitutions or Laws to bind either Layity or Clergie without a Parliament And first next day that the Canons are against the fundamental Laws of this Realm against the Kings Prerogative Propriety of the Subject the Right of Parliaments and do tend to Faction and Sedition This Parliamentary Doctrine was but now newly known Convocations never before depending on Parliaments but either in calling or dissolving confirming or authorising the Acts thereof but onely on the King himself not in Parliament neither but in his Palace and this seems to be proved by the Statute 26 Henry 8. and the constant practice ever since And for the Canons before they were subscribed they were imparted to the King and by him communicated to the Lords of the Privy Council the Iudges the learned Council then attending and were read and approved without any thing therein tending to Faction and Sedition or to the prejudice of the Subjects propriety or the Kings Prerogative or the Laws of the Land yet the Parliament frame a Bill for fining all the Clergie of that Convocation keeping them in such aw as none did appear in maintenance of their Authority or in opposing those Incroachments and Innovations which daily were introduced upon them And as to the Civil Iudges for case of Ship-money so the Parliament proceed with the Ecclesiastick Arch-bishop of Canterbury against whom they form a Committee to draw up a Charge against him as the Framer of these Canons and for other supposed Delinquencies aggravated by the Scots adjoyning him with the Earl of Strafford in their grand Accusation as an Incendiary in this National Difference promising to bring in their Complaint but in the mean time Master Hollis on Friday is sent up with the Impeachment and is seconded the same day with the Charge of the Scots Commissioners upon the reading whereof he was committed to the custody of the Black Rod
Maxwell till ten Weeks after when being upon the Charge voted guilty of High Treason and not before he was sent to the Tower and four years after beheaded The Scots Covenanters charge against the Arch-bishop of Canterbury concerning Innovations in Religion the main causes of Commotions in Kingdoms and States the true causes of our present Troubles many and great besides the Books of Ordinances and Homilies First some particular Alterations in Religion without Order or Law a new Book of Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical Secondly a Liturgie or Book of Common Prayer full of dangerous Errours and we challenge the Prelate Canterbury the prime cause on earth That he was Authour of our changes in Religion by fourteen Letters of his to our pretended Bishops to promote the English Service-Book and for which neglect he lost the Bishoprick oâ— Edinburgh but may deserve a better advising him to return a List of the Names of such persons of Honour and Office that refuse More appears by Papers memorative Instructions to the Bishop of Saint Andrews and Ross for ordering the Affairs of the Kingdom to obtain Warrants to order the Exchequer Privy Council Commissions of Surrenders the matter of Balmerino's Process as might pleasure Prelates Warrants to sit in the High Commission once a Week and to gain from the Noble-men the Abbies of Kelso Saint Andrews and Conday for the Prelates ordering by his command even the meanest Offices in the Kirk Secondly the Book of Canons obtruded being devised for establishing a tyrannical power in the persons of the Prelates over the Consciences Liberties and Goods of the People and for abolishing the whole Discipline of our Kirk settled by so many general and provincial Assemblies Presbyteries and Kirk-Sessions by Law and continual practice since the Reformation The Book of Common Prayer which by our National Assembly is found to be Popish Superstitious and Idolatrous and repugnant to all our Doctrine and Discipline reformed And that Canterbury was the main Actor they prove by several Letters to several pretended Bishops for promoting and ordering the use thereof and the Book it self in writ is interlined margined and patched up by his hand the changes and supplements taken from the Mass-books different from the Service-book in England and without the Kings knowledg as in the Sacraments of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. That our Supplications were many against these Books but Canterbury procured them to be answered with terrible Proclamations whereby we were constrained to use the Remedy of Protestations we were called Rebells and Traitours and procured War against us and after the Pacification at Barwick he advised to have it broken and to bring upon us this new War that our Convenant he called damnable treasonable railing against us in the presence of the King and Committee That his hand was to the Warrant for Restraint and Imprisonment of some of our Commissioners when we had manifested the truth of our Intentions Declarations Remonstrances and Representations true just and lawfull That he advised the breaking up of the last Parliament but sat still in his Convocation to make Laws against them tending to our utter ruine That he caused a Prayer to be used in all Churches in England whereby we are styled as traiterous Subjects c. That if the Pope had been in his place he could not have been more zealous against the Reformed Churches to reduce them to the Heresies Doctrines Superstitions Idolatries of Rome c. All which they will prove and desire justice upon him Their Charge also against the Earl of Strafford which was thus in effect That they had conjoyned with Canterbury by no other name the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whose malice was to do mischief to their Kirk and Countrey no cause moving but his own pride and superstitious disdain of their Kirk so much honoured first by sundry other reformed Kirks by many worthy Divines in England by their oppositions against Innovations in all his Majesties Dominions which he promotes by advancing his Chaplain Doctor Bromholm to the Bishoprick of Derry and Vicar general of Ireland one prompted to exalt Canterbury's Popery and Armenianism and Doctor Chapel to the University of Dublin on purpose to imprisoning and corrupting the Fountain of the Kirk and when the Primate of all Ireland pressed a Ratification of the Articles of the Confession of that Kirk in Parliament for barring of Innovation he boldly threatned him with burning of it by the Hangman although confirmed in England He disgraced our new Reformation begun in Scotland by a Pamphlet Examen conjurationis Scoticae The ungirding of the Scotish Armour Lysimachus Nicanor and he the Patron of the Works and them That notwithstanding their National Oath and Covenant warranted by general Assemblies approved by Parliament there and to be taken by all the People and their Loyalty to the King and lawfull proceeding the Innocency of their Covenant and Cause yet did he tend all his malice and force against them First by summoning some of the Scots Nobility and Gentry there in Ireland to Dublin and there conspired with the Prelate of Rothes and framed a Petition which the Scots there must exhibit to renounce the Scots Covenant and so thereby enforced all the Scots above sixteen years of age to the same upon pain of close Imprisonment whereby thousand others were forced to fly into Scotland leaving all they had behinde them to the weakning of the Scots Plantation and disservice to the King and Kingdom That by his means a Parliament is there called and although by six Subsidies unduly gotten and levied the Parliament before the Land was impoverished He now again extorted four Subsidies more otherwise Forces should have been levied against us as Rebells This being intended as a President to the Parliaments in England for levying a joint Army over the Subjects of both Nations And accordingly an Army was raised and brought to the Coast threatning to invade Scotland and to make us a conquered Province to the extirpation of Religion Laws and Liberties which enforced us of necessity to maintain our Forces on Foot to prevent his coming our Ships and Goods taken as Prize on the Irish Coasts inciting England to a War also against them Thus fitted he hastning over into England and at the delivery up of the Sword there he uttered these words If ever I return to this honourable Sword I shall not leave of the Scots neither Root nor Branch Being come to Court he acts all offices to our Commissioners who were to clear all our Proceedings at the Iunto using perswasions to stir up both King and Parliament to a War against us That course failing he plotted to break the Parliament and to have the Conduct of the Army in the Expedition against Scotland which he exercised according to the largeness of his Patent of his own devising and when the Scots Army came but in peace far from Intentions to invade but with supplication and petition of
others who came over only to complain of the exorbitances and oppressions of the said Earl Testified by the Earl of Desmond the Lord Roch Marcattee and Parry The Earls Reply That the Deputy Falkland had set out the same Proclamation That the same Restraâ—nt was contained in the Statute of 25 of Henry 6. upon which the Proclamation was founded That he had the Kings express Warrant for the Proclamation That he had also power to do it by the Commission granted him and that the Lords of the Council and three Justices not onely yielded but pressed him unto it That it was done upon just cause for had the Ports been open divers would have taken liberty to go to Spain to Doway Rhemes or Saint Omers which might have prooved of mischievous consequence to the State That the Earl of D' Esmond stood at the time of his Restraint charged with Treason before the Council of Ireland for practising against the Life of one Sir Valentine Coke That the Lord Roch was then a Prisoner for Debt in the Castle of Dublin and therefore incapable of a Licence That Par ry was not sined for coming over without Licence but for several Contempts against the Council-board in Ireland and that in his Sentence he had but onely a casting Voice as the Lord Keeper in the Star chamber The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Articles were not insisted upon 19. That the said Earl having taxed and levyed the said impositions and raised the said Monopolies and committed the said oppressions in his Majesties name and as by his Majesties Royal command he the said Earl in May the fifteenth year of his Majesties reign did of his own authority contrive and frame a new and unusual oath by the purport whereof among many other things the party taking the said oath was to swear that he should not protest against any of his Majesties Royal commands but submit themselves in all obedience thereunto Which oath he so contrived to enforce the same on the subjects of the Sâ—oâ—ish Nation inhabiting in Ireland and out of a hatred to the said Nation and to put them to a discontent with his Majesty and his Government there and compelled divers of his Majesties said subjects there to take the said oath some he grievously fined and imprisoned and others he destroyed and exiled and namely the 10. of October Ann. Dom. 1639. he fined Henry Steward and his wife who refused to take the said oath five thousand pounds a peece and their two daughters and James Gray three thousand pounds a peece and imprisoned them for not paying the said fines The said Henry Stewards wife and daughters and James Gray being the Kings liege people of the Scotish Nation and divers others he used in the like manner and the said Earl upon that occasion did declare that the said oath did not only oblige them in point of allegiance to his Majesty and acknowledgement of his supremacy only but to the Ceremonies and Government of the Church established or to be established by his Majesties royal Authority and said that the refusers to obey he would prosecute to the bloud The Earls Reply That the Oath was not violently enjoyned by him upon the Irish Scots but framed in compliance with their own express Petition which Petition is owned in the Proclamation as the main Impulsive to it That the same Oath not long after was prescribed by the Council of England That he had a Letter under his Majesties own hand ordering it to be prescribed as a Touch-stone of their Fidelity As to the greatness of the Fine imposed upon Steward and others he conceived it was not more than the heinousness of their offence deserved yet had they petitioned and submitted the next day that would wholly have been remitted 20. That the said Earl in the fifteenth and sixteenth Years of his Majesties Reign and divers Years past laboured and endeavoured to beget in his Majestie an ill opinion of his Subjects namely those of the Scotish Nation and divers and sundry times and especially since the Pacification made by his Majestie with his said Subjects of Scotland in Summer in the fifteenth Year of his Majesties Reign he the said Earl did labour and endeavour to perswade incite and provoke his Majesty to an Offensive War against his said Subjects of the Scotish Nation and the said Earl by his counsel actions and endeavours hath been and is a chief Incendiary of the War and Discord between his Majesty and his Subjects of England and the said Subjects of Scotland and hath declared and advised his Majesty that the Demand made by the Scots in this Parliament were a sufficient cause of War against them The said Earl having formerly expressed the height and rancour of his minde towards his Subjects of the Scotish Nation viz. the tenth Day of October in the fifteenth Year of his Majesties Reign he said that the Nation of the Scots were Rebells and Traitours and he being then about to come to England he then further said that if it pleased his Master meaning his Majesty to send him back again he would root out of the said Kingdom meaning the Kingdom of Ireland the Scotish Nation both Root and Branch Some Lords and others who had taken the said Oath in the precedent Article onely excepted And the said Earl hath caused divers of the said Ships and Goods of the Scots to be staied seized and molested to the intent to set on the said War The Earls Reply That he called all the Scotish Nation Traitours and Rebells no one proof is produced and though he is hasty in speech yet was he never so defective of reason as to speak so like a mad man for he knew well his Majesty was a Native of that Kingdom and was confident many of that Nation were of as heroick spirits and as faithfull and loyal Subjects as any the King had As to the other words of rooting out the Scots both Root and Branch he conceives a short Reply may serve they being proved by a single â—estimony onely which can make no sufficient faith in case of Life Again the Witness was very much mistaken if not worse for he deposeth that these words were spoken the tenth day of October in Ireland whereas he was able to evidence he was at that time in England and had been so near a Moneth before The one and twentieth and two and twentieth Artâ—cles were not urged 23. That upon the thirteenth Day of April last the Parliament of England met and the Commons House then being the Representative Body of all the Commons in the Kingdom did according to the trust reposed in them enter into Debate and Consideration of the great Grievances of this Kingdom both in respect of Religion and the publick Libertie of the Kingdom and his Majestie referring chiefly to the said Earl of Strafford and the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the ordering and disposing of all matters concerning the Parliament he the said Earl of
be evil because mine were good And having signed both these Bills the King sent Sir Dudley Carleton Secretary of State to the Earl to acquaint him what he had finished the necessity urging him so to do together with the Earls free consent and the return of his Paper-promise which ballanced all The Earl amazed seriously asked him whether his Majesty had passed the Bill as not believing without some astonishment that the King would have done it And being again assured that it was passed He arose from his Chair and standing up lift his eyes to Heaven clapt his hand upon his heart and said Put not your trust in Princes nor in the sons of men for in them there is no salvation I have been assured from him that heard the King speak it and others confirming that the Bishop of London did not disswade nor perswade the King in the passing of the Bill but wisely or cunningly said nothing at all Nor does it appear that any of the other Bishops Lincoln onely excepted did any way press the King to his death And for satisfaction of all the world that the Arch-bishop of Armagh did not urge his death but rather the contrary I was present when it was diâ—â—â—ursed by a person of honour and honesty one that in these times and in these particulars thus controverted would not be positive but in the truth And as willingly as necessarily he hath set it under his hand and ready to justifie it with his Oath and Honour in these words and so witnessed by those that were present That the late King being in the Garison of Oxford a publick rumour passed that the Arch-bishop of Armagh was then dead and so intimated to the King in his Bed-chamber who was pleased to resent the news with much sorrow and with very high expression of the Prelates remarkable piety and learning and so said all that were present in confidence of his great endowments of exemplary virtues Except Sir said one in his advice to your Majestie to the hasty resolution of the Lord Strafford's death To which the King in some passion replied It was false protesting with an Oath his innocencie therein and that after the Bill was passed said the King the Arch-bishop came to me with much regret and sorrow and that the Arch-bishop wept bitterly This as a great truth I am ready to aver says the Relator by my Oath and Honour as I do now under my hand this eighth day of May 1656. W. L. Hereupon having this under his hand and witness I urged the question with another person of like Honour who said that himself was present at that time relating the very same words in effect as the former and both of them I spake with apart many miles asunder and neither of them witting of the use which I now make thereof they mentioned each other to be present And this also is certified upon his Oath and Honour and under his hand also and witnesses G. K. And now we shall see what the Arch-bishop of Armagh hath been pleased to signifie as to the Observatours pag. 240. concerning the result of the Bishops That Sunday morning the five Bishops writes he for so many they were London being one of them were sent for by the King himself and not sent to him by the Houses of Parliament amongst whom the Bishop of Durham and Carlile were so far from depending wholly upon the judgment of the other two whom the Observatour accounts Politicians that they argued the case themselves as fully as did any other To the Argument of one of them the King also returned this Answer that his Syllogism was faulty because it had in it four terms And for that most uncharitable surmise writes he concerning the Arch-bishop of Armagh as if the displeasure he had conceived against the Lord Lieutenant were so great that it could not be satisfied but by the seeking of his very bloud It is hard to say whethâ—â—hat calumny be more malicious or ridiculous for both the ground of that conceited grudg is utterly false the Articles of Religion established in the Church of Ireland having been never abrogated by him or any other And in the ordering of this his the Earls last business there was no man with whom he held greater correspondency than with the Primate himself whereof this may be sufficient proof that as before his condemnation he did from time to time consult with him touching his answer to their present charge so also afterwards having obtained from the Parliament that the Primate might be sent unto him to prepare him for his death He chearfully imbraced his spiritual instructions prayed with him sent messages to the King by him and by no means would dispense with him for being absent from his Execution But taking him by the hand led him along to the Scaffold where with incomparable courage and as himself professed even then ready to lay hown his head without the least touch of any passion or fear he rendered up the spirit to him that gave it And as to the Historian's Paragraph pag. 263. l. 33. The Earl proceeding c. This Paragraph says the Arch-bishop is wholly to be left out for at his passing to the Scaffold there was a great silence amongst the people all of them universally commiserating his case in an extraordinary manner and with great passion lifting up their hands to heaven for him And to the Historian pag. 263. l. 38. The Earl being brought c. The Earl says the Arch-bishop being brought to the Scaffold his Chaplains prayed with him and himself remaining still upon his knee rehearsing with great reverence the five and twenty Psalm Afterwards arising he addrest his Speech unto the people to this effect after following But the occasion of the mistakes of the addressing of his Speech unto the Lords as the Historian hath My Lords It should be My Lord which the Earl used in the Singular Number turning himself to the Arch-bishop who stood by him as appears by the Pamphlet presently published concerning his suffering where the tenour of his Speech which he then used is to be taken as agreeing almost with the very syllable by him used and not as the Historian hath it for thus in truth it was My Lord Primate c. as hereafter in due place But to return to the tenth of May the King having the day before signed both Bills that of the continuation of the Parliament and this for the execution of the Earl and with one Pen of Ink and at one instant he sets his hand to the loss of himself and to the destruction of his faithfull and most able Counsellour and Servant The next day eleventh of May he being extremely troubled at what he had done concerning the Earl he vouchsafes to write to the Lords and sends this Letter by his Son the Prince of Wales My Lords I did yesterday satisfie the justice of the Kingdom by passing the Bill of Attainder
so many forward to engage against me who had made great Professions of singular pietie For this gave to vulgar mindes so bad a reflection upon me and my Cause as if it had been impossible to adhere to me and not withall part from God to think or speak well of me and not to blaspheme him so many were perswaded that these two were utterly inconsistent to be at once Loyal to me and truly Religious toward God Not but that I had I thank God many with me which were both Learned and Religious much above that ordinrie size and that vulgar proportion wherein some men glorie so much who were so well satisfied in the cause of my Sufferings that they chose rather to suffer with me than forsake me Nor is it strange that so Religious Preâ—ensions as were used against me should be to many well-minded men a great tempâ—ation to oppose me especially being urged by such popular Preachers as think it no sin to lie for God and what they please to call Gods cause cursing all that will not curse with them looking so much at and crying up the goodness of the end propounded that they consider not the lawfulness of the means used nor the depth of the mischief chiefly plotted and intended The weakness of these mens judgments must be made up by their clamours and activitie It was a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize me and mine they thought theirs could not be true if they cried not down mine as false I thank God I have had more trial of his grace as to the constancie of my Religion in the Protestant Profession of the Church of England both abroad and at home than ever they are like to have Nor do I know any Exception I am so liable to in their opinion as too great a fixedness in that Religion whose judicious and solid Grounds both from Scripture and Antiquitie will not give my Conscience leave to approve or consent to those many dangerous and divided Innovations which the bold Ignorance of some men would needs obtrude upon me and my People Contrarie to those wel-tried Foundations both of Truth and Order which men of far greater Learning and clearer Zeal have settled in the Confession and Constitution of this Church in England which many former Parliaments in the most calm and unpassionate times have oft confirmed in which I shall ever by Gods help persevere as believing it hath most of Primitive Truth and Order Nor did my using the assistance of some Papists which were my Subjects any way fight against my Religion as some men would needs interpret it especially those who least of all men cared whom they imploied or what they said and did so they might prevail 'T is strange that so wise men as they would be esteemed should not conceive That Differences of perswasion in matters of Religion may easily fall out where there is the sameness of Dutie Allegiance and Subjection The first they own as men and Christians to God The second they ow to me in common as their King Different Professions in point of Religion cannot any more than in civil Trades take away the communitte of Relations either to Parents or to Princes And where is there such an Oglio or Medley of various Religions in the World again as those men entertain in their service who finde most fault with me without any scruple as to the diversitie of their Sects and Opinions It was indeed a foul and indelible shame for such as would be counted Protestants to enforce me a declared Protestant their Lord and King to a necessarie use of Papists or any other who did but their Dutie to help me to defend my self Nor did I more than is lawfull for any King in such Exigents to use the aid of any his Subjects I am sorrie the Papists should have a greater sense of their Allegiance than many Protestant Professours who seem to have learned and to practise the worst Principles of the worst Papists Indeed it had been a verie impertinent and unseasonable scruple in me and verie pleasing no doubt to mine Enemies to have been then disputing the Points of different Beliefs in my Subjects when I was disputed with by Swords points and when I needed the help of my Subjects as men no less than their praiers as Christians The noise of my Evil Counsellours was another usefull Devise for those who were impatient any mens counsel but their own should be followed in Church and State who were so eager in giving me better counsel that they would not give me leave to take it with freedom as a Man or Honour as a King making their counsels more like a Drench that must be poured down than a Draught which might be fairly and leisurely drunk if I liked it I will not justifie beyond humane Errours and Frailties my self or my Counsellours they might be subject to some Miscarriages yet such as were far more reparable by second and better thoughts than those enormous Extravagancies wherewith some men have now wildered and almost quite lost both Church and State The event of things at last will make it evident to my Subjects that had I followed the worst counsels that my worst Counsellours ever had the boldness to offer to me or my self any inclination to use I could not so soon have brought both Church and State in three flourishing Kingdoms to such a Chaos of Confusions and Hell of Miseries as some have done out of which they cannot or will not in the midst of their many great Advantages redeem either me or my Subjects No men were more willing to complain than I was to redress what I saw in Reason was either done or advised amiss and this I thought I had done even beyond the expectation of moderate men who were sorrie to see me prone even to injure my self out of a zeal to relieve my Subjects But other mens insatiable Desire of Revenge upon me my Court and my Clergie hath wholly beguiled both Church and State of the benefit of all my either Retractations or Concessions and withall hath deprived all those now so zealous Persecutours both of the comfort and reward of their former pretended Persecutions wherein they so much gloried among the vulgar and which indeed a truly humble Christian will so highly prize as rather not to be relieved than be revenged so as to be bereaved of that Crown of Christian Patience which attends humble and injured Sufferers Another Artifice used to with-draw my Peoples Affections from me to their Designs was the noise and ostentation of Libertie which men are not more prone to desire than unapt to bear in the popular sense which is to do what every man liketh best If the divinest Libertie be to will what men should and to do what they so will according to Reason Laws and Religion I envie not my Subjects that Libertie which is all I desire to enjoy my self so far am I from the desire of
contrary to the rights and power of all Monarchical Authority and also the duty allegeance and consciences of all loyal Subjects which with grief we take to heart as faithfull and loyal Subjects ought to do The Catholick Religion suppressed and put down in England and the Catholicks persecuted with all rigour even to death and the like have the Puâ—itans of this Kingdom threatned to have brought hither That there is a Law against Catholicks in this Countrey whereby the Kingdom hath been often impaired and ruined with persecutions by means whereof the Catholicks are made uâ—capable of any Office or Place of commodity or profit to the great and extraordinary decay of the Catholicks in their Estates Education and Learning That the Goverment of the Kingdom is wholly in the hands of strangers who in their beginning are generally poor of birth and means and very quickly become Noblemen and men of great Estates by oppression and ruinating the poor Natives That there hath been great threatnings of late of sending great Scotish Forces with the Bible in one hand and Sword in the other to force our consciences or end our lives besides our private report of a sudden surprisal and cutting the Catholicks throats intending which way we know not but it hath been both written and spoken by several Protestants and Puritans That the Catholicks are not allowed to have any Arms or Munition as the Protestants and Puritans were but stood like dâ—admen not able to defend themselves in such desperate Dangers All which being by them considered they saw no way but to attempt to seize upon Arms where they could get them to save their lives maintain the King and Queen their Religion and Countrey It is true that for the first Days horrid Rebellion and Butchery the Irish did forbear the Scots Plantation there knowing their good Natures to be such as to sit still and see the English destroyed so they might hope to escape and to have more room for Colonies of their own Nation it being more easie for the Irish to deal with one Nation than with both and they knew that the Scots had then in Scotland some formed Forces standing which in few hours might be transported and so to distract them before their intended progress into Rebellion To that end for a time they were spared with life but not with Gudes and Geer and so â—ad leave to return to Scotland a worse transmigration than into the other World Some pretence they make declaring in the sight of God and the World their Intentions and Resolutions to the last Man with their Lives Estates and Fortunes to endeavour the advancement and preservation of his Majesties service and Interest in that Kingdom and of all those whoever that prosecute his quarrel having no other Design or Intent but onely the free exercise of their Religion On the contrary it was wonderfull to observe what Irritations stirred up the English to revenge the Death of the Massacred and to defend the lives of those that survived A Mass of Money 300000. pounds sterling was soon raised in England but otherways disposed and great Contributions for pay of the Souldiers and Provisions and many thousands of English prepare for that War And yet so eminent was the divine wrath over England that even upon this very account our Incongruities and Feuds at home were inflamed which amongst others how intense soever yet soulder a peace for some interim Hereupon those that aimed at Innovations infused into mens mindes scruples and suspitions and though the King most intent to suppress the raging cruelty of that Rebellion by his personal hazzard to scourge their insolencies the Parliament would not consent that the War be mannaged by his Authority nor to trust the Souldiers with their Allegeance to the King nor any of them that had served him in the Scotish Expedition but such as themselves affected and he disgusted yet rather than the War should linger on those Differences he submitted to the joint authority of mannaging the same and so Patents and Commissions were signed by both King and Parliament leaving himself without power either to make peace or grant them pardon without the Parliaments consent And so by this concurrence of Affairs concerning the Rebells and mischievous Distractions in England ripening into a civil War the Parliament seize upon the collected sums of hundreds of thousand pounds for Ireland and two or three Regiments raised for that service they convert to the suppressing of the Kings War against them nay the very Benevolence begged for the relief of the perishing Evangelius they turn into pay for their Souldiery Though the Kings Souldiers having seized on some provisions sent by the Parliament towards Chester as but designed for Ireland the King upon complaint soon restored it for that service And although there appeared no evidence of truth it was rumored to the Kings dishonour that he had been Authour of that Rebellion which the King endeavours with greater validity of Reasons to retort upon the Faction of some Members of both Houses Notwithstanding these Traverses hindered not our Auxiliaries to defeat the Irish by fire devastations and slaughter of some hundreds of thousands of the Natives and to wilder that Kingdom far and near which happened alike pernicious to our selves when afterwards that the civil War in England was at the heighth victuals provision cloaths and pay failing our Souldiers in Ireland it is beyond the reach of expression how miserably our Countrey-men suffered there and the Parliaments help failing their daily Invocations for relief the Privy Counsellours of that Kingdom Commanders and Souldiers by peâ—itionary Letters to the King earnestly beg leave to depart and to be remanded any where else save against such an Enemy as Hunger The King either for necessity or prudence the Scots coming into the Parliament he being thereby reduced to an inequality of fight here at home makes a Cessation with the Irish for a year onely and so endeavours a peace to ensue leaving sufficient Garisons behinde the Souldiers return for the Kings assistance whose part began to totter But the Scots party in Ulster refuse to be bound by the Cessation and some English in Conaught and Ulster of a like conniving Faction But the Lord Inchequin Commander in chief of the Munster Forces comes over with some thousands to the Kings aid but not well resenting his entertainment withdraws himself into Ireland and gains all the Kings party of Cork and Munster to the Parliament and to a detestation of the Cessation they instantly sending him and the Scots Forces fresh aid of money and provisions Against whom appeared three several parties though conjoyned in enmity to the English the Popes Nuntio Owen Roe and the other under command of Preston and Taff the last more moderate endeavouring the compliance with the King to confirm the Peace yet were over-born by the Popes Bull against the Cessation and Peace and so deterred their Souldiers from their fidelity and Colours
whereof six only were hanged Many treacherous designs of the Town Papists failed many Protestants fled to sea and although Docter Barnard their chief Minister had the conveniency offered him to be gon he would not desert his Congregation thin as they were telling them as St. Ambrose said to Iustina Non prodam lupis gregem mihi commissum hic â—ccide si libet At this time comes a competent strength of one hundred horse and ten hundred foot under command of Sir Henry Tichburn appointed Governour of the Town the fourth of November which the Catholiques resented coldly upon whom the Protestants had just suspition and therefore wearied succours were faine to stand Guard that Night And now it was time to name the Brat and call it a through Rebellion which till now was favoured with the interpretation of an Act of discontented Gentlemen Not long after the State added three companies of foot so beside the Town Arms they were compleat 1500. foot and 160. horse Not many nights after there was dropt in the street a faire Declaration of the Catholiques of Ireland framed upon presumption that the design contrived had been effected and by the way at each corner seems to have been fixed and this the most authentick that came to light Whereas we the Roman Catholiques of the Kingdom of Ireland have been continually loving and faithfull Subjects to his sacred Majesty and notwithstanding the several and heavy oppressions suffered by the subordinate Governments to the ruine of our lives honours and estates yet having some liberty of our Religion from his Majesty out of the affluence of his Princely love to us we weighing not corporal loss in respect of the great immunity of the soule are instantly resolved to infix our selves in an immutable and pure allegiance for ever to his royal Majesâ—y and successors Now it is That the Parliament of England maligning and envying any graces received from his Majesty by our Nation and knowing none desired of us as that of Religion and likewise perceiving his Majesty to be inclined to give us the liberty of the same drew his Majesties Prerogative out of his hand thereby largely pretending the general good of his Majesties Kingdoms But we the sad Catholicks and loyal Subjects to his Majesty do probably finde as well by some Acts to pass by them the said Parliament touching our Religion in which the Catholicks of England and Scotland did suffer as also by threat to send over the Scotish Army with the Sword and Bible in hand against us That their whole and studied Plots both was and is not onely to extinguish Religion by which we onely live happily but also likewise to supplant us and raze the name of Catholicks and Irish out of the whole Kingdom And seeing this surmise so dangerous tending absolutely to the overthrow of the liberty of our consciences and Countrey and also our gracious Kings power forced from him in which and in whose prudent care of us our sole quiet and comfort consisted and without which the fear of our present Ruines did prescribe opinion and premonish us to save our selves We therefore as well to regain his Majesties said Prerogative being onely due to him and his Successours and being the essence and life of Monarchy hoping thereby to continue a strong and invincible unity between his royal and ever happy love to us and our faithfull Duty and Loyalty to his incomparable Majesty have taken Arms and possessed our selves of the best and strongest Forts of this Kingdom to enable us to serve his Majesty and to defend us from the tyrannous resolution of our Enemies This in our consciences as we wish the peace of the same to our selves and our posterity is the pretence and true cause of our raising Arms by which we are resolved to perfect the advancement of truth and safety of our King and Countrey Thus much we thought fit in general to publish to the world to set forth our innocent and just cause the particulars whereof shall be speedily declared God save the King Upon the fifth of November the Lords and Council of Ireland sent their second Dispatch from Dublin unto the King in Scotland and several Letters also into England to the Parliament and Council and to the Earl of Leicester elect Lord Lieutenant setting down the particular Narrative of the Rebellion and so take together the success of both Dispatches The first Letters arrived at London the last of October and that Even were delivered and the next Morning the Upper House sent them down to the House of Commons by the Lord Keeper Privy Seal High Chamberlain Admiral Marshal Chamberlain the Earls of Bath Dorset Leicester Holland Berks Bristoll Lord Mandevil Say Goring Wilmot who had Chairs to sit while the Letters were read and so departed The House instantly resolved into a Committee and order That fifty thousand pounds be forthwith provided That the Lords be moved that Members of both Houses may declare to the City of London the present necessity to borrow fifty thousand pounds to be secured by Act of Parliament That a Committee of both Houses consider of the affairs of Ireland That Owen O Conally the Discoverer shall have five hundred pounds presently and two hundred pounds per annum Pension till provision of Land of Inheritance of a greater value That the persons of all Papists of quality in England be secured That no persons except Merchants shall pass to Ireland without Certificate from the said Committee To all which the Lords consented Then the House of Commons vote twenty thousand pounds for present supply A convenient number of Ships for guarding the Sea-coasts of Ireland That six thousand Foot and two thousand Horse be forthwith raised for Ireland and Officers to be appointed over them That Magazines of Victual be forthwith sent to Westchester to be sent to Dublin as occasion shall require That the Magazines now at Carlile be forthwith sent over to Knockfergus in Ireland That the Kings Council consider of a Pacification for Rewards to such as shall do service in Ireland and for a Pardon to such Rebells as shall submit within a time and of a Sum of Money for Rewards to bring in the Heads of the principal Rebells That Letters of Thanks be returned to the Lords Justices there That the Committee do consider how and in what manner to make use of Scotland here And a Bill to be prepared for pressing of Souldiers for Ireland An Ordinance passed for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to raise three thousand five hundred Foot and six hundred Horse and not to press our dear Brethren of Scotland any further than for one thousand Foot to pass from Scotland to the North of Ireland And Arms to be delivered out by the Master of the Ordnance out of the store for Ireland for eight thousand Foot and a thousand Horse Thus much was discoursed upon the first Letters And now upon the second Dispatch the Parliament voted two
the House of Peers whose authority interest and priviledges was now as much slighted and despised as the King was after and as the Lords fell towards themselves in after successes easily passing over those former singular Acts of grace passed by him already in this Parliament or else ascribing them to their own wisdoms in the procurement and conclude against a Malignant party that they have no hope of setling the distractions of this Kingdom for want of a concurrence with the House of Lords into which number all these Lords were cast who presumed to dissent from any Propositions made by the House of Commons But not to hold you in suspence the business was thus When this engine Remonstrance was prepared for the people by the prime Leaders It was presented to the house of Commons and the greatest art imaginable to procure consent to have it passed there And after the longest debate that hath been observed from three a clock afternoon till ten a clock the next morning when many through weakness and weariness left the House So that it looked as it was sawcely said like the verdict of a starved Iury and carried onely by eleven voyces And shortly after that the King had been received with all possible expressions of loyal affection by the City of London against which it was murmured and the chief advancers of that duty discountenanced and their Loyalty envied at And when it was publiquely said in the House of Commons upon some dispute of a pretended breach of the order of the House That their Discipline ought to be severe for the Enemy was now in view meaning the King returned then I say was the Petition and Remonstrance presented to his Majesty at Hampton Court I could wish you had it at length as it was printed but this History growes big with necessary abreviations suppose these what the wit and malice of man could rake together to make a Sovereign suspected of his Subjects Their Petition thus in effect Most gracious Soveraign Your Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects the Commoners in this present Parliament doe with joy acknowledge this favoâ—r of God for his safe return into England when the dangers and distempers of the State have caused them to desire his presence and authority to his Parliament for preventing of eminent ruine and destruction to his Kingdome of England and Scotland fomented by a Malignant party for alteration of Religion and Government the increase of Popery by the practice of Iesuits and other Engineers and factors for Rome corrupting the Bishops and Privy Council They being the cause of the late Scotish war and the Irish Rebellion now for prevention they pray that his Majesty would concur with his Parliament deprive the Bishops of their Votes To take a way oppressions in Religion Church Government and Discipline To purge his Councils of such as are promotors of these corruptions and not to alienate any escheated Lands in Ireland by reason of the Rebellion And these being granted they will make him happy To this the body of their Remonstrance was annexed very particular and large which they draw down from the beginning of the Kings Reign pretending to discover the Malignant party and their designs and consequently the miseries thereby to the State And this they intitle A Remonstrance of the Kingdom Die Mercurii December 15. 1641. In brief to set it down from these Heads 1. The Root and the growth of these mischievous Designs 2. The maturity and ripeness to which they have attained before the beginning of this Parliament 3. The effectual means which hath been used for the extirpations of these dangers evils and progress that hath been made therein by the Kings goodness and the wisdome of Parliament 4. The waies of obstruction and opposition by which the Progress hath been interrupted 5. The courses to be taken for removing those obstacles and for the accomplishing of their dutiful and faithful intentions and endeavours of restoring and establishing their ancient honour greatness and security of this Crown and Nation The Root of all this mischief they finde to be a Malignant and pernicious Design of subverting the fundamental Laws and Principles of Government upon which the Religion and Iustice of the Kingdome are firmly established The Actors and Promoters hereof have been 1. The Iesuited Papists who hate the Laws as the Obstacles of that change and subversion of Religion which they so much long for 2. The Bishops and the corrupt part of the Clergy who cherish formalities and superstitions as the natural effects and more probable supports of their own Ecclesiastical Tyranny and usurpation 3. Such Councellors and Courtiers as for private ends have ingaged themselves to further the Interest of some foreign Princes or states to the prejudice of the King and State at home And to make it more credible the Remonstrance moulds out some common Principles by which they pretend â—ll the Malignant Councels and actions were governed and these are branched in four particulars in effect That the Malignant party maintained continual differences and discontents betwixt the King and the people upon questions of Perogative and priviledge that so they might have say they the advantage of siding with him and under the notions of Men addicted to his service gain to themselves and their parties the places of greatest trust and power in the Kingdome They suppressed the purity and power of Religion and such as we asserted to it as being contrary to their own ends and the greatest impediment to that charge which they thought to introduce Then to conjoyn these parts of the Kingdome which were most propitious to their own ends and to divide those who went most opposite which consisted in many particular observations to cherish the Arminian part in those points wherein they agree with the Papists to multiply and enlarge the differences between the Protestant and those which they call Puritans to introduce and countenance such opinions and Ceremonies as are fittest for accommodation with Popery to increase and maintain ignorance looseness and prophaness in the people that if these three parties Papists Arminians and Libertinâ—s they might compose a body fit to act such Councels and resolutions as were most conduceable to their ends And politickly they disaffected the King to the Parliament by slanders and false imputations and by putting him upon other waies of supply which in shew and appearance were fuller of advantage than the ordinary course of subsidies though in truth they brought more loss than gain both to King and People and have caused the distractions under which we suffer Then the Remonstrance comes to particular charges against this Malignant party 1. The dissolution of the Parliament at Oxford two subsidies being given and no grievance relieved 2. The loss of the Rochel fleete by our shipping delivered over to the French to the loss of that Town and the Protestant Religion in France 3. The diverting of his Majesties course of wars
or to have made the Court too hot for her And therefore the King acquaints the Houses that he was pressed by the States Ambassadour to send the Princess Maria immediately into Holland to her late betrothed Husband the young Prince of Orange and upon the Queens earnest Desire to give her Majesty leave to accompany her And with her were conveyed all the King and Queens Jewels not leaving behinde any of those entailed to the Crown by his Predecessors with which and the Prince of Orange's assistance the King doubted not to raise his party considerable to oppose the Parliament But no doubt nothing could work more for the Parliaments advantage and although they were informed of the Purloin which might have been prevented and seized yet they suffered so much Treasure to be transported to be rid of all together We have time to consider to what miserable solitude the King was brought his dearest Consort the Queen and his eldest Daughter the Princess with the honour of her Court to be enforced to fly beyond Seas himself desolate enforced to withdraw from his Parliament his Privy Council from his usual residence at White-hall and from the strength and support of the City of London so wonderfully obliged to him for his grace and favour But all this appears by his own princely consideration which he expresseth thus Although I have much cause says the King to be troubled at my Wifes Departure from me and out of my Dominions yet not her absence so much as the Scandal of that necessitie which drives her away doth afflict me That she should be compelled by mine own Subjects and those pretending to be Protestants to with-draw for her safetie This being the first Example of any Protestant Subjects that have taken up Arms against their King a Protestant for I look upon this now done in England as another Act of the same Tragedie which was lately begun in Scotland the Brands of that Fire being ill quenched have kindled the like Flames here I fear such Motions so little to the adorning of the Protestant Profession may occasion a farther alienation of minde and Divorce of affections in her from that Religion which is the onely thing wherein we differ Which yet God can and I pray he would in time take away and not suffer these practises to be any obstruction to her judgment since it is the motion of those men for the most part who are yet to seek and settle their Religion for Doctrine Government and good manners and so not to be imputed to the true English Protestants who continue firm to their former settled Principles and Laws I am sorrie my Relation to so deserving a Ladie should be any occasion of her Danger and Affliction whose Merits would have served her for a protection among the savage Indians while their rudeness and barbaritie knows not so perfectly to hate all Virtues as some mens subtiltie doth among whom I yet think few are so malitious as to hate her for her self The fault is that she is my Wife All Iustice then as well as Affection commands me to studie her Securitie who is onely in Danger for my sake I am content to be tossed weather-beaten and shipwrackt so as she may be in a safe Harbour This comfort I shall enjoy by her safetie in the midst of my personal Dangers that I can perish but half if she be preserved in whose memorie and hopefull Posteritie I may yet survive the malice of mine Enemies although they should be satiated with my Bloud I must leave her and them to the Love and Loyaltie of my good Subjects and to his protection who is able to punish the Faults of Princes and no less severely to revenge the Injuries done to them by those who in all Dutie and Allegiance ought to have made good that safetie which the Laws chiefly provide for Princes But common civilitie is in vain expected from those that dispute their Loyaltie nor can it be safe for any Relation to a King to tarrie among them who are shaking hands with their Allegiance under pretence of laying faster hold on their Religion 'T is pitie so noble and peacefull a Soul should see much more suffer the rudeness of those who must make up their want of Iustice with inhumanitie and impudence Her sympathie with me in my afflictions will make her Virtues shine with greater lustre as Stars in the darkest Nights and assure the envious World that she loves me not my Fortunes Neither of us but can easily forgive since we do not much blame the unkindness of the Generalitie and Vulgar for we see God is pleased to trie both our patience by the most self-punishing sin the ingratitude of those who having eaten of our Bread and being enriched with our Bountie have scornfully lift up themselves against us and those of our own Houshold are become our Enemies I pray God lay not their sin to their charge who think to satisfie all obligations to Dutie by their Corban of Religion and can less endure to see than to sin against their Benefactours as well as their Sovereigns But even that policie of mine Enemies is so far venial as it was necessarie to their Designs by scandalous Articles and all irreverend Demeanour to seek to drive her out of my Kingdoms lest by the influence of her Example eminent for Love as a Wife and Loyaltie as a Subject she should have converted to or retained in their Love and Loyaltie all those whom they had a purpose to pervert The less I may be blest with her companie the more I will retire to God and mine own Heart whence no malice can banish her Mine Enemies may envie but they can never deprive me of the enjoyment of her Virtues while I enjoy my self It was mightily enforced then and the scandalous suspition continues to this Day That at the Kings late being in Scotland when the Irish Rebellion then brake out the Plot and contrivance was there hatched Not so horrid as it fell out to be a monstrous Massacre of all the Protestants but it was surmised that a Mutiny or shew of Insurrection there might be an occasion of raising Forces here for to subdue them and so to be made usefull in reducing the Parliament to Reason And to increase that opinion it hath been objected that how earnestly the King was fain to urge the Parliament for that Relief very often to reminde them of the Misery which they could not but deeply resent yet never was too hasty nor at all willing to intrust any power of Arms to the Kings dispose much less for him in person to be their General as he often offered To add to all it had been considered in Parliament how generally the Papists flocked over to Ireland and though the Houses had ordered a strict Examination for prevention thereof yet it was complained of by Master Pym at a Conference and printed by their Order That since the stop upon the Ports against
denied to some men lest he should seem not to dare to denie any thing and give too much encouragement to unreasonable demands or importunities But to binde my self to a general and implicite consent to what ever they shall desire or propound for such is one of their Propositions were such a latitude of blinde obedience as never was expected from any Free-man nor fit to be required of any man much less of a King by his own Subjects any of whom he may possibly exceed as much in wisdom as he doth in place and power This were as if Sampson should have consented not onely to binde his own hands and cut off his own hair but to put out his own eys that the Philistines might with the more safetie mock and abuse him which they chose rather to do than quite to destroy him when he was become so tame an object and fit occasion for their sport and scorn Certainly to exclude all power of denial seems an arrogancie least of all becoming those who pretend to make their Addresses in an humble and loyal way of petitioning who by that sufficiently confess their own inferioritie which obligeth them to rest if not satisfied yet quieted with such an Answer as the will and reason of their Superiour thinks fit to give who is acknowledged to have a freedom and power of Reason to consent or dissent else it were very foolish and absurd to ask what another having not libertie to denie neither hath power to grant But if this be my Right belonging to me in reason as a man and in honour as a Sovereign King as undoubtedly it doth how can it be other than extreme injurie to confine my Reason to a nâ—â—essitie of granting all they have a minde to ask whose mindes may be as differing from mine both in Reason and Honour as their Aims may be and their Qualities are which last God and the Laws have sufficiently distinguished making me their Sovereign and them my Subjects whose Propositions may soon prove violent oppositions if once they gain to be necessarie Impositions upon the Regal Authoritie Since no man seeks to limit and confine his King in Reason who hath not a secret Aim to share with him or usurp upon him in power and dominion But they would have me trust to their moderation and abandon mine own discretion that so I might verifie what representations some have made of me to the world that I am fitter to be their Pupil than their Prince Truly I am not so confident of mine own sufficiencie as not willingly to admit the counsel of others but yet I am not so diffident of my self as brutishly to submit to any mens dictates and at once to betray the Sovereigntie of Reason in my soul and the majestie of mine own Crown to any of my Subjects Least of all have I any ground of credulitie to induce me fully to submit to all the desires of those men who will not admit or do refuse and neglect to vindicate the freedom of their own and others sitting and voting in Parliament Besides all men that know them know this how young States-men the most part of these propounders are so that till experience of one seven years hath shewed me how well they can govern themselves and so much power as is wrested from me I should be very foolish indeed and unfaithfull in my Trust to put the Reins of both Reason and Government wholly out of mine own into their hands whose driving is already too much like Jehu's and whose forwardness to ascend the Throne of Supremacie portends more of Phaeton than of Phoebus God divert the Omen if it be his will They may remember that at best they sit in Parliament as my Subjects not my Superiours called to be my Counsellours not Dictatours their Summons extends to recommend their Advice not to command my Dutie When I first heard of Propositions to be sent me I expected either some good Laws which had been antiquated by the course of time or over-laid by the corruption of manners had been desired to a restauration of their vigour and due execution or some evil customes preter-legal and abuses personal had been to be removed or some injuries done by my self and others to the Common-weal were to be repaired or some equable offertures were to be tendred to me wherein the advantages of my Crown being considered by them might fairly induce mâ— to condescend to what tended to my Subjects good without any great diminution of my self whom Nature Law Reason and Religion binde me in the first place to preserve without which 't is impossible to preserve my people according to my place Or at least I looked for such moderate desires of due Reformation of what was indeed amiss in Church and State as might still preserve the foundation and essentials of Government in both not shake and quite over-throw either of them without any regard to the Laws in force the wisdom and pietie of former Parliaments the antient and universal practice of Christian Churches the Rights and Privileges of particular men nor yet any thing offered in lieu or in the room of what must be destroied which might at once teach the good end of the others institution and also supplie its pretended defects reform its abuses and satisfie sober and wise men not with soft and specious words pretending zeal and special pietie but with pregnant and solid Reasons both divine and humane which might justifie the abruptness and necessitie of such vast alterations But in all their Propositions I can observe little of these kindes or to these ends nothing of any Laws dis-jointed which are to be restored of any right invaded of any justice to be un-obstructed of any compensations to be made of any impartial Reformation to be granted to all or any of which Reason Religion true policie or any other humane motives might induce me But as to the main matters propounded by them at any time in which is either great noveltie or difficultie I perceive that what were formerly looked upon as Factions in the State and Schisms in the Church and so punishable by the Laws have now the confidence by vulgar clamours and assistance chiefly to demand not onely Tolerations of themselves in their vanitie noveltie and confusion but also Abolition of the Laws against them and a total extirpation of that Government whose Rights they have a minde to invade This as to the main other Propositions are for the most part but as waste paper in which those are wrapped up to present them somewhat more handsomly Nor do I so much wonder at the varietie and horrible noveltie of some Propositions there being nothing so monstrous which some fancies are not prone to long for This casts me into not an Admiration but an Extasie how such things should have the fortune to be propounded in the name of the two Houses of the Parliament of England among whom I am very confident there was not
Prerogative Sovereigntie and power in the King that other preteâ—ding to justifie privileges and Right of Parliament and Subjects freedom During the Kings preparations in the North the Parliamentarie attempted to put themselves in a posture of War which they called A Necessity of Defence And because the Ordinance of Militia was the first ground of Difference in shew between the King and them they desiring it which he would not intrust out of himself the Rent being thereby once made a greater necessitie impleaded the execution of that power Sundry Commissions issued out from either partie to divers Commissioners Lord Lieutenants of several Counties And by the Parliament many Companies were raised and called The Militia Bands a militarie pomp and appearance of braverie well affected to them and near at home The Commission of Aray for the King was commanded and commended to such other of his partie as were loyal to him but hazzarding it to the multitude found not in some places the like wished for effect especially far off in the mid-land Counties where the Lord Say had command for the Parliament and the Lord Chandos for the â—ing he was enforced to flie to Court and to leave his house and furniture at Sudeley Castle in Glocestershire to the furie of the people delighting in a coâ—tumelious revenge and rustick triumph of the ignoble communalâ—ie in whom not always the deep sense of their own interests doth purchase this extasie of passion but a very turning of the fancie sets them into an hurrie Their insolenâ—ies now appear intolerable by reason of their former usual restraint which they now usurping pretend freedom to do what they list and they were gained to the Parliament upon that blinde account which since hath proved to them the more slavish though for that present producing wondrous effects to that partie by self-ingagement of the common people which the Parliament knew how to promote and to execute thereafter to their own ends Most men did undoubtedly believe greater hopes of Libertie from the Parliament than from the King who called it Licentioâ—sness and this of the Kings Sovereigntie the Commons intituled to Tyrannie The Gentrie for the most part render themselves rather Subjects to Princes the better to rule over the Commons their vassals The Communaltâ—â— consisting chiefly of Yeomen Farmers petâ—y Freeholders and others men of manufacture bred up sparingly but living in plentie such as these always thwart the Gentrie by whom they subsist Persons of birth and breeding more jovial and more delicate neglecting a confined condition endeavour rather to hazzard what they have by aiming at the height of fortune unto which their noble Extraction wit and learning doth incite and stir them up This was not all the difference Religion diversly professed had a main interest The eternal Truth unchangeable bindes every soul to one Law perpetual and constant this therefore doth implead the necessitie of external privileges in the professour which though not to destroy the Kingdoms of the world nor to usurp a greater liberty than humane Laws will â—asily grant and hath in its nature an irreconcileable enmitie against arbitrarâ—e Government in such commands as they conceive not justly put upon them and out of which they are studious to free themselves when the felicitie of that time shall offer the means and as they thought it now a lawfull call by power of Parliament To their advantage there was raised a practical Ministerie captivating vulgar capacities to applie themselves more fitly to their own purposes for the present accounting all order and decencie in Church and State to be Innovations upon the Consciences and purses of the people and yet even the common natural Subject not thus deluded did come from the farthest parts to serve under their Sovereign by the light of loyaltie not to war against that Authoritie And yet after some strugling that the King had gotten a defensive Armie and his cause calling for some under-hand assistance of his neighbour Friends then the Parliament contract a League with the Scots pleasing them with the hopes of a through Scotish Presbyterian Reformation of Religion and to boot good entertainment for their beggarly Armie not without a solemn League by Oath and Covenant with them taken by both Nations they with Forces entred England won the prize got the King in their clutches and for a piece of money sold him to the Parliament to the death and execution of him and destruction of Church and State And so we return to our Historie Civil and Martial The King in a reasonable posture began to caress his people and first descends from York to the County of Nottingham and at Newark he summons the Gentlemen and Free-holders and tells them that their resolutions and affections to him and their Country for his defence and the Laws of the Land have been so notable that they have drawn him thither only to thank them that he goes to other places to confirm undeceive his Subjects but comes thither to encourage them That they have made the best judgment of happiness by relying on that Foundation which the experience of so many hundred years hath given proof viz. The assurance and securitie of the Law And let them be assured when Laws shall be altered by any other Authority than that by which they were made the Foundations are destroyed And though it seems at first but to take away his power it will quickly swallow all their interest He asketh nothing of them but to preserve their own affections to the Religion and Laws established he will justifie and protect those affections and will live and die with them in that quarrel The like caress he gives those of the County of Lincoln at Lincoln and intending to reduce his Town of Hull sends his Message to the Parliament with the Proclamation ensuing Iulie 11. That by his former Declarations and this his Proclamation they and all his good Subjects may see the just grounds of his present Journey towards Hull before he shall use force to reduce it to obedience and requires them that it may be forthwith delivered to him to which if they conform he will admit of their further Addresses from them and return such Propositions as may be for present peace and promises to them in the word of a King that nothing shall be wanting in him to redress the calamities threatening the Nation and expects their Answer at Beverley on Thursday next being the fifteenth of Iuly That the King having long complained of the affront done to his person by Sir Iohn Hotham when he went thither to view his Magazine at Hull which have been since carried away by Orders of Parliament and the Town kept and maintained against him and Votes and Orders in Parliament have justified the same that Hotham hath since fortified the Town drowned the Countrey thereabout and hath set out a Pinnace to Sea which hath seized and intercepted his Packet Pinnace with Letters of the Queen
sufficiently thinned and over-awed To which Partialitie while in all Reason Iustice and Religion my conscience forbids me by consenting to make up their Votes to Acts of Parliament I must now be urged with an Armie and constrained either to hazzard mine own and my Kingdoms ruine by my Defence or prostrate my conscience to the blinde obedience of those men whose zealous superstition thinks or pretends they cannot do God and the Church greater service than utterly to destroy that Primitive Apostolical and anciently universal Government of the Church by Bishops Which if other mens judgments binde them to maintain or forbid them to consent to the abolishing of mine much more who besides the grounds I have in my judgment have also a most strict and indispensible Oath upon my Conscience to preserve that Order and the Rights of the Church to which most sacrilegious and abhorred Perjurie most unbeseeming a Christian King should I ever by giving my consent be betraied I should account it infinitely greater miserie than any hath or can befall me in as much as the least sin hath more evil in it than the greatest affliction Had I gratified their Anti-Episcopal Faction at first in this point with my consent and sacrificed the Ecclesiastical Government and Revenues to the furie of their Covetousness Ambition and Revenge I believe they would then have found no colourable necessitie of raising an Armie to fetch in and punish Delinquents That I consented to the Bill of putting the Bishops out of the House of Peers was done with a firm perswasion of their contentedness to suffer a present diminution in their Rights and Honour for my sake and the Common-wealths which I was conâ—ident they would readily yield unto â—ather than occasion by the least obstruction on their part any Dangers to me or to my Kingdom That I cannot add my consent to the total Exâ—irpation of that Government which I have often offered to all fit Regulations hath so much further tie upon my conscience as what I think Religious and Apostolical and so very Sacred and Divine as not to be dispensed with or destroyed when what is onely of civil favour and privilege of Honour granted to men of that Order may with their consent who are concerned in it be annulled This is the true state of those obstructions pretended to be in point of Iustice and Authoritie of Parliament when I call God to witness I knew none of such consequence as was worth speaking of to make a War being onely such as Iustice Reason and Religion had made in mine own and other mens consciences Afterwards indeed a great shew of Delinquents was made which were but consequences necessarily following upon mine or others withdrawiâ—g from or defence against violence but those could not be the first occasion of raising an Armie against me Wherein I was so far from preventing them as they have declared often that they might seem to have the advantage and justice of the defensive part and load me with all the envie and injuries of first assaulting them when as God knows I had not so much as any hopes of an Armie in my thoughts Had the Tumults been honourably and effectually repressed by exemplarie justice and the libertie of the Houses so vindicated that all Members of either House â—ight with honour and freedom becoming such a Senate have come in and discharged their consciences I had obtained all that I designed by my with-drawing and had much more willingly and speedily returned than I retired this being my necessitie driving the other my choice desiring But some men knew I was like to bring the same judgment and constancie which I carried with me which would never fit their Designs and so while they invited me to come and grievously complained of my absence yet they could not but be pleased with it especially when they had found out that plausible and popular pretext of raising an Armie to fetch in Delinquents when all that while they never punished the greatest and most intolerable Delinquencie of the Tumults and their Exciters which drave my self and so many of both Houses from their places by most barbarous Indignities which yet in all Reason and Honour they were as loth to have deserted as those othâ—rs were willing they should thaâ— so they might have occasion to persecute them with the injuries of an Armie for not suffering more tamely the injuries of the Tumults That this is the true state and first drift and design in raising an Armie against me is by the â—â—quel so evident that all other pretences vanish For when they declared by Propositions or Treaties what they would have to appease them there was nothing of consequence offered to me or demanded of me as any original difference in any point of Law or order of justice But among other lesser Innovations this chiefly was urgâ—d The Abolition of Episcopal and the Establishment of Presbyterian Government All other things at any time propounded were either impertinent as to any ground of a War or easily granted by me and onely to make up a number or else they were meerly consequential and accessarie after the War was by them unjustly begun I cannot hinder other mens thoughts whom the noise and shew of pietie and heat for Reformation and Religion might easily so fill with prejudice that all equalitie and clearness of judgment might be obstructed But this was and is as to my best observation the true state of affairs between us when they first raised an Armie with this Design either to stop my mouth or to force my consent and in this truth as to my conscience who was God knows as far from meditating a War as I was in the eye of the world from having any preparations for one I finde that comfort that in the midst of all the unfortunate successes of this War on my side I do not think mine innocencie any whit prejudiced or darkened nor am I without that integritie and peace before God as with humble confidence to address my prayer to him And by Proclamation the King requires the aid and assistance of all his Subjects on the North side of Trent and within twenty miles Southward thereof for the suppressing of the Rebells now marching against him whose hearts God Almighty will 〈◊〉 up with a true sense and apprehension of his sufferings that according to their allegeance and as they tender the safety of his person the properties of their Estates and just liberties to attend his person upon the two and twentieth of this instant August at Nottingham where and when he intends to erect his Standard in his just defence c. and that with Arms and Furniture c. and who shall supply him with Money or Plate which he as God shall enable will repay and reward according to the measure of their love and affection to him and their Countrey York August 12. But to undeceive the people or to satisfie the more curious he
Aug. 16. Upon these grounds The Parliament of England take resolution and declare their approbation and thanks to the secret Council and Assemblie in Scotland for their desires of unitie in Religion and uniformitie in Church-government in the three Kingdoms we having say they often had that matter in debate concurring in judgment and experience of the manifold mischiefs which the Government of the Prelacie hath in all times and ages produced in this Church and State and so we hope to satisfie the Christian desires of our dear Brethren of Scotland although we know that hereby we shall exceedingly irritate that malignant partie who will bend all their forces to ruine that holy work and to ruine and destroy us in the undertaking being the very same partie which hath now incensed and armed his Majestie against us The very same Design of rooting out Reformed Religion endeavoured to begin that Tragedie in Scotland which being perfected in one Nation will be accomplished in the other Religion is the band and safetie of both And as we resolve by the national Covenant betwixt the two Kingdoms to be carefull of Scotland so we doubt not but the secret Council and Assemblie there will be always ready to express their brotherly kindness to us according to the Articles ratiâ—ied between both Parliaments and advantagious to all the professours of the Reformed Religion in Christendom And so this being the Proeme to their Declaration the Parliament goes on with lamentable sighs and groans from the bowels of their hearts for being obstructed in this piaculous work of true Reformation and after much striving and seeking God wrestling with the Engines of Satan they have jumped in resolution with their Brethren in Scotland that the Prelatical party is the cause of all distraction And being thus backed they take the boldness to declare That this Government by Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellours and Commissioners Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers depending upon the Hierarchie is evil and prejudicial to the state and Government of this Kingdom and resolve the same shall be taken away And according to our Declaration of the seventh of February we will consult with godly Divines to setle a Government of Reformation And intend that a Bill for this Assemblie may be passed for their Meeting the fifth of Novemb. next And desire their dear Brethren of Scotland to concur with them in petitioning the King for his approbation And because nothing will prosper without their handy work they pray them to send some out of their many good â—nd godly Divines of that Kirk to assist our Assemblie for setling of one Confession one Directorie and one Catechism in all three Kingdoms to the relief and deliverance of the poor afflicted Churches abroad and confusion of the tyrannie of Rome being the prime cause and fountain of all calamities bloudy massacres outrages cruelties and bitter persecution of Gods people and saints in all the Christian world for many ages Here is now a resolution to reform all Christendom and beat down Popery in a trice but the result was that under colour of Religion the Design went on and so prospered in outward success And now to encourage the well-affected to lend money and bring their Plate upon Publick Faith which without a mans strong belief could hardly get Customers to come in fearing belike that the Kings gentleness and mercy might agree to an Accommodation having been upon terms of Treaty on his part The Parliament therefore once again to ascertain their Resolution to fight it out to the last man and being confident of success do declare That the Arms which they have been forced to take up and shall take up for the preservation of the Parliament Religion the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom shall not be laid down untill his Majestie shall withdraw his protection from such persons as have been voted by both Houses to be Delinquents and shall leave them to the justice of the Parliament to the end that those great charges and damages wherewith all the Common-wealth hath been burdened since the Kings departure from his Parliament may be born by the Delinquents And all his Majesties good and faithfull Subjects who by loan of moneys or otherwise at their charges have or shall assist the Common-wealth may be repayed and satisfied out of the Delinquents Estates And these Delinquents were sure to be made so out of the noblest and richest persons in the Nation against whom there could be found but the scent of Malignancie so that it became a huge crime first to be rich or able in any condition to be either Neuter or not wel-affected to the Parl. or to be suspected so to prove it a slender Accusation would serve the turn witness sundry persons which we shall have occasion to speak of ruined upon that score onely And first they begin with Iames Lord Strange Son and Heir of William Earl of Derby who to the intent and purpose to subvert the Laws c. did upon the fifteenth of July last past at Manchester in the Countie of Lancaster traiterously summon call together and raise great Forces and did kill murder and destroy Richard Percival a Linnen Webster for which the Parliament impeach him of high Treason And the sixteenth of September he is so published in all Churches and Chapels and Markets in the Counties of Lancaster and Chester and where the Parliament had any power for the County was mostly for the King against which party the City of London are desired to advance sixteen thousand pounds for setting forth ten thousand Dragoons and some Troops of Horse for suppressing that party upon Publick Faith which was soon raised but not repayed The King being at Shrewsburie whither Judg Heath came and advised for the Adjourning part of Michaelmass Term from the first Return In Octab. Sancti Martini Octob. 4. And at Bridg-North he proclames Thomas Nichols Humphrey Mackworth and Thomas Hunt Esq guilty of high Treason active men in the Militia and assisting the Kings Enemies in their Rebellion Octob. 14. The L. Fairfax for the Parl and Mr. Bellases for the King with considerable parties Commissioners on either side had concluded upon certain Articles concerning the peace in Yorkshire and dated the 29. of September To which the Parliament take exception That the Parliament gave no such authoritie to binde that Countie to a Neutralitie it being prejudicial to the whole Kingdom for one Countie to withdraw from the rest which thâ—y are bound by Law to assist It being derogatorie to the power of Parliament for private men to suspend the execution of the Militia and therefore it is ordered that no such Neutralâ—â—â—e be observed in that Countie without any defensive force whereby it will be open to the King to return with his Armie for Winter quarter in that plentifull Countie New-castle near for his Supplies by Sea And so they declare the Lord Faâ—â—fax and his
with Mr. Hotham who was in ill case to continue but must be forced to retreat to Hull The Forces of the West in Cornwall for the King began to form into a Body near Pendennis Castle the Governour thereof Sir Nicholas Slaning a gallant Gentleman and assisted 〈…〉 others Sir Bevil Greenvile who possessed themselveâ—â—â—aunston the County Town of Cornwall but not long after Sir Ralph Hopton appears in chief command over the Cavaliers The Parliament had Plymouth the neighbour Port Town of Devonshire bordering Cornwall in the South and Sir George Chudly a Stickler for them for a time onely The Kings party increased in Mid-Wales and descending Southwards as he marches the Welch come to him from all parts of Hereford Monmouth mightily increasing by the power and industry of the Earl of Worcester their Brigades reaching to Oxford and round about where Prince Rupert commanded who took Powder and Match marching through Staffordshire to reprieve Manchester The Parliament party lay about Warwick Coventrie Worcester Buckingham and their Brigades round about even to Glocester Some Arms for the King are landed at Newcastle and ten thousand pounds in Money to raise Dragoons in Northumberland and to fall into Yorkshire which appeared for the King The King on his march from Wales descended Southward and now being near Stafford the Parliament order That the Citie of London be strongly guarded and Posts Bars and Chains be erected and set up in places and by-lanes of the Parishes of St. Margarets Westminster St. Martins in the Fields St. Clements Savoy Holborn St. Giles Covent-garden St. Johns Street â—lerkenwell Criplegate Shoreditch White-chapel Islington Mile-end Southwark Lambeth or any other places necessary at the charge of the Parish by equal Assesment Octob. 22. And the Parliament declare a solemn Protestation to all the world In the presence of Almightie God for the satisfaction of their Consciences and the Discharge of that great Trust which lies upon them That no private passion or respect no evil intention to his Majesties person no Design to the prejudice of his just Honour and Authoritie engaged them to raise Forces and take up Arms against the Authours of this War whereof the Kingdom is now inflamed And after they have by clearing themselves lodged the occasion upon the Contrivers Papists about the King for extirpation of the Protestant Religion wherein principally this Kingdom and Scotland are concerned as making the greatest Body of Reformation in Christendom they conclude For all which Reasons they are resolved to enter into a solemn Oath and Covenant with God to give up themselves lives and fortunes into his hands and defend this his cause with the hazzard of our lives against the Kings Armie according to a form agreed upon and to be subscribed and to associate and unite with all the well-affected of the Citie of London and other parts of his Majesties Dominions 〈…〉 expect their dear Brethren of Scotland that they will help and 〈◊〉 defence of this Cause which if the Popish partie prevail must needs involve Scotland in the like alteration of Religion and engage them also in a War against this Kingdom to defend their own Religion And this they do again they say protest before the everliving God to be the chief end of all their counsels and resolutions without any intention to injure his Majestie either in his person or just power Octob. 22. And the Battail of Edg-hill the next morning being Sunday After the Kings party had beat the Enemy at Worcester Fight the three and twentieth of September he joyns all his Brigades near hand and marches to meet General Essex hovering thereabout to watch the Kings Designs who lodged on Saturday night October 22. at Sir William Chancies six miles near Keinton and Essex at Keinton And early the next morning being Sunday the three and twentieth drew up into a Body near Keinton and ascending the top of Edg-hill with his Prospective Glass took view of Essex his Army in the Vale of the Red Horse about a Mile distant but before the King could draw into order he was saluted with three Pieces of Cannon from the other side with three Shouts of their Souldiers And being asked by his Officers what his Majesty meant to do To give him Battel said the King it is the first time I ever saw the Rebells in a Bodie God and good mens prayers to him assist the justice of my cause And instantly ordered the Fight by the return of two Shot of Cannon in answer to theirs about two of the clock after noon the Word was God and King Charls his greatest Body of Horse was on the right Wing and on the left some Horse and Dragoons The Parliaments Army was put into this order the Foot a good space behinde the Horse when the Charge began three Regiments of Horse on the right Wing the Generals Regiment commanded by Sir Philip Stapleton Sir Balfore's Regiment who was Lieutenant General of the Horse and the Lord Fielding's Regiment which stood behinde the other two as a Reserve Sir Iohn Meldrum had the Van with his Brigade Colonel Essex the middle the General 's Regiment the Lord Brook and Colonel Hollis had the Rear in the left Wing were twenty Troops commanded by Sir Iames Ramsey Commissary General And thus they stood The Earl of Lindsey Lord High Chamberlain of England was the Kings Captain General but the Fight was ordered by the Lord Ruthen since made Earl of Forth a Scotish man and the General lead on the main Body with a Pike in his hand it is said that General Essex lead on his Forces also but then it is confessed that he was advised to retire from Danger and so he escaped when the other was killed The Forlorn Hope was commanded by Major Baâ—stake and Captain Hamond both of them Officers in Sir Lewis Diveâ— Regiment of Foot and drawn down the Hill to the side of a Ditch lined with Musquetiers and both sides had no sooner fired but that the Kings Cannon followed and discharged six or seven Shot Prince Rupert General of the Horse commanding the right Wing routed their left Wing and followed them in chafe to Keinton Town and two Miles beyond killing all whom they overtook the Lord Ruthen ordered the left Wing of the Kings Horse with the Lord Wilmot both of them doing gallant service 't is true Prince Rupert presumed that he had left a sufficient Reserve of Horse behinde under command of the Earl of Carnarvan with some other Troops who seeing the Enemies Horse and Foot to run his spirit not accustomed to stand still followed too far and left their own Foot naked of Horse which Essex espying took the advantage and with his Horse fell upon the Foot including these Regiments the Lord Generals Colonel Fieldings and Colonel Bowels a Regiment raised by the Lord Paget and did much execution upon them this service being done by Colonel Hurry afterwards Major General for the Parliament The Lord General Lindsey
Companies of Horse under command of Sir Charls Cavendish Brother to the Earl of Newcastle the Enemy having left within Nottingham a thousand Foot The Queen marched with three thousand Foot thirty Companies of Horse and Dragoons six Pieces of Cannon and two Morters Mr. Iermin commanding all these Forces as Colonel of her Guard and Sir Alexander Lesley a traiterous cowardly murderous Scot ordered the Foot and Sir Gerard the Horse and Captain Leg the Artillery and her Majesty Generalissima extremely diligent with an hundred and fifty Wagons The King and Queen met at Edg-hill the first time since she landed out of Holland and so to Oxford where she continued till the seventeenth of April the next year and then she took her last leave of the King at Abington for the West and was brought to Bed at Exeter of a Daughter the sixteenth of Iune named Henrieta Maria and afterwards in Cornwall she passed over to France lands at Brest the fifteenth of Iuly and so to Paris where she since continues a sad sorrowfull afflicted Princess with incomparable sufferings which she hath undergone And now comes over an Ambassadour from France Monsieur Harcourt to mediate an Accommodation between the King and Parliament but prevailed not and so returned it being rather a flourish from the policy of Cardinal Mazarine to pry into the Actions of this great Difference and so to set them at a greater distance for it was Richlien's Master-piece to frame the Quarrel first and now for Mazarine not unlike to put them far asunder And presently after is Sir William Armin sent to Edinburgh from the Parliament to hasten the Scots Army hither having first sworn to the Solemn League and Covenant each to other The English Presbyters now scotiâ—ied throughout take Example by the Brethrens Principles in their former Insurrections of Scotland and therefore as they did heretofore so now the Parliament engage that Nation in a strict solemn League by Vow Oath and Covenant taken by the Parliament and afterwards sent down to all the Counties in England and Wales upon which the King observes That the Presbyterian Scots are not to be hired at the ordinary Rate of Auxiliaries nothing will induce them to engage till those that call them in have pawned their Souls to them by a solemn League and Covenant Where many Engines of religious and fair pretensions are brought chiefly to batter or rase Episcopacy This they make the grand evil Spirit which with some other Imps purposely added to make it more odious and terrible to the Vulgar must by so solemn a Charm and Exorcism be cast out of this Church after more than a thousand years possession here from the first plantation of Christianity in this Island and an universal prescription of time and practice in all other Churches since the Apostle's times till this last Century But no Antiquity must plead for it Presbytery like a young Heir thinks the Father hath lived long enough and impatient not to be in the Bishop's Chair and Authority though Lay-men go away with the Revenues all Art is used to sink Episcopacy and lanch Presbytery in England which was lately buoyed up in Scotland by the like artifice of a Covenant Although I am unsatisfied with many passages in that Covenant some referring to my self with very dubious and dangerous limitations yet I chiefly wonder at the Design and drift touching the Discipline and Governmet of the Church and such a manner of carrying them on to new ways by Oaths and Covenants where it is hard for men to be engaged by no less than swearing for or against those things which are of no clear moral necessity but very disputable and controverted among learned and godly men whereto the application of Oaths can hardly be made and enjoyned with that judgment and certainty in one's self or that charity and candour to others of different opinion as I think Religion requires which never refuses fair and equable Deliberations yea and Dissentings too in matters onely probable The enjoining of Oaths upon People must needs in things doubtfull be dangerous as in things unlawfull damnable and no less superfluous where former religious and legal Engagements bound men sufficiently to all necessary duties Nor can I see how they will reconcile such an Innovating Oath and Covenant with that former Protestation which was so lately taken to maintain the Religion established in the Church of England since they account Discipline so great a part of Religion Bâ—t ambitious mindes never think they have laid Snares and Gins enough to catch and hold the Vulgar credulity for by such politick and seemingly pious Stratagems they think to keep the populacie fast to their parties under the terrour of perjurie Whereas certainly all honest and wise men ever thought themselves sufficiently bound by former ties of Religion Allegiance and Laws to God and Man Nor can such after-contracts devised and imposed by a few men in a declared partie without my consent and without any like power or precedent from God's or Man's Laws be ever thought by judicious men sufficient either to absolve or slacken those moral and eternal bonds of dutie which lie upon all my Subjects consciences both to God and me Yet as things now stand good men shall least offend God or me by keeping their Covenant in honest and lawfull ways since I have the charity to think that the chief end of the Covenant in such mens intentions was to preserve Religion in purity and the Kingdoms in peace To other than such ends and means they cannot think themselves engaged nor will those that have any true touches of conscience endeavour to carry on the best Designs much less such as are and will be daily more apparently factious and ambitious by any unlawfull means under that title of the Covenant unless they dare prefer ambiguous dangerous and un-authorized novelties before their known and sworn Duties which are indispensible both to God and my self I am prone to believe and hope That many who took the Covenant are yet firm to this judgment That such later Vows Oaths or Leagues can never blot out those former Gravings and Characters which by just and lawfull Oaths were made upon their Souls That which makes such Confederations by way of solemn Leagues and Covenants more to be suspected is That they are the common Road used in all factious and powerfull perturbations of State or Church where formalities of extraordinary zeal and piety are never more studied and elaborate than when Politicians most agitate desperate Designs against all that is setled or sacred in Religion and Laws which by such Scrâ—â—es are cunningly yet forcibly wrested by secret steps and less sensible degrees from their known Rule and wonted Practice to comply with the humours of those men who aim to subdue all to their own will and power under the Disguises of holy Combinations Which Cords and Wit hs will hold mens Consciences no longer than force
raised by the Kings Commission here for that purpose were imployed in the Army of General Essex These things were known in Ireland and the effects foreseen which encouraged the Rebells there in some hopes of Peace by the Protestants necessities if not it might be possible for some Pacification or Cessation To that end the Irish frame a short Petition to the King presented to the Lords Justices and Council there in the Name of the Roman Catholicks for to be heard to speak for themselves In the beginning of December after the Irish Committee petition the King at Oxford of the miserie and necessitie of that gasping Kingdom unless timely Relief were not his loyal Subjects must yield their fortunes a prey their lives a sacrifice and their Religion a scorn to the merciless Rebells Upon which Commissioners meet on both sides but so unsatisfactory that the Kings Lieutenant General there being troubled with the cavils and proceedings of the Rebells marched out in Feb. with two thousand five hundred Foot and five hundred Horse to force Victual from them for his Army not having received any Relief from England in four Moneths before so that in March 16. following the Lords Justices and Council signifie That the State and Army there were in terrible want and that unless Money Munition Arms Cloaths were speedily sent thither utter destruction and loss of that Kingdom must follow Instead of Redress the very Ships as were to transport thither Cloaths and Victuals from charitable people were seized and taken by the Earl of Warwick and endeavours here to draw the Scots Forces from thence into this Kingdom to assist the Parliament Whereupon the Marquess Ormond the Kings Lieutenant General there had the 31. of Iuly last Commission to agree of a Cessation for a year which was concluded at Singinston the fifteenth of September at twelve a clock for a year and confirmed by Proclamation of the Lords Justices and Council at Dublin the nineteenth of September 1643. Donough Viscount Muskery Dillon Plunket Talbot Barnwell and others were for the Catholick Subjects as they styled themselves The Articles are ordinarily the same as usual free Trade and Prisoners of War released And as a Gift to the King they ingage for thirty thousand eight hundred pounds to be paid as a Present to the Kings use at several Payments before May-day Then to justifie the necessity of the Cessation for the good of the Kingdom we finde an Instrument setting down the misery of the Nation and want in the Army It had been proposed to very many persons of Honour and others in the Army who framed a Writing importing all the former particulars and there conclude They for these causes do conceive it necessary for his Majesties Honour and Service that the said Marquess Ormond assent to a Cessation of Arms for one whole Year on the Articles and Conditions drawn up and to be perfected by virtue of his Majesties Commission for the preservation of this Kingdom of Ireland witness our Hands this fifteenth of Sept. 1643. Clanricard and St. Albans Roscomon Dungarven Brahazon Inchequin Lucas Ware Erule Hunks Paulet Eustace Povey Gifford Percival Warren Cook c. Upon the Rebellion and Troubles in Ireland and upon the Cessation of Arms there the King hath expressed himself with that clearness as to the satisfying of all malicious Aspersions which some men have endeavoured to charge upon him where he saith That the Commotions in Ireland were so sudden and so violent that it was hard at first either to discern the Rise or applie a Remedie to that precipitant Rebellion Indeed that Sea of Bloud which hath there been cruelly and barbarously shed is enough to drown any man in eternal both infamie and miserie whom God shall finde the malicious Authour or Instigatour of its Effusion It fell out as a most unhappie Advantage to some mens malice against me that when they had impudence enough to lay any thing to my charge this bloudie opportunitie should be offered them with which I must be aspersed although there was nothing which could be more abhorred to me being so full of sin against God disloyaltie to my self and destructive to my Subjects Some men took it very ill not to be believed when they affirmed that what the Irish Rebells did was done with my privitie at least if 〈◊〉 by my Commission But these knew too well that it is no news for some of my Subjects to fight not onely without my Commission but against my Command and Person too yet all the while to pretend they fight by my Authoritie and for my safetie I would to God the Irish had nothing to allege for their imitation agâ—â—st those whose blame must needs be the greater by how much Protestant-principles are more against all Rebellion against Princes than those of Papists Nor will the goodness of mens intentions excuse the Scandal and Contagion of their Examples But who ever fail of their Dutie toward me I must bear the blame this Honour mine Enemies have always done me to think moderate Injuries not proportionate to me nor competent Trials either of my patience under them or my pardon of them Therefore with exquisite malice they have mixed the Gall and Vineger of falsitie and contempt with the Cup of my Affliction charging me not onely with untruths but such as wherein I have the greatest share of Loss and Dishonour by what is committed whereby in all Policie Reason and Religion having least cause to give the least consent and most grounds of utter detestation I might be represented by them to the world the more inhumane and barbarous Like some Cyclopick Monster whom nothing will serve to eat and drink but the flesh and bloud of mine own Subjects in whose common welfare mine interest lies as much as some mens doth in their perturbations who think they cannot do well but in evil times nor so cunningly as in laying the Odium of those sad Events on others wherewith themselves are most pleased and whereof they have been not the least occasion And certainly 't is thought by many wise men that the preposterous Rigour and unreasonable Severitie which some men carried before them in England was not the least Incentive that kindled and blew up into those horrid Flames the Sparks of Discontent which wanted not pre-disposed fewel for Rebellion in Ireland where Despair being added to their former Discontents and the Fears of utter Extirpation to their wonted Oppressions it was easie to provoke to an open Rebellion a People prone enough to break out to all exorbitant violence both by some Principles of their Religion and the natural Desires of Libertie both to exempt themselves from their present Restraints and to prevent those after-rigours wherewith they saw themselves apparently threatned by the covetous zeal and uncharitable furie of some men who think it a great Argument of the Truth of their Religion to endure to no other but their own God knows as I can with Truth
Close Committee For Subjects to make foreign Confederacies without their Soveraigns assent to invade the Territories of their undoubted King to go about by force to change the Laws and Religion established is grosse Treason without all contradiction and in this case it argues strongly who have been the Contrivers and Fomenters of all our Troubles No Covenant whatsoever or with whomsoever can justifie such proceedings or oblige a Subject to run such disloyal courses If any man out of Ignorance or Fear or Credulity have entred into such a Covenant it bindes him not except it be to Repentance Neitheâ— is there any such necessity as is pretended of your present posture your selves cannot allege that you are any way provoked by us neither are we conscious to our selves of the least intention to molest you Those ends which you propose are plausible indeed to them who do not understand them the blackest Designs did never want the same pretences If by the Protestant Religion you intend our Articles which are the publick Confession of our Church and our Book of Common Prayer established by Act of Parliament you need not trouble your selves we are ready to defend them with our Bloud If it be otherwise it is plain to all the World that it is not the Preservation but the Innovation of Religion which you seek however by you styled Reformation And what calling have you to refâ—rm us by the Sword We do not remember that ever the like indignity was offered by one Nation to another by a lesser to a greater That those men who have heretofore pleaded to vehemently for Liberty of Conscience against all Oaths and Subscriptions should now assume a power to themselves by Arms to impose a Law upon the Consciences of their fellow Subjects A vanquished Nation would scarce endure such Terms from their Conquerours But this we are sure of that this is the way to make the Protestant Religion odious to all Monarchs Christian and Pagan Your other two ends that is the honour and happiness of the King and the publick Peace and Liberty of his Dominions are so manifestly contrary to your practice that we need no other motives to withdraw you from such a course as tends so directly to make his Majesty contemptible at home and abroad and to fill all his Dominions with Rapine and Bloud In an Army all have not the same intentions We have seen the Articles agreed upon and those vast Sums and Conditions contained in them as if our Countreymen thought that England was indeed a Well that could never be drawn dry and whatsoever the intentions be we know right well what will be the consequents if it were otherwise no intention or consequent whatsoever can justifie an unlawfull action And therefore you do wisely to decline all disputation about it it is an easie thing to pretend the Cause of God as the Jews did the Temple of the Lord but this is far from those evident Demonstrations which you often mention never make Consider that there must be an account given to God of all the Bloud which shall be shed in this Quarrel The way to prevent it is not by such insinuations but to retire before the Sword be unsheathed or the Breach be made too wide you cannot think we are grown such tame Creatures to desert our Religion our Laws our Liberties our Estates upon command of Foreigners and to suffer our selves and our Posterity to be made Beggars and Slaves without opposition If any of ours shall joyn with you in this Action we cannot look upon them otherwise than as Traitours to their King Vipers to their native Countrey and such as have been Plotters or Fomenters of this Design from the beginning But if mis-information or fear hath drawn any of yours ignorantly or unwillingly into this Cause we desire them to withdraw themselve at last and not to make themselves Accessaries to that Deluge of Mischief which this second Voyage is like to bring upon both Kingdoms The Scots for a Moneth together have likewise spread abroad this slander That divers of the Nobility have lately deserted the King which the Lords of the Assembly of Parliament at Oxford took upon them to convince that in time to come there might not be left one Loop-hole of Excuse for this their Rebellion Directing their Letters To the Lords of the Privy Council and Conservatours of the Peace of the Kingdom of Scotland Our very good Lords If for no other reason yet that Posterity may know we have done our Duties and not sate still whilest our Brethren of Scotland were transported with a dangerous and fatal misunderstanding c. We have thought it necessary to tell you that when you are informed that the Earls of Arundel and Thanet and the Lords of Stafford Stanhop Coventry Goring and Craven are beyond Seas and the Earls of Chesterfield Westmerland and the Lord Montague of Boughton under restraint at London for their Loyalty and Duty to his Majesty and the Kingdom your Lordships will easily conclude how very few now make up the Peers at Westminster there being not above five and twenty Lords present or privy to these Councils And so they go on to give their Reasons why this Assembly at Oxford are dissenting and absent from Westminster being forced away by the Multitude of the meaner sort of the City Rabble of London and prosecuted by unparliamentary Debates and Votes without freedom or safety to their Lives And therefore we do protest against any Invitation made to the Scotish Nation to enter this Kingdom with an Army And we do conjure your Lordships by our common Allegeance under one gracious Sovereign by the amity and affection of both Nations by the Treaty of Pacification and by all obligation divine and humane which can preserve peace upon earth to prevent the effusion of so much Christian Bloud and the confusion and desolation which must follow this Invasion c. And therefore your Lordships may be assured we shall expose our lives and fortunes in the just and necessary defence of the Kingdom Engaging our Honours to be our selves most religious observers of the Act of Pacification and we hope to receive such an answer from you as may preserve the two Nations c. Your Lorships most affectionate humble servants And signed by all the Lords and Peers of the great Assembly at Oxford about sixty as before in the Roll aforesaid We will end this year with Prince Ruperts relief of that gallant Garison at Newark from the three weeks hot siege of Sir Iohn Meldrum for the Parliament wasting his Army from seven thousand to five thousand the manner was thus Prince Rupert being at West-Chester upon Tuesday night March 12. received his Majesties commands to march with all speed to the relief of Newark with four thousand Foot under five Regiments and four Colours and two thousand Horse and Dragooners Upon these Summons he made haste to Shrewsbury speeding away Major Legge General of the
negotiate the introducing by His Uncle the King of Denmark a foreign power to settle His affairs and under that pretext have given large Commission and particular instructions to the Fleet to visit search and intercept all such Danish ships as they should meet and to fight with sink or destroy all such as should resist them not permitting the same or to take and detain them having any arms or ammunition on board according to which they have searched visited and detained divers to the great prejudice and interruption of the Norway trade driven commonly in this Kingdom in their own Bottoms And that they did prepare force against others whom they permitted not to water nor any other accommodation being bound for the West-Indies and put in by stresse of weather in the West of England That in pursuance of their great design of extirpating the Royal blood and Monarchy of England they have endeavoured likewise to lay a great blemish upon His Royal Family endeavouring to illegitimate all derived from His Sister at once to cut off the interests and pretensions of the whole Race which their most detestable and scandalous design they have pursued examining witnesses and conferring circumstances and times to colour their pretensions in so great a fault and which as his sacred Majesty of England in the true sense of honour of his Mother doth abhor and will punish so he expects his concurrence in vindicating a Sister of so happy memory and by whom so near an union and continued League of amity hath been produced between the Families and Kingdoms That the particulars in which His Majesty doth desire his assistance are in the loan and raising of Men Money Arms and Ships all or such of them as may consist best with the conveniences of his own affairs and of such iu the first place as may be most requisite and are wanting to his Majesty That to set His levies on foot and to put him in a posture to protect his Subjects in all places that adhere to him and receive their contribution a hundred thousand pounds will be necessary for him which his Majesty desires by way of loan And for the restitution of it besides his Kingly word and solemn engagement upon this treaty he is contented of such his Crown Iewels as are in his disposure to leave His Royal pledge if it shall be desired The particulars of arms that he desires are six thousand Musquets fifteen hundred Horse-arms and twenty pieces of Artillery mounted Assistance of men he desires only in Hâ—rsmen and to know in what time thâ—y may be ready and how many That the Holy Island or Newcastle are designed for the landing of the said Horse and Magazin of the said provisions for reception likewise and protection of such his ships as he shall think fit to imploy for the countenance and security of those his Subjects that shall trade upon these Costs and for ascertaining the correspondency and intelligence between the two Kingdoms in which the number is left to be proportioned as may best sort and agree with his own affairs And for which the Holy Island is conceived one of the aptest Harbours in all his Majesties Dominions being capable of any ships whatsoever in a very great proportion an excellent rode at the entrance a ready out-let and a strong Fort under his Majesties command That in lieu of this assistance contributed by the King of Denmark his Majesty will oblige himself and ratifie in expresse Articles to restore into the Magazins of Denmark a like proportion of Arms and amunition to repay and defray the charges of the money leâ—t and levies of Horse and as soon as his affairs shall be setled and himself in a condition to do it upon all occasions to contribute the assistance of his Fleet in maintaining his Right and title to the Customs of the Sound against all persons whatsoever and to ratifie the Treaty thâ—â— was last made by Sir Thomas Roe to enter into a League offensive and defensive against intestine Rebellions In pursuance of which Treaty while the Negotiations and Articles may be severally perfected his Majesty doth expect this first Supply of Moneys and Arms present affairs not admitting a Delay in the same That in case the King of Denmark will lend Money upon Iewels there is in Holland a great Collar of Rubies and another of Rubies and Rearl that may be sent to him or delivered to his Agent here who may have order to pay the Money here or any other Iewels That there have been in Discourses several Propositions of Accommodation made by them to the King to which the King hath at all times made more Advances on his part than in reason could have been expected from him and the Difficulties have still risen on theirs And that whereas his Majesty doth understand that a person is addressed to the King of Denmark from his Parliament to insinâ—ate misunderstandings abroad with his Majestie 's Allies as they have done at home among his People his Majesty expects that he be neither received nor permitted to remain within his Dominions to become an Intelligencer and Spy upon the Treaty and Negotiations between their Majesties but that he be dismist and sent away so soon as ever he shall arrive These Instructions intend to state the affairs between the King and his Parliament which how truly rendered the History before doth express in particular The Parliament observe from hence that the King solicites Denmark making not onely Papists the Parliaments Enemies for Religions sake but all Princes though Protestants for Monarchies sake rather than fail of aid from thence And concerning the Rumour of his Mothers Queen Ann's chastity it is most true they did therein examine Witnesses upon Interrogatories most abusive base even to an Impossibility which yet was rumoured whispering to the great dishonour if possible of the memory of that virtuous noble Lady whom all Historians crown with glory and honourable Fame and which scandal I have not hitherto touched in this History nor would till now I finde his Majesty so sensible thereof that he signifies so much in private to the King of Denmark her Brother But the Parliament publish it in print to the World with their Paraphrase not to palliate the Injury but to increase the Scandal Sir William Waller had lain long at London for compleating his new Levies into a pretty Army and now he marches Commander in chief and as it was gotten without the Gen. Essex his good will so is he left at liberty without dependence on his direction And when he set forth from London his Expedition was accompanied with Fasting and Prayers and five several Sermons in one Church one day evermore recommending him The Servant of the State now going out to fight the Lords Battles against the Enemies of God And lest he should want Pay the Citizens will pinch their Bellies for the Parliament had put them by Ordinance to afford him one Meal a VVeek
himself from the Ladder without any remorse for his monstrous Crime And now being executed for his Villany it may merit the moving why he was refused his Trial by Peerage The King had a great desire to remove the Siege against Dennington Castle but were beaten off and therefore it was concluded by the Council of State that Essex's Forces should not draw out of Newbury into the Field lest the King should possess it for a Winter Quarter but that they should fight him at his Retreat but he retreated to Marlborough without opposition and the Parliaments Forces quit Newbury which the King possesses and reserves as a covert Quarter for his Army when the other lay in the open Fields and forced from Basing Siege withdrew to Reading Hereabout we finde the first appearance of Exception which the Parliament had against the good management of their Armies Essex being now suspected as careless or discontent and therefore they fall to debate hereabout in the House for Colonel Norton had writ a Letter to them that he had received a Warrant from a chief Commander in the Army to withdraw from Basing which was a thing unexpected he says but accordingly he hath obeyed nay the commands of the Committee of both Kingdoms to the Army were lately much neglected and complained of It grew into a high Debate How chance the Parliaments Forces permitted the Enemie to relieve Dennington Castle when they were two for one and why the Town of Newbury was quitted before the Enemie was marched away as the pretence of not fighting before was because we would not quit Newbury And now the Kings Forces were quartered at Basing Odjam Newburie Blewburie and Marlborough and Essex at Reading Henley Abington and Farnham And whilest they thus lodg in Quarters the Actions of the Parliaments Army are arreigned and committed And the Earl of Manchester makes the Relation concerning the carriage at Dennington Castle of great length in writing wherein his Lordship makes his own Defence and gives a Charge against Lieutenant General Cromwel a Member of the Commons who had deserved much honour for his good Service to the State and who made answer to several particulars therein mentioned and the point of privilege of Parliament upon the transmitting of that business from the Lords before any Charge was brought to the House of Commons but it was committed and they to receive the proofs for making good of the Earls Information concerning Lieutenant General Cromwel and to make protestation of secrecy therein and so silent they were that we never heard more of it General Essex having sped so ill in the West was now returned to Westminster where the Faction was powerfull in the Commons House against him being suspected somewhat more royal than the House would have him to be And after long Debate it was resolved to new model the Army and by degrees and in time to be rid of their old General and to bethink of a new one in quality not more than a Knight with intention not over-long to trust to the Lords at all And begin with an Order That no Member of either House shall during this War enjoy and execute any Office or Command Military or Civil which hath been granted or conferred on any Member of either House or by any Authoritie derived from either House This was subtilly done and but very poor Reasons publick to satisfie the world in this policy That in relation to the Armie all Commissions to Parliament men being void the new molding the Armie may be carried on with less exception when all are concerned alike That all Differences militarie among the great Commanders Parliament men which may retard the work is hereby quieted And those that shall be new made Officers may be elected of the lesser quality and the sooner subject to question and punishment and the Armie maintained at a less charge And after fourty days expiring this Order all their Commands and Offices in the Army shall be null but in order to justice they publish their Resolution to pay off their Arrears which was slenderly performed when their Offices were out of date And to crown this Design they fast and pray and to boot the well-affected City give them thanks and promise to live and die with them for this their new voting And somewhat to sweeten the Earl of Essex's sowreness the Parliament ordered him ten thousand pounds per annum out of Delinquents Estates for his good Service and his great Losses and amongst their Commanders they elect Sir Thomas Fairfax in his room But this great Ordinance of Molding goes on slow and suffered much Debate and Alteration for the Lords House began to foresee the effects and would not assent untill Petitions from the City and several Counties drew them to conclude it with this Title An Ordinance for the raising and maintaining of Forces for the defence of the Kingdom under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax Who is sent for to London out of the North and comes in private and the next day Feb. 19. is conducted to the Commons House by four of their Members a Chair was set and he to sit therein M. Speaker telling him the great trust the Kingdom had put upon him in the command of this Army and the good opinion they had of his valour and fidelity for the defence of Religion Laws and Liberty encouraging him to go on as he hath begun Great Disorders in the modelling this new Army and long time setling hastened an Order to the Scots Army to march Southward with all speed This new Army consisted of twenty one thousand viz. fourteen thousand Foot and six thousand Horse and a thousand Dragoons The House of Commons finding the Peers so pregnant as notwithstanding the great Exceptions and publick discourse of an intention to lessen their Lordships it was thought fitting to caress them by an appointed Committee March 18. to congratulate their happy concurrence and to assure them of the Commons real affections and endeavours to support their Lordships in their Honours and Privileges A language which heretofore the Lords would have disdained to have received from them The List of the Officers thus passed were these besides those of the old which are kept in Sir Thomas Fairfax Commander in chief Major General Skippon who was indeed the City Champion New Officers of Foot Colonels Crayford Berkley Montague Aldridg Holborn Fortescue Ingolsby Pickering Rainsborough New Officers of Horse Colonels Middleton Sidney Graves Sheffield Vermindon Whaley Levisay Fleetwood Rossiter Sir Robert Pie The Kings Army was now under the chief command of the Prince of Wales Prince Maurice and Prince Rupert in the Northern parts and association of the Counties adjoyning the Earl of Derby and Sir Marmaduke Langdon in Byrone and Gerard in VVales Southward and these Counties thereabout Hopton Goring and Greenvile in the West with several small Armies Amongst those of the old Commanders for the Parliament I finde Lieutenant General Cromwel the
their hands yet their Expences necessarily were infinite besides their Gifts and Rewards very high and bountifull to some and to themselves not to be summ'd to an imaginable Account for now also and besides former Gifts a Remembrance must be of the Sufferings of the five Members so long passed that some of their persons are laid asleep yet the charity of the House of Commons was herein visible even to their Children Mr. Denzil Hollis hath five thousand pounds for his Sufferings 3 Car. Mr. Selden 5000. 1. To the younger children of Sir Iohn Elyot 5000. 1. and to his eldest Son his fine in the Court of Wards to be remitted and Mr. William Strodes poor kindred 5000. 1. He had a God-son who was forgotten To Mr. Benjamin Valentine 5000. 1. for Mr. Walter Long 5000. 1. to Sir Miles Hubbart 5000. 1. to Sir Peter Hamands successors his eldest Son a Member 5000. 1. to Mr. Io. Hamdens children for his opposing Ship-money 5000. 1. and ten thousand pounds to Mr. Vassel for the loss of his Trade and Damages about the Customes And Alderman Chambers demand of 22000. 1. towards his suffering was only committed But why were others mixed with the five Members truly to draw on consent one for another and so they did doe to the undoing of the Nation had they not been taken off from doing at all any more as hereafter shall appear But two dales after came in further considerations of many more the Earl of Northumberland for his Audit of sufferings 30000. 1. he had in part but 10000. 1. But the Parliament had vast sums coming in certain for the Excise although some obstructions hapned in the Levying and the Mutinies caused thereby The total charged upon the Excise of this Kingdom in course was cast up and reported to the House amounting to three hundred and ninety thousand pounds and upwards besides interest for the same and the interest of the 200000. 1. for the Scots first payment Of what consequence then must be the credit of Excise and the benefit of the Towns and Cities that farmed the Excise And thereupon not long after the Parliament Order Ian. 20. That all Towns Cities and Counties that have Excise granted them without limitation shall have it continued no longer then 15. March next and such as have any Moitie or parcel thereof no longer then 25. March The King hears of these Passages and conceived that he being herein so concerned he might put in his spoke and to keep his old pace puts the Parliament in mind of his former Messages and now again desires a personal Treaty at or near London upâ—n the faith of the two Houses C. R. His Majesties thoughts being alwaies sincerely bent to the peace of his Kingdoms was and will be ever desirous to take all waies which might the most clearly make appear the candour of his intentions to his people And to this end could finde no better way than to propose a personal free debate with his two Houses of Parliament upon all the present differences Yet finding very much against his expectations that this offer was laid aside his Majestie bent all his thoughts to make his intentions fully known by a particular Answer to the Propositions delivered to him in the name of both Kingdoms the 24. of July last But the more he endeavoured it he more plainly saw that any answer he could make would be subject to misinformations and misconstructions which upon his own Paraphrases and explanations he is most confident will give so good satisfaction as would doubtless cause a happy and lasting peace Lest therefore that good intentions may produce ill effects his Majesty again proposeth and desires again to come to London or any of his houses thereabouts upon the publick Faith and security of his two Houses of Parliament and the Scotish Commissioners that he shall be there with Honour Freedom and safety Where by his personal presence he may not only raise a mutual confidence betwixt him and his people but also have those doubts cleared and those difficulties explained to him without which he cannot but with the aforesaid mischievous inconveniences give a particular answer to the Propositions and with which he doubts not but so to manifest his real intentions for the setling of Religion the just Priviledges of Parliament with the freedom and property of the Subject that it shall not be in the power of wicked and malicious men to hinder the establishing of that firm peace which all honest men desire Assureing them as he will make no other demands but such as he believes confidently to be just and much conducing to the Tranquillity of the people So he will be most willing to condescend to them in whatsoever shall be really for their good and happiness Not doubting likewise but you will also have a due regard to maintain the just power of the Crown according to your many protestations and professions For certainly except King and people have reciprocal care each of other neither can be happy To conclude 't is your King who desires to be heard the which if refused to a Subject by a King he would be thought a Tyrant for it and for that end which all men profess to desire Wherefore his Majestie conjures you as you desire to shew your selves really what you profess even as you are good Christians and Subjects that you will accept this his offer which he is confident God will so bless that it will be the readiest means by which these Kingdoms may again become a comfort to their friends and a terror to their enemies Newcastle 20. Decemb. 1646. But in stead of an Answer hereto the Houses were busie to Order the disposal of the Kings person for the Scots had their hire and were taking their leave That they were ready to depart and to march away desiring to know what service the Parliament would command them to the Estates of Scotland leaving the King to shift for himself And accordingly the Parliament Voted his remove to Holmby with respect to the safety and preservation of his Majesties pâ—rson and in preservation and defence of the true Religion but then a great debate followed whether the words according to the Covenant should be added and it past affirmatively And that after his coming thither and attended there by such as they shall appoint and that the Scots are gone out of the Kingdom then the Parliament will joyn with our Brethren of Scotland to perswade the King to pass the Propositions and if he refuse that then the Houses will do nothing that may break the union of the two Kingdoms but to preserve the same A Rumour there was of the Kings intentions to escape disguised from Newcastle Indeed there was a Hubbub raised of such a design and the Guards doubled that night and letters sent to General Leven to be more careful of the Kings Person who returns Answer of his double diligence therein and hath thanks
obvious to every body why it is fit for me to be attended by some of my Chaplains whose opinions as Clergie-men I esteem and reverence not only for the exercising of my Conscience but also for clearing of my judgment concerning the present difference in Religion as I have at full declared to Mr. Marshal and his fellow Minister Having shewed them that it is the best and likelyest means of giving me satisfaction which without it I cannot have in these times whereby the distractions of this Church may be the better setled Wherefore I desire that at least two of these Reverend Divines whose Names I have here set down may have the liberty to wait upon me for the discharging of their Duty to me according to their function Charles Rex Holmby 17. Feb. 1656. Bish. London Bish. Salisbury Bish. Peterborough Dr. Sheldon Clerk of my Closet Dr. Marsh Dean of Yorke Dr. Sanderson Dr. Baily Dr. Haywood Dr. Beal Dr. Fuller Dr. Hamond Dr. Tayler For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore c. The Guardians Commissioners had two of their own Ministers Mr. Marshal and Mr. Caryl who undertok the King but so lamely as that they may be said to halt after Henderson And truly the King rather pittying then despising them and would never be perswaded to hear their preachings nor overswayed with their Councel The Guardians had kept a bounteous house it seems and were soundly chidden by the Parliaments Letters for spending the States Revenue so fast and therefore for want of better work they are very busie to new Model his Majesties litle Family into lesse and by degrees to none at all His hard condition to be minced meat and drink out of his own We may not omit the Remembrance of that worthy learned Lawyer Mr. Serjeant Glanvile mightily persecuted for malignancy of being of the Kings party Imprisoned in several durances and lastly of long time committed to the Tower two years without any charge at all against him he is now released upon Bail and this justice was done to him by the favour of the Lords House to which the Commons had been alwayes and now was dissenting We may observe that he had been hardly used heretofore in the beginning of this Kings Reign for not consenting to some passages of State and then sent to Sea which he humbly endured with patience and Loyalty And now also his Conscience bearing witnesse he suffers for his Sovereigns sake faithful to his principles The King having no Answer concerning his Chaplains writes again for them to come and comfort him It being now seventeen daies since I wrote to you from hence and not yet receiving any Answer I cannot but now again renew the same And indeed concerning any thing but the necessary duty of a Christian I would not thus at this time trouble you But my being attended with some of my Chaplains whom I esteem and reverence is so necessary for me even considering my present condition whether in relation to my conscience or a happy settlement of the distractions in Religion that I will slight divers kindes of censures rather than not to obtain my demand nor shall I wrong you as in this to doubt the obtaining of my wish it being totally grounded upon Reason For desiring you to consider not thinking it needful to mention the divers reasons which no Christian can be ignorant of for point of Conscience I must assure you I cannot as I ought take in consideration those alterations in Religion which have and will be offered unto me without such help as I desire because I can never judg rightly of or be altered in any thing of my opinion so long as any ordinary way of finding out the truth is denied me but when this is granted I promise you faithfully not to strive for victory in Argument but to seek and submit to truth according to that judgment which God hath given me alwaies holding it my best and greatest conquest to give contentment to my two Houses of Parliament in all things which I conceive not to be against my conscience or honour not doubting likewise but that you will be ready to satisfie me in reasonable things as I hope to finde in this particular concerning the attendance of my Chaplains upon me Charles Rex Holmby 6. March For the the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore To which the Parliament give Answer That all those the Kings Chaplaines are disaffected to the Established Government of the Church and have not taken the Covenant but for others that have if his Majesty please they shall be sent to him This troubled the King to be denied such as every Christian hath liberty to choose their Ghostly Fathers Spiritual Comforters This makes him complain When Providence was pleased to deprive me saies the King of all other civil comforts and secular Attendance I thought the absence of them all might best be supplied by the attendance of some of my Chaplains whom for their Function I reverence and for their Fidelity I have cause to love By their Learning Piety and Praiers I hoped to be either better enabled to sustain the want of all other enjoyments or better fitted for the recovery and use of them in Gods good time so reaping by their pious help a spiritual harvest of Grace amidst the thorns and after the plowings of temporal crosses The truth is I never needed or desired more the service and assistance of men judiciously-pious and soberly-devout The solitude they have confined me unto adds the Wilderness to my temptations for the company they obtrude upon me is more sad then any solitude can be If I had asked my Revenues my power of the Militia or any one of my Kingdoms it had been no wonder to have been denied in those things where the evil policie of men forbids all just restitution lest they should confesse an injurious usurpation But to deny me the Ghostly comfort of my Chaplains seems a greater rigor and barbaritie then is ever used by Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors whom though the justice of the Law deprives of worldly comforts yet the mercy of Religion allows them the benefit of their Clergie as not aiming at once to destroy their Bodies and to damn their Souls But my Agony must not be releived with the presence of any one good Angel for such I account a Learned Godly and Discreet Divine and such I would have all mine to be They that envy my being a King are loth I should be a Christâ—an while they seek to deprive me of all things else they are afraid I should save my Soule Other sense Charitie it self can hardly pick out of those many harsh Repulses I received as to that Request so often made for the attendance of some of my Chaplains I have somtime thought the Unchristiannesse of those denials might arise from a displeasure some men had to see me prefer my own Divines
of this Synod is to have meetings and Counsels together and are able to draw their brethren Pupils of their Faction as servum pecus slavishly yet with much zeal to voice as they please for their ends These prime men of God are almost deified by the Commons and are honour'd by the subtil and cunning Nobles and Gentlemen caressed and invited principal Guests to their Ladies and Wives And therefore however this Church Government pretends purity it is protestatio contra factum And Mas Robert Bruce was so attended into Edenburgh which occasioned King Iames to say Bruce intends to be King and to declare himself heir to King Robert the Bruce and it may easily be so believed if we confer the story of Mas Bruce his carriage with King Iames being seriously asked by the King whether upon his coming to the Crown of England he might not redeem the Roman Catholicks of Scotland Angus Huntly and Arrol in point of State security and give them a pardon and to restore them to their honour and Lands Bruce answered you may pardon Angus and Arrol but not Huntly Nay said the King rather he then they he my kinsman and friend doe as you think fit replyed Bruce you shall not have me and Huntly both for you see the story and yet this man was but a Minister at Edenburgh The General Assembly the great and high Sanhedrim the last resolution of faith the ultimate decision of all Controversies Infallibilitie the Jurisdiction universal concerning Ecclesiastica Ecclesiasticos and all Temporalia in ordine ad spiritualia It hath an Independent Soveraignty immediately from Christ to punish in Estate Life or Body in Life and death The King is to be Excommunicable and every Individual person whatsoever is to concur to compel censure punish dethrone un-King to kill c. It is composed of Commissioners from all the Presbyteries each Presbyterie sending two preaching Elders and a Lay Elder Every Corporation one Commissioner The Universities send Commissioners Lay-men and Graduates in Liberal Arts and Sciences The King is a Member Personally or Virtually and Representatively He hath one voice affirmative only Some hold he is there Princeps membrum some say he sits there as the Representative of the Civil body of the Kingdom and hath power to keep the peace there He may have four or five Assistants for advice whilst matters are in debating but in Vote he hath only one voice and that Affirmative only not Negative and is bound to put it to execution though against his conscience for Potestas juris is radically in the whole Assembly the King having but potestatem facti to be an Executioner Rei judicatae The King presides they say but so that it is only civilly in his civil capacity He cannot propose any thing Spiritual the Moderator must He cannot hinder the proposing of any thing concerning the Kingdom of Christ for then it were no free General Assembly Nay if the thing proposed be Spiritual and twisted with things civil and so endanger a change and distemper in the State and Government or danger to the King or Crown the Moderator or any Commissioner only hath power to propose and to determine it and that for God and Christs glory And observe that the proper Moderator should be a Preaching-Elder though we have noted before how Laymen Buchanan Melvil and Bruce have been Moderators but a Lay Elder cannot be Moderator Here is the Legislative Power the Soveraignty of Christs Kingdom the highest Tribunal and Judicatory of Christ upon Earth from which no Person no Officer no condition of Creature is priviledged from it no appeal They indict the Assembly by their own power Necessarily once a year they meet This Assembly vindicateth to it self only authoritativè within the Church of the Kingdom and Nation Yet consensivè and charitativè to extend to all Churches in the World what ever it be that concerneth fidem cultum Regimen c. credenda agenda And in ordine ad Spiritualia they will give the King Laws repeal his Laws command obedience to theirs otherwise Excommunication follows and if he neglect that then they incite inferiour Magistrates Nobles and Commons to order him compel and force him He is in a worse condition under this Soveraignty then under the Pope who is but One these a multitude And in this Assembly the Lay Judges Elders are de jure divino in the highest points of Faith Worship c. and have Vocem deliberativam vocem decisivam and to give Normam fidei cultus politiae what shall we say now to that of the Councel of Chalcedon Concilium Episcoporum est c. and that old verse Ite for as Laici non est vobis locus ici By the power of this Assembly all things there done are animated with a Potestative power by the influence which these Orders received from that Legislative power Christ hath intrusted them within his Oeconomical Kingdom They are above the King and his Soveraignty Their constant Tenet That if the King Queen Regent or Protector of the people or any other in whose person Soveraignty is fixed or will not submit to this holy Scepter any man or men are bound to doe it at their direction Representatively by a Fiduciary trust One of their own says that there is no authority above the Brotherhood No Magistrate may lawfully maim or deform the body of Christ the Church no lawful Church Government is changeable at the pleasure of the Magistrate of necessity all Christian Magistrates are bound to receive this Government Another says That what the holy Brotherhood cannot obtain by suit and dispute the people must bring it to pass The Scots maintain Religion may be reformed or preserved by violence if the King will not the Nobles may if neither of them will the people must Inferiour Magistrates and people may joyn every Individual in this good work may and ought to their utmost power intend and endeavour Reformation they have Texts of Scripture for all of Phineas who killed the Adulterers of Ehud who slew Eglon of Iael who killed Sisera of Matthias who killed a Iew for committing Idolatry and who in the same zeal killed the Kings Commissioner and all to be done in zeal as they fancy to God and his Cause All well affected may Covenant and Combine for doing this work The Confederates may by themselves give Orders of Reformation without the Authority of Soveraignty The have protested in Scotland against King and Parliament contemned Soveraign Authority usurped Royal power renounced their lawful Soveraign command all the Brotherhood to be assistant Denounce War against their Adversaries hear of no peace but enter combination for mutual defence Depose the Queen Regent And for Presidents of all or any of these we may have them in the History of Knox. In a word so absolute so incontroleable is this high Celestial Court that it commandeth conscience and Soul disposeth of Body and Estate that if you conform not to their
be desired to repair to the Army Which he did some weeks after viz. the twentieth of May. For the Army was in Mutiny against the Members and were not appeased until the Parliaments Declaration against the Army was rased out of the Journal Books of both the Houses seizing their Monies and Carriages as they passed for several Garisons and shared it as they thought good And the Reformado's and Souldiers about London flocked to the Parliament and for two hours blocked up the door of the Commons not suffering any to passe out or come in till their desires were granted And being in this fearful case the Commons vote concerning their self-denying Ordinance which upon such desperate distempers they would often debate and vote but never observe as now That such Members as have any Place Office or Sequestration granted to them be void and the benefit which they have received since the Ordinance be payed to the Common-wealth That the Members Lands be liable to their debts And freedom of Petitions against any Member That no Member receive any reparations for Damages by these times till the publick debts of the Kingdom be satisfied For indeed so many Members pretended damages that the poor Cavaliers Estates for private satisfactions were not able to compound for their Delinquency And the Commons of London were drawn to side with the Parliament and the multitude made a Petition in the name of many thousands well affected in the City of London which was canvased in the House of Commons and laid aside untill the Petitioners came flocking for Answer who were advised to depute a small Number to attend and they waited so long that some one of them was snap't for prating at the Parliament door which he justified at their Bar and was only bidden to return home and be Mannerly but the Petition was burnt several Copies at Wâ—stminster others at the Exchange London 22. May. But the Army is a powerfull party that must be otherwise handled and therefore the Parliament order Commissioners of their own to Treat with the Armies Commissioners The Parliaments Men were the Earl of Nottingham Lord Wharton Field Marshal Skippon Sir Henry Vane Jun. Sir Thomas Widrington Colonel White Mr. Scawen and Mr. Pory For the Army Commissioners General Ireton Sir Hardresse Waller Colonel Rich Colonel Lambert and Major Desbrough And their first mâ—eting was at Wickham the second of Iuly Little being as yet effected in relation to former desires of the Army they told them that they had several things of weight to be added which may very much conduce to the peace and safety of the Kingdom the preventing of a new War and to the sendâ—ng of some relief to Ireland which they will offer at the next meeting The King at Holmby with his Guardians and the Parliament and Army in distemper the Army thought it their Advantage to seize the King into their custody and accordingly the third of Iune a party of Horse under command of Coronet Ioice and sent from the Committee of Troopers in the Army came to Holmby where after they had secured their Guards demanded the King of the Commissioners who in a maze asked for his Warrant whose Answer That it was the sense of the Armie The same he said to the King promising security of his Majesties person and so the next Day after Dinner the Troop carried him and the Commissioners who would not leave him towards the Army of which the King sends word to the Parliament by the Earl of Dunferling That the King was unwillingly taken away by a part of the Armie five hundred Troopers that he desired the Parliament to maintain the Laws of the Land and that though he might sign to many things being in this condition yet not to be believed till further notice to the Houses This was strange and uncouth to the Parliament and therefore they order to sit again to morrow though Sunday and Mr. Marshal is voted to pray for them for the Army was in Rendezvouz near Kenford six Miles from Bury and the King in his way to them and so to Newmarket all the people in the High-way strewing the Streets with Flowers and Boughs and crying out Hosanna and therefore the Army conveyed him not through Cambridg but by Trumpington to Newmarket But the Generals Letter to the Parliament says That the Souldiers at Holmby had brought the King thence by consent and lay at Colonel Mountagues the next Night and would be at Newmarket the next Day the ground whereof was from an apprehension of some strength gathered to force the King from them thereupon I sent says he Colonel Whaley with his Regiment to meet the King and the Commissioners and to return them back again but they refused and were come to Sir John Cuts near Cambridg The General professing that this Remove was without his consent or his Officers about him or the Bodie of the Armie or without their desire or privitie and whose person he will secure from danger And assures the Parliament that the whole Armie endeavours Peace and are clear from opposing Presbyterie or to affect Independencie or to hold a licentious Freedom in Religion or Interest in any particular partie but to leave all to the Parliament Then on the sudden comes three Colonels Reformadoes and Actours at London with News to the Parliament That a Major of the Armie gave them assurance that the Armie was marching and would be with the Parliament by Noon next Day advising the Colonels to return with him to the Armie where they should be included within the Capitulation for their Arrears This strook the Parliament into a panick fear the Committee of Safety are sent unto to sit all Night The Sheriffs and Common Council of London present a Letter to them from the Army to that purpose of coming to the City A Massage presently is voted to the General to desire him not to come within five and twenty Miles of London and order ten thousand pounds more for the Army the Head Quarters being at Roiston Iune 11. And as the City moved for the Parliament so Petitions came from the Counties praying the Army not to disband ere all things were setled and so they come to St. Albans Then the Trained Bands are drawn out upon pain of Death and on the sudden all sent home again onely the Passes are strongly guarded about the Line of Communication then the Shops are shut up such clattering of Doors and Windows such Fears and Jealousies indeed as men would imagine the City were mad who send a Committee of their Common Council to the General And he returns Answer That the Armie was come thither ere the Parliaments Desires came to his hands and prays the House to send a Moneths Pay speedily to the Army which was done very dutifully And yet they vote That the General be required to deliver the person of the King to the former Commissioners to come to Richmond to the intent that
so much of the success of our English Army in Scotland 27. Sept. The Scots Armies are accordingly Disbanded Barwick and Carslile delivered up to the English and the Writs gone out for a new Parliament 20. of Ianuary And a fresh General Assembly of their Kirkmen Somewhat strange in the capitulation that the English Assistants to the Scots in both these Garrisons are submitted to the mercy of the Parliament of England And a Letter of thanks is sent from the Committee of Estates of Scotland to the Lieutenant General Cromwel for his orderly government of his Forces and his many civilities and respects to that Nation and they excuse themselves from any guilt or connivance in the late engagement against England acknowledging that his Army so near is the means and occasion of advantage to that Nation to make peace and to prevent distraction and confusion which otherwise had continued amongst them And for confirmation of all he is invited to Edenburgh to Feasts and Banquets with all expressions of Honour of Arms and so returns homewards Octo. 20. by the way is received with Hosannah's of joy by all the Northern Counties and invited to take in the strong Garrisons of Pomfreit and Scarborough which infested the County all about them But let us return to Sea affairs This while the Prince was put aboard the Revolted Ships which with some others of his own were formed into a Fleet and with him his brother the Duke of York Prince Rupert Lords Hopton Wilmot and Willoughby Earls of Branford and Ruthen formerly General for the King the Lord Culpepper and Sir Henry Palmer and increasing number came into Yarmouth Rode with twenty Sail and two thousand men the Town being much divided in affection some would have him land and march to Colchester then besieged with such as will come to his assistance To prevent him Colonel Scroop is coming not fourty miles off with Horse and Foot to attend his motion if he land some hopes he had of landing and therefore provided a Declaration his forerunner 27. Iuly The establishing of Religion according to his Majesties agreement 26. December last The performance of the said Agreement and pursuance of all Concessions on the Kings part The restoring the King to a personal Treaty The maintenance of the just priviledges of Parliament The liberty of the Subject abolishing of Excise contribution for quarter c. with an Act of Obliâ—ion The Disbanding of all Armies setling Peace The defence of the Narrow Seas securing Trade support of the Navy and Sea-men His Commissions to his Commanders were thus stiled Charls Prince of great Britain Duke of Cornwal and Albany Highest Captain General under his Majesty of all Forces both by Sea and Land within the Kingdom of England Dominion of Wales and Town of Barwick c. Whereas we hold it convenient to Arm and set forth to Sea for the weakning and suppressing the usurped power c. Bearing date heretofore from St. Germin in Laye 6. June 1648. A correspondence likewise we finde fixed with the State of Scotland by Letters intercepted and directed to Sir Alexander Gibson Clerk of the Signet at Edenburgh from London 26. Iuly telling him that we are here in the City very right only Skippon makes disturbance by listing Horse and Foot whom we hope to out of his Office The Lords wait for some further incouragement from the City to which purpose the Common Council are framing petitions Our Design to free Colchester is not yet ready c. But the Prince finding no footing in Norfolk sailed back Southwards to the Downs in Kent seizing what Merchants Ships and goods that he could light upon sending Letters to the City of London together with his Declaration and that if the City will redeem their goods they must send him two hundred thousand pound But Anchoring in the Downs he hath a Design upon the Parl. Besiegers of Deal Castle in which were Royalists and Lands five hundred men who March forwards and at first beat off the Horse which Colonel Rich and Hewson had drawn out to Encounter them untill some more Forces of Foot followed routed the Princes Forces killed many and took others Prisoners and the rest hardly got aboard again Whilst the Prince Anchors with his Fleet in the Downs the States of Scotland invite him May it please your Highness Amongst all the Calamities which this Nation these late years hath wrastled under none doth more wound and afflict us next to his Majesty your royal Fathers sad condition and restraint then your Highness long absence from this Kingdom whereunto your right Title is so just and unquestionable and seeing our Forces are now again in England in pursuance of their duty to Religion and his Majesties rescue we humbly beg That your Highness would be pleased to honour and countenance with your presence and assistance our pious and Loyal endeavours which we look upon as the only means of uniting us in this great work being confident that your Highness will effectually apply your self to procure from his Majesty just satisfaction to the desires of Parliaments And if your Highness will grant these our humble requests and trust your peâ—son amongst us we doe ing age the publick Faith of this Kingdom for your well being in honour freedom and safety either here in Scotland or with our Army in England and to remove from us or the Army when or whither you please And these they send by the Earl of Louderdale with Letters of Credence in what he shall further communicate to the Prince From the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland in whose Name and Warrant are signed Aug. 10. Crawford Lindsey The Parliaments Vice-Admiral Batten having heretofore served them with faithfulness and good success was by the Army Voted out of his place and Rainsborough a Land Captain put into his Command Not long after being Governour of Deal Castle which cost him six hundred pound repair He was turned out and made a Delinquent upon the old quarrel for suffering some of the eleven Members to pass beyond Seas Rainsborough was refused by the Sea men not suffering him to come aboard then they â—aress Bâ—â—ten to take up his Commission again which he disdained the Parliament being in distress for a Commander they Vote in the Earl of Warwick who was served so before And now Batten comes to the Prince in Holland who receives him with favour and honours him with Knight-hood where he publishes the reasons of his declining the Parliaments Service and was faithfull to the Prince for ever after It was the middle of Iune as aforesaid that the Kâ—mish Insurrectors got over to Essex and from thence into the Town of â—â—lchester and with such Forces as they could gather they strengthen the place and prepare for a Siege The Commanders in chief were the Eâ— of Norwich old Goriâ—g the Lord Capel Sir Charles Lucas and others in opposition to 〈…〉 and all
Sanderson Shelden Hamond Oldsworth Turner Haywood Lawyers Sir Tho. Gardner Sir Orlando Bridgman Sir R. Holburn Mr. Ieffery Palmer Mr. Tho. Cook Mr. Io. Vaughan Clerks and Writers Sir Edward Walker Mr. Phil. Warwick Mr. Nich. Oudart Mr. Charles Whittane To make ready the House for Treating Peter Newton The Commissioners nominated to attend the Treaty for the Parliament were the Earls of Salisbury Pembroke Middlesex Northumberland and the Lord Say And of the Commons were the Lord Wainman Mr. Hollis lately re-admitted into the House Mr. Perpoint Sir Harry Vane Jun. Sir Harbotel Grimston Mr. Brown Mr. Crew Mr. â—lin lately re-admitted into the House Sir Io. Pots and Mr. Bulkley And the King desired a safe conduct for Commissioners to come out of Scotland to joyn in the Treaty with him viz. the Lord Carnagy Sir Alexander Gibson the Lord Clerk Register and Sir Iames Carmichel The two first were refused as having been in arms against the Parliament of England And that four Bishops might attend him Armagh Exeter Rochester and Worcester and for Doctor Ferne and Doctor Morley And for his Advocate Sir Thomas Reves and for Doctor Duck Civil Lawyers but none of these aforesaid the Kings friends were intromitted into the Scene or to speech but to stand behind the Hangings and in the Tâ—ring-room so that the Kings single solitary self opposed all the other party And Order is given to Colonel Hamond to free the King of his imprisonment to ride abroad where he pleaseth upon his engagement to return at night to Sir William Hodges House the place appointed to Treat where galloppiâ—g down a steep Hill 14 Septem and reining his Horse too hard the Bridle broke and he without a Curb ran with speed endangering the King whose excellent Horsemanship saved him from the terrible effects which amazed the beholders And it is remarkable that long before this Lilly had foretold in his Astrological Predictions pag 15. lin 31. And were his Majesty at liberty it shews or threatens danger to his person by inordinate Horsmanship or some fall from on high Friday the 15. of September the Commissioners of Parliament are come to the King and Saturday was kept a fast by him and all his Family and Friends assistant with the ancient service of the Book of Common Prayer and preaching with this particular Prayer for a blessing on the Treaty O Most merciful Father Lord God of Peace and truth we a people sorely afflicted by the scourge of an unnatural war do here earnestly beseâ—ch thee to command a blessing from Heaven upon this Treaty brought about by thy providence and the only visible remedy left for the establishment of an happy peace Soften the most obdurate hearts with a true Christian desire of saving those mens blood for whom Christ himself hath shed his O Lord let not the guilt of our sins cause this Treaty to break off but let the Truth of thy Spirit so clearly shine in our mindes that all private ends laid a side we may every one of us heartily and sincerely pursue the publick good and that thy people may be no longer so blindly miserable as not 〈◊〉 see at least in this their day the things that belong unto their peace Grant this gracious God for his sake who is our peace it self even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen The King told the Commissioners that he was glad of their coming to treat with him for a Peace and desired God to perfect that good work professing that he was in charity with all men not willing to revenge upon any nor to delay the hopes of a blessed issue and concludes to begin the Treaty on Munday morning 9. a clock 18. Septemb. The Treaty begins and to make it more difficult to Peace Occasion is given to oppose four Demands or Bills to the Kings demands which as a pledge of trust should be granted before whereto if the King assent they promise to commence a Treaty to the rest 1. To order for the future the Militia without the Kings consent to raise what Arms they please and that all others upon the pain of Treason shall not assemble to the number of thirty persons without the Authority of Parliament 2. That the Houses may sit and adjourn and assemble to what place and at what time at their own discretion 3. All Oaths Interdictions and declarations against the Parliament to be declared void 4. Whomsoever the King had dignified with Titles from the time himself departed and conveyed away the great Seal of England be degraded of their honours And these must be first ratified and to command them to be passed into Laws Then they go on with the Preface the matter of the Treaty For as much as both Houses of Parliament have been necessitated to undertake a War for their just defence and for the prosecuting thereof have bound themselves in a Covenant be it enacted by the Kings command The Propositions were in number eleven 1. That all Declarations and Proclamations against the two Houses of Parliament or their Adherents and all Judgments and Indictments c. against them be declared Null 2. That a Satute be Enacted for abolishing of all Arch Bishops and Bishops out of the Churches of England and Ireland for the selling of their Lands and Revenues As also that the calling and sitting in Synod of the Divines be approved 〈◊〉 the Royal assent the Reformation of Religion for England and Ireland according to such Models as the Members of Parliament have or shall decree consultations first had with the said Divines In particular that the King grant his assent that the Act of both Houses formerly made concerning the Directory as concerning the publick Celebration of Gods worship throughout England and Ireland for the abolishing the Ancient Liturgie for the form of Church Government and Articles of Religion with the Catechisms the great and the less for the more Religious observation of the Lords day for supressing of Innovations in Churches and Chappels for the incouraging of the publick Preachers to their duties by a just reward for prohibiting of Pluralities of Benefices and non-residence to Clergy-men henceforth pass into Statutes or Laws That the King would set his hand to the National League and Covenant and suffer himself to be bound by the same that by publick Act it be enjoyned all the Subjects of both the Kingdoms of England and Scotland to be bound thereby under a penalty to be imposed at the pleasure of both Houses That it may belong to the Houses of Parliament to visit and reform the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge the Colledges also of Westminster Winchester and Eaton That it be provided by Statutes that Jesuites Priests and Papists disturb not the Common-wealth nor elude the Laws as also for the discriminating of them an Oath be administred to them wherein they shall abjure the Pope of Romes Supremacie Transubstantiation Purgatory Image-worship and other Superstitious errors of the Church of Rome That
hath over them who knows them to be exposed to as many dangers being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on earth as there be either men or Devils which love confusion Nor will he suffer those men long to prosper in their Babel who build it with the bones and cement it with the bloud of their Kings I am confident they will finde Avengers of my death among themselves the injuries I have susteined from them shall be first punished by them who agreed in nothing so much as in opposing me Their impatience to bear the loud cry of my bloud shall make them think no way better to expiate it then by shedding theirs who with them most thirsted after mine The sad confusions following my destruction are already presaged and confirmed to Me by those I have lived to see since my troubles in which God alone who only could hath many waies pleaded my cause not suffering them to go unpunished whose confederacie in sin was their only security who have cause to 〈◊〉 that God will both further divide and by mutual vengeance afâ—â—â—ward destroy them My greatest conquest of death is from the power and love of Christ who hath swallowed up death in the victory of his Resurrection and the glory of his Ascension My next comfort is that he gives me not only the honour to imitate his example in suffering for righteousness-sake though obscured by the â—oulest charges of Tyranny and Injustice but also that charity which is the noblest revenge upon and victory over my Destroyers by which I thank God I can both forgive them and pray for them that God would not impute my bloud to them further then to convince them what need they have of Christs bloud to wash their souls from the guilt of shedding mine At present the will of my enemies seems to be their only rule their power the measure and their success the exactor of what they please to call Justice while they flatter themselves with the Fancy of their own safety by my danger and the security of their lives and designs by my death forgetting that as the greatest temptations to sin are wrapped up in seeming prosperities so the severest vengeances of God are then most accomplished when men are suffered to complete their wicked purposes I bless God I pray not so much that this bitter cup of a violent death may pass from me as that of his wrath may pass from all those whose hands by deserting me are sprinkled or by acting and consenting to my death are embrewed with my bloud The will of God hath confined and concluded mine I shall have the pleasure of dying without any pleasure of desired vengeance This I think becomes a Christian toward his enemies and a King toward his Subjects They cannot deprive me of more then I am content to lose when God sees fit by their hands to take it from me whose mercy I believe will more then infinitely recompense what ever by mans injustice he is pleased to deprive me of The glory attending my death will far surpass all I could enjoy or conceive in life I shall not want the heavy and envied Crowns of this world when my God hath mercifully crowned and consummated his graces with glory and exchanged the shadows of my earthly Kingdoms among men for the substance of that heavenly Kingdom with himself For the censures of the world I know the sharp and necessary Tyranny of my destroyers will sufficiently confute the Calumnies of Tyranny against me I am perswaded I am happy in the judicious love of the ablest and best of my Subjects who doe not only pitty and pray for me but would be content even to dye with me or for me These know how to excuse my failings as a man and yet to retain and pay their duty to me as their King there being no Religious necessity binding any Subjects by pretending to punish infinitely to exceed the faults and errors of their Princes especially there where more then sufficient satisfaction hath been made to the publick the enjoynment of which private ambitions have hitherto frustrated Others I believe oâ—â—ofter tempers and less advantaged by my ruine do already feel sharp convictions and some remorse in their consciences where they cannot but see the proportions of their evil dealings against me in the measure of Gods retaliations upon them who cannot hope long to enjoy their own thumbs and toes having under pretence of pairing others nailes been so cruel as to cut off their chiefest strength The punishment of the more insolent and obstinate may be like that of Korah and his complices at once mutining against both Prince and Priest in such a method of divine justice as is not ordinary the earth of the lowest and meanest people opening upon them and swallowing them up in a just disdain of their ill-gotten and worse used Authority upon whose support and strength they chiefly depended for their building and establishing their designs against me the Church and State My chiefest comfort in death consists in my peace which I trust is made with God before whose exact Tribunal I shall not fear to appear as to the cause so long disputed by the Sword between me and my causeless enemies where I doubt not but his righteous judgment will confute their fallacy who from wordly success rather like Sophisters then sound Christians draw those popular conclusions for Gods approbation of their actions whose wise providence we know oft permits many events which his revealed word the only clear safe and fixed Rule of good actions and good consciences in no sort approves I am confident the Justice of my Cause and clearness of my conscience before God and towards my people will carry me as much above them in Gods decision as their successes have lifted them above me in the vulgar opinion who consider not that many times those undertakings of men are lifted up to Heaven in the prosperiry and applause of the world whose rise is from Hell as to the injuriousness and oppression of the design The prosperous windes which oft fill the sails of Pirats do not justifie their Piracie and rapine I look upon it with infinite more content and quiet of soul to have been worsted in my enforced contestation for and vindication of the Laws of the Land the freedom and honour of Parliaments the Rights of my Crown the just liberty of my Subjects and the true Christian Religion in its Doctrine Government and due encouragements then if I had with the greatest advantages of success over-born them all as some men have now evidently done what ever designs they at first pretended The prayers and patience of my friends and loving Subjects will contribute much to the sweetning of this bitter Cup which I doubt not but I shall more chearfully take and drink as from Gods hand if it must be so then they can give it to me whose hands are unjustly and barbarously lifted up against me And
afterwards recovering that inconvenience he was so constant to himself and over-weaning that his opinions became resolves In all his defects we may more reasonably fix the occasions rather upon others who had their influence from him then upon his own defect for the mis-choice of fit and able persons to be his best and dearest friends proved fatal to him to them and to us all The King left his Queen a miserable disconsolate Lady the Daughter of France and therefore while he suffered she was there supported with their three Sons Charls Prince of Wales Iames Duke of York and Henry Duke of Glocester Princes of high eminent and Heroick vertue 〈◊〉 Two daughters also the one Elizabeth the Relict Princess of Orange the other Mary an Infant all of them are banished Orphanes This Letter came to hand since the Kings death intrusted to the Bishop of London with his blessing to the Prince of Wales To the Prince of Wales Son if these Papers with some others wherein I have set down the private reflections of my conscience and my most impartial thoughts touching the chief passages which have been most remarkable or disputed in my late Troubles come to your hands to whom they are chiesly design'd they may be so far usefull to you as to state your judgment aright in what hath passed 〈◊〉 whereof a pious is the best use can be made and they may also give you some directions how to remedy the present distempers and prevent if God will the like for time to come It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of my long restraint when I finde my leisure and solitude have produced something worthy of my self and usefull to you that neither you nor any other may hereafter measure my Cause by the success nor my judgment of things by my misfortunes which I count the greater by far because they have so far lighted upon you and some others whom I have most cause to love as well as my self and of whose unmerited sufferings I have a greater sense then of my own But this advantage of Wisdom you have above most Princes that you have begun and now spent some years of discretion in the experience of troubles and exercise of patience wherein Piety and all Vertues both Moral and Political are commonly better planted to a thriving as Trees set in Winter then in warmth and serenity of times or amidst those delights which usually attend Princes Courts in times of peace and plenty which are prone either to root up all Plants of true vertue and Honour or to be contented only with some leaves and withering formalities of them without any real fruits such as tend to the publick good for which Princes should alwaies remember they are born and by providence designed The evidence of which different education the holy Writ affords us in the contemplation of David and Rehoboam the one prepared by many afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom the other softned by the unparalleld prosperity of Solomons Court and so corrupted to the great diminution both for Peace Honour and Kingdom by those flatteries which are as unseparable from prosperous Princes as Flies are from fruit in Summer whom adversitie like cold weather drives away I had rather you should be Charls le Bon then le Grand good then great I hope God hath designed you to be both having so early put you into that exercise of his Graces and Giâ—â—â—estowed upon you which may best weed out all vitious inclinations and dispose you to those Princely indowments and employments which will most gain the love and intend the welfare of those over whom God shall place you With God I would have you begin and end who is King of Kings the Sovereign disposer of the Kingdoms of the World who pulleth down one and setteth up another The best Government and highest Soveraignty you can attain to is to be subject to him that the Scepter of his word and Spirit may rule in your heart The true glory of Princes consists in advancing Gods glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good also in the dispensation of civil power with Iustice and honour to the publick peace Piety will make you prosperous at least it will keep you from being miserable nor is he much a loser that loseth all yet saveth his own soul at last To which center of true happiness God I trust hath and will graciously direct all these black lines of affliction which he hath been pleased to draw on me and by which he hath I hope drawn me nearer to himself You have already tasted of that cup whereof I have liberally drunk which I look upon as Gods Physick having that in healthfulness which it wants in pleasure Above all I would have you as I hope you are already well-grounded and settled in your Religion the best profession of which I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England in which you have been educated yet I would have your own Iudgment and Reason now seal to that sacred bond which education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other mens custom or tradition which you profess In this I charge you to persevere as coming nearest to Gods word for Doctrine and to the Primitive examples for government with some little amendment which I have otherwhere expressed and often offered though in vain Your fixation in matters of Religion will not be more necessary for your souls then your Kingdoms peace when God shall bring you to them For I have observed that the Devil of Rebellion doth commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and the old Serpent can pretend new Lights when some mens Consciences accuse them for Sedition and Faction they stop its mouth with the name and noise of Religion when Piety pleads for peace and patience they cry out Zeal So that unless in this point you be well settled you shall never want temptations to destroy you and yours under pretension of Reforming matters of Religion for that seems even to the worst of men as the best and most auspicious beginning of their worst designs Where besides the novelty which is taken enough with the Vulgar every one hath an affectation by seeming forward to an outward Reformation of Religion to be thought zealous hoping to cover those irreligious deformities whereto they are conscious by a severity of censuring other mens opinions or actions Take heed of abetting any Factions or applying to any publick Discriminations in matters of Religion contrary to what is in your judgment and the Churches well settled your partial adhering as head to any one side gains you not so great advantages in some mens hearts who are prone to be of their Kings 's Religion as it loseth you in others who think themselves and their profession first despised then persecuted by you take such a course as may either with calmness and charity quite remove the seeming
differences and offences by impartiality or so order affairs in point of power that you shall not need to fear or flatter any faction For if ever you stand in need of them or must stand to their courtesie you are undone the Serpent will devour the Dove you may never expect less of Loyalty Iustice or Humanity then from those who engage into Religious Rebellion their interest is alwaies made Gods under the colours of piety ambitious policies march nor only with greatest security but applause as to the populacy you may hear from them Jacobs voice but you shall feel they have Esau's hands Nothing seemed less considerable then the Presbyterian Faction in England for many years so compliant they were to publick order nor indeed was their party great either in Church or State as to mens judgments but as soon as discontents drave men into sidings as ill humors fall to the disaffected part which cause's inflamations so did all at first who affected any Novelties adhere to that side as the most remarkable and specious note of difference then in point of Religion All the lesser Factions at first were officious servants to Presbytery their great Master till time and military success discovering to each their peculiar advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joint stock of uniform Religion they pretended each to drive for their party the trade of profits and preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all Let nothing seem little or despicable to you in matters which concern Religion and the Churches peace so as to neglect a speedy reforming and effectual suppressing Errors and Schisms what seem at first but as a hand breadth by seditious Spirits as by strong windes are soon made to cover and darken the whole heaven When you have done justice to God your own Soul and his Church in the profession and preservation both of truth and unity in Religion the next main hinge on which your prosperity will depend and move is that of Civil Iustice wherein the setled Laws of these Kingdoms to which you are rightly Heir are the most excellent Rules you can govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects industry liberty and happiness and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and Prerogative of any King who owns his people as Subjects not as Slaves whose subjection as it preserves their property peace and safety so it will never diminish your Rights nor their ingenious Liberties which consist in the injoyment of the fruits of their industry and the benefit of those Laws to which themselves have consented Never charge your head with such a Crown as shall by its heaviness oppress the whole body the weakness of whose parts cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the head but a necessary debilitation and ruine Your Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather then exacting the rigor of the Laws there being nothing worse then Legal Tyranny In these two points the preservation of establisted Religion and Laws I may without vanity turn the reproach of my sufferings as to the worlds censure into the honour of a kinde of Martyrdom as to the testimony of my own conscience the troublers of my Kingdoms having nothing else to object against me but this that I prefer Religion and Laws established before those alterations they propounded And so inded I do and ever shall till I am convinced by better Arguments then what hitherto have been chiefly used towards me Tumults Armies and Prisons I cannot yet learn that Lesson nor I hope ever will you that it is safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the perturbation of the Laws in which is wrapt up the Publick Interest and the good of the Community How God will deal with me as to the removal of these pressures and indignities which his Iustice by the very unjust hands of some of my Subjects hath been pleased to lay upon me I cannot tell nor am I much solicitous what wrong I suffer from men while I retein in my soul what I believe is right before God I have offered all for Reformation and safety that in Reason Honour and Conscience I can reserving only what I cannot consent unto without an irreparable injury to my own Soul the Church and my people and you also as the next and undoubted Heir of my Kingdoms To which if the divine Providence to whom no difficulties are insuperable shall in his due time after my decease bring you as I hope he will my counsel and charge to you is that you seriously consider the former real or objected miscarriages which might occasion my troubles that you may avoid them Never repose so much upon any man's single Counsel fidelitie and discretion in managing affairs of the first magnitude that is matters of Religion and Iustice as to create in your self or others a difâ—idence of your own judgment which is likely to be alwaies more constant and impartial to the interests of your Crown and Kingdom then any mans Next beware of exasperating any Factions by the crosness and asperity of some mens passions humours or private opinions imployed by you grounded only upon the differences in lesser matters which are but the Skirts and Suburbs of Religion Wherein a charitable connivence and Christian toleration often dissipates their strength whom rougher opposition fortifies and puts the despised and oppressed Party into such combinations as may most enable them to get a full revenge on those they count their persecutors who are commonly assisted by that vulgar commiseration which attends all that are said to suffer under the notion of Religion Provided the differences amount not to an insolent opposition of Laws and Government or Religion established as to the essentials of them Such motions and minings are intolerable Alwaies keep up solid Piety and those fundamental truths which mend both hearts and lives of men with impartial favor and justice Take heed that outward circumstances and formalities of Religion devour not all or the best encouragements of learning industry and piety but with an equal eye and impartial hand distribute favours and rewards to all men as you finde them for their real goodness both in abilities and fidelity worthy and capable of them This will be sure to gain you the hearts of the best and the most too who though they be not good themselves yet are glad to see the severer wayes of vertue at any time sweetned by temporal rewards I have you see conflicted with different and opposite Factions for so I must needs call and count all those that act not in any conformity to the Laws established in Church and State no sooner have they by force subdued what they counted their common enemie that is all those that adhered to the Laws and to me and are secured from that fear but they
your Sacred Majesty they humbly present unto your Princely and pious consideration the several and pressing grievances viz. 1. The great and unusual Impositions upon Merchandize exported and imported 2. The urging and levying of Ship mony notwithstanding which both Merchants their goods and Ships have been destroyed by Turks and Pyrates 3. The multitude of Monopolies Patents and Warrants whereby trade is decayed 4. The Innovations in matters of Religion the Oath and Canons newly imposed by the late Convocation whereby your petitioners are in danger to be deprived of their Ministery 5. The concourse of Papists and their habitation in London and the suburbs whereby they have more means and opportuâ—ities of plotting and executing their designes against the Religion established 6. The sudden calling and sudden dissolution of Parliaments without addressing of the subjects grievances 7. The imprisonment of divers Citizens for not paying Ship-mony and other impositions and the prosecution of others in the Star-Chamber for non conformity to commands in Patents and Monopolies whereby trade is restrained 8. The great dangers your Sacred Person is exposed unto in the present war and the various fears that have seized your petitioners and their families by reason thereof which grievances and fears have oâ—casioned so great a stop and destruction of Trade as neither to receive and pay as formerly and tends to the utter ruine of the Inhabitants of this City the decay of Navigation and clothing and other Manufactories of this Kingdom your petitioners humbly conceiving the said grievances to be contrary to the Laws of this Realm and finding by experience that they are not redressed by the ordinary Courts of Iustice do therefore beseech your Majesty to cause a Parliament to be summoned with all convenient speed whereby they may be relieved in the premisses The Scots proceeding hand in hand with some of the English petition also for the same in effect to call a Parliament for setling a peace between the two Nations and they had the like Answer which behoved the English to hasten for the Scots took liberty to ravage New-Castle seizing four great English Ships laden with Corn ere the masters knew who they were rifling houses and ranting every where laying a Tax of three hâ—ndred and â—ifty pounds per diem upon the Bishop of Durham and three hundred pounds upon Northumberland upon pain of plundering The day come the 24. the King salutes them thus My Lords UPon suddain Invasions where the Dangers are near and instant it hath been the custome of my Predecessors to Assemble the great Council of the Peers c. by their advice and asistants to give a timely remedie to such rules as could not admit a delay so long as must of necessity be allowed for the assembling a the Parliament This being our condition at this time and an Army of Rebells lodged within the Kingdome I thought it most fit to conform my self to the practise of my predecessors in like cases that with your advice and assistants we might joyntly proceed to the chastizement of their Insolencies and securing of our good Subjects In the first place I must let you know that I desire nothing more then to be rightly understood of my People and to that end I have of my self resolved to call a Parliament having already given order to my Lord Keeper to issue the writs instantly so that the Parliament may be assembled by the third of November next whither if my Subjects brings the like good affections that I do it shall not faile on my part to make it a happy meeting In the mean time there are two points to be considered wherein I shall desire your advice which indeed is the chief cause of your meeting first what answer to give to the petition of the Rebells and in what manner to treat with them of which that you may give a sure Iudgment I have ordered that your Lordships shall be clearly and truly informed of the State of the whole business and upon what reasons and advices that my Privy-council unanimously gave me were grounded Secondly how my Army shall be kept on foot and maintained untill your Supplies of a Parliament may be had for so long at the Scots Army remains in England I think no man will Councel me to disband mine for that would be an unspeakable loss to all this part of the Kingdome by subverting them to the greedy appetite of the Rebells besides the unspeakable dishonour that would thereby fall upon this Nation And after several meetings and debates a Messenger Mr. Bellows was sent from the King and Lords to the Scots Army to give them notice on Tuesday next that sixteen of the English Lords shall meet with as many Scots Lords at York to treat of the differences The English Lords were these Earls Bedford Essex Barkshire Holland Herford Bristow Salisbury Warwick Barons Mandevil Savile Howard Brook Paget Dunsmore Paulet Wharton But the Scots refuse the place York as not secure for their Commissioners so long as the Lieutenant of Ireland commanded there in chief who had proclaimed them Traytors in Ireland before the King had done so in England threatning to destroy their memory against whom they had matter of high complaint And so the place was named at Rippon The Scots Commissioners take exception at the Earl of Traquairs presence being no Commissioner on either side but was admitted as a person indifferent to satisfie the English concerning the former affaires in Scotland if questions should be debated The English proposed a Cessation of Arms but the Scots as they would obey his Majesties Commands not to advance so they could not return till they had the effects of their Arrand and therefore desired the way and means of subsistence in their Quarters and so the second of October they present their demands First How their Army should be maintained untill the Treaty be ended and the Peace secured Secondly if more Commissioners be required then for their safe convoy Thirdly Safe convoy for all Letters from them and the Parliament and to them Fourthly That there may be free commerce of both Kingdoms and that the Common trade of New-Castle be not hindred especially for victuals Their first Article is otherwise than their Pamphlet before expressed for there you shall have them profess to take up nothing of the people without ready mony And that failing to give Bills and Bands of debt for true payment but finding good correspondence and weak resistance they did not only spoile and plunder but enforced this first Article Indeed they were cryed up as the sons of Enoch and the English as Grashoppers though the Earl of Strafford then General desired the King that he might give them battel and as his Letters speak to the Arch Bishop of Canterbury he durst undertake upon the Perill of his head to beat them home again although now he held it not councelable as the case then stood And certainly it was generally
Prosper speakes in his second Book De vitae contemptu cap. 4. Men that introduce prophanesse are cloaked with the name of Imaginary Religion for we have left the Substance and dwell too much in Opinion and that Church which all the Iesuits could not ruine is fallen into danger by her own The last particular for I am not willing to be long is my self I was born and Baptized in the Bosome of the Church of England established by Law in that profession I have ever since lived and in that I come now to dye what Clamours and Slanders I have endured for labouring to keep a Conformity in the external service of God according to the doctrine and Discipline of the Church all men know and I have abundantly felt Now at last I am accused of High Treason in Parliament a Crime which my soul ever abhorred this Treason was charged to consist of two parts An endeavour to subvert the Lawes of the Land and a like endeavour to overthrow the true Protestant Religion established by Law Besides my answers which I gave to the several Charges I protested my innocencie in both Houses It was said Prisoner's protestations at the Bar must not be taken I can bring no other witnesse of my heart and the intentions thereof I must therefore come now to it upon my death being instantly to give God an account for the truth of it I do therefore here in the presence of God and his holy Angels take it upon my death that I never endeavoured the subversion either of Law or Religion and I desire that you would all remember this Protestation of mine for my innocency in these and from all Treasons whatsoever whereof I would not for all the World be so guiltie as some are I have been accused likewise as an enemie to Parliaments No I understand them and the benefit that comes by them too well to be so But I did dislike the misgovernment of some Parliaments many waies and I had good reasons for it Corruptio optimi est pessima and that being the highest Court over which no other hath jurisdiction when That is misinformed or misgoverned the Subject is left without all remedy But I have done I forgive all the World and everie of those bitter Enemies which have persecuted me and humblie desire to be forgiven of God first and then of every man and so I heartilie desire you to joyn in prayer with me O Eternal God and Merciful Father look down upon me in mercy in the Riches and fulnesse of thy mercies look down upon me but not until thou hast nailed my sins to the Crosse of Christ not till thou hast bathed me in the Blood of Christ not till I have hid my self in the wounds of Christ that so the punishment due unto my sins may pâ—sse ove me And since thou art pleased to try me to the uttermost I humbly beseech thee to give me now in this great instant full Patience Proportionable Comfort and a heart ready to dy for thy Honour the Kings happinesse and this Churches preservation My Zeal to these far from Arrogancy be it spoken is all the sin humane frailty excepted and all incidents thereunto which is yet known to me in this particular for which I now come to suffer I say in this particular of Treason but otherwise my sins are many and great Lord pardon them all and those especially whatsoever they are which have drawn down this present Judgment upon me and when thou hast given me strength to bear it do with me as seems best in thine own eyes Amen And that there may be a stop of this Issue of Blood in this more then miserable Kingdom O Lord I beseech thee give grace of Repentance to all Blood-thirsty people but if they will not repent O Lord confound all their devices Defeat and Frustrate all their Designs and endeavours which are or shall be contrary to the Glory of thy great Name the truth and sincerity of Religion the establishment of the King and His Posterity after Him in their Just Rights and Priviledges the Honour and Conservation of Parliaments in their Just power the preservation of this poor Church in its Truth Peace and Patrimony and the settlement of this distracted and distressed people under their ancient Lawes and in their native Liberties And when thou hast done all this in meere mercy for them O Lord fill their hearts with thankfulnesse and Religious Dutiful obedience to thee and thy Commandements all their dayes So Amen Lord Jesus Amen and receive my Soul into thy Bosome Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. This Speech and Prayer ended he gave the Paper written as he spake it desiring Doctor Sterne to shew it to his other Chaplains that they might know how he departed and so prayed God to shew his mercies and blessings on them all Then he applyed himself to the Fatal Block as to the Haven of his Rest but finding the people pressing upon the Scaffold he desired that he might have room to dye beseeching them to let him have an end of his miseries which he had endured very long Being now neer the Block he put off his Dublet and used words to this effect Gods will be done I am willing to go out of this world no man can be more willing to send me out of it And spying through the chinks of the Boards that some people were got under the Scaffold and the place of the Block he called to the Officers for some dust to stop them or to remove the people thence saying It was no part of his desires that his bloud shall fall upon the heads of the people When he was somewhat interrupted by one Sir Iohn Clotworthy who would needs try what he could doe with his Spunge and Vineger and stepping neer the Block asked him not to learn by him but to tempt him what was the comfortablest saying which a dying man could have in his mouth To which he mildly answered Cupio dissolvi esse cum Christo. Being asked again what was the fittest speech a man could use to expresse his confidence and assurance He answered meekly That such assurance was to be found within and that no words were able to expresse it rightly which when it would not satisfie the impertinent man unlesse he gave some place of Scripture whereupon such assurance might be truly founded He replyed to this effect That it was the word of God concerning Christ and his dying for us And so without expecting further questions he turned to the Executioner and gave him money saying here honest friend God forgive thee doe thy Office upon me with mercy and having given a sign when the blow should come he kneeled down upon his knees and prayed Lord I am coming as fast as I can I know I must passe through the shadow of death before I can come to see thee But it is but Umbra mortis a mâ—er shadow of death a