was fit to be opened and aired before She saw it which reason meeting with her disaffection to ill Scents hindred her smelling out his underhand Contrivances But now he may do it openly for he was the first that publickly read and proclaimed the late Queens Will Posts are sent in hast yet in so calm and quiet a manner as if the loss of so pretious a Mistriss had stupified the people And now the Great-ones strive who shall be most Obsequious and Court their Happy Hopes That Party that had been Opposite to the late Earl of Essex whose death as some thought shortned the Queens life strove to ingratiate themselves by suppressing them that had any Relation to him assuring the King that always counted him his Martyr that he aimed at the Crown himself and Princes apt to be jealous soon take such impressions And now I have stirr'd the Ashes of great Essex I must revive his memory with this short Character for Reports flying upon the Airy wing of the Times have variously exalted or depressed him as the Serene for him or the cloudy fancy against him waved up and down He had a Gallant and Noble Spirit full of Vrbanity and innate Courtesie which too much took the Popular Eye and being a great ingrosser of Fame it procured him many Enemies which made his Spirit boil into passion and that was more suitable to his Enemies Designs than his own for they lighted their candle by his fire and this heat being blown by some fiery Spirits about him gave to the goodness of his Nature a tincture of Revenge which his Enemies made reflect upon the Queen so 1 1 2 OVID RETRIBVAM DOMINO PRO OMNIBVS QVAE TRIBVIT MIHI 3 Jacobus 〈◊〉 Mag Brit Fra Hib Rex 3 IACOBVS DEI GRATIA MAGNAE BRITANNIAE FRANCIAE ET HYBERNIAE REX HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE BEATI PACIFICI 4 ✚ IACOBVS DG MAG BRITA FR ET HI REX 5 MAG BRIT FRA ET HI VX ELIZABETHA FILIAR◠5 NOBILIS SPE FIDE VERITATE FRAN-PERRY DEL-ET SCVLP that the Coal he strove to bring to burn his Enemies Nests kindled his own Funeral Pile But our King coming through the North Banquetting and Feasting by the way the applause of the people in so obsequious and submissive a manner still admiring Change was checkt by an honest plain Scotsman unused to hear such humble Acclamations with a Prophetical expression This people will spoil a gud King The King as unused so tired with Multitudes especially in his Hunting which he did as he went caused an inhibition to be published to restrain the people from hunting him Happily being fearful of so great a Concourse as this Novelty produced the old Hatred betwixt the Borderers not yet forgotten might make him apprehend it to be of a greater extent though it was generally imputed to a desire of enjoying his Recreations without interruption At Theobalds Secretary Cecil's House the Lord Chancellor Egerton the Lord Buckhurst Treasurer the Earl of Notingham Admiral and others of the Council to the deceased Queen met him and they with him found the Duke of Lenox the Earl of Marr the Lord Hume and the Lord Kinloss These with others were made of his Privy-Council The Bishops forgot not to strengthen themselves and their Party against their opposites the Non-Conformists who had gotten new courage upon their hopes of the Kings compliance with them and the King to please both sides went in a smooth way betwixt them at first not leaving out the third Party the Popish the most dangerous whom he closed with also by entertaining into his Councils the Lord Thomas Howard and the Lord Henry Howard the one Son the other Brother to the late Duke of Norfolk who would have been his Father but became a Sufferer for his Mother The one a plain-hearted man the other of a subtile and fine Wit of great Reading and Knowledg excellent for outward Courtship famous for secret Insinuation and cunning Flattery the first a suspected though it was otherwise the last a known Papist bred up so from his Infancy yet then converted as he pretended by the King being the closest way to work his own ends On these he heaped Honours making the Son Earl of Suffolk and the Brother Earl of Northampton And this Gentleness of the King to the Popish party was so pleasant to them that they suckt in the sweet hopes of alteration in Religion and drunk so deep thereof that they were almost intoxicated Now every man that had but a Spark of Hope struck fire to light himself in the way to Advancement though it were to the Consumption both of his Estate and Being The Court being a kind of Lottery where men that venture much may draw a Blank and such as have little may get the Prize Those whose Hopes were almost quenched like Water cast upon Lime burn inward till it breaks out into Flame so hard it is for uncomposed Spirits missing their aims to settle upon the Basis of solid Reason The Earl of Southampton covered long with the Ashes of great Essex his Ruins was sent for from the Tower and the King lookt upon him with a smiling countenance though displeasing happily to the new Baron of Essingden Sir Robert Cecil yet it was much more to the Lords Cobham and Grey and Sir Walter Rawleigh who were forbidden their attendance This damp upon them being Spirits full of acrimony made them break into Murmur then into Conspiracy associating themselves with two Romish Priests men that could not live upon lingring Hopes and other discontented persons which every Change produces The ground of the Design was to set up the Lady Arabella a Branch sprung from the same Stem by another Line and to alter Religion and Government disposing already to themselves the principal places of Honour and Profit The Lord Grey should get leave to transport two thousand men into Holland with whom he should seise upon the King and Prince Sir Walter Rawleigh was to treat with Count Arembergh for procuring of Moneys and Cobham to go to the Arch-Duke and the King of Spain to perswade their Assistance This Embrion proved abortive and they brought their Plea to excuse their attempting it as compleat a One That the King was not yet crowned The Arraignment was at Winchester where strong proofs meeting weak denyals they with others were found guilty of High Treason George Brook the Lord Cobham's Brother and the two Priests suffered for it the rest found Mercy the King being loth to soil the first steps to his Crown with more blood But their Pardon carried them to the Tower where the Lord Grey some years after dyed and in his Death extinguished his Family The Lord Cobham Sir Griffin Markham and others discharged of imprisonment lived miserable and poor Cobham at home and the rest abroad And Rawleigh while he was a Prisoner having the Idea of the World in his contemplation brought it to some
of some of these Particulars they insisted upon the Bishops power of Confirmation which they would have every Minister capable of in his own Parish They disputed against the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage the Surplice the Oath ex officio and other things that stuck with them which they hoped to get all purged away because the King was of a Northern constitution where no such things were practised not yet having felt the Kings pulse whom the Southern Air of the Bishops breaths had so wrought upon that He himself answers most of their Demands Sometimes gently applying Lenitives where he found Ingenuity for he was Learned and Eloquent other times Corrosives telling them these Oppositions proceeded more from stubborness in Opinion than tenderness of Conscience and so betwixt his Arguments and Kingly Authority menaced them to a Conformity which proved a way of Silencing them for the present and some of them were content to acquiesce for the future and the King managed this Discourse with such power which they expected not from him and therefore more danted at That Whitgift Arch. Bishop of Canterbury though a holy grave and pious man highly pleased with it with a sugred bait which Princes are apt enough to swallow said He was verily perswaded that the King spake by the Spirit of God This Conference was on the fourteenth of Ianuary and this good man expired the nine and twentieth of February following in David's fulness of days leaving a Name like a sweet perfume behind him And Bancroft a sturdy piece succeeded him but not with the same Spirit for what Whitgift strove to do by Sweetness and Gentleness Bancroft did persevere in with Rigour and Severity Thus the Bishops having gotten the Victory strove to maintain it and though not on the suddain yet by degrees they press so hard upon the Non-conformists whom they held under the yoke of a Law that many of them are forced to seek Foreign Refuge They prevailed not only for themselves here but by their means not long after the King looked back into Scotland and put the Keys there again into the Bishops hands unlocking the passage to the enjoyment of their Temporal Estates which swel'd them so high that in his Sons time the Women of Scotland pulled them out of their tottering seats On the other side the late Conspiracy of Cobham and Grey had so chilled the Kings blood that he begins to take notice of the swarms of Priests that flockt into the Kingdom For though the Conspirators were of several Religions yet in their correspondence with Foreign Princes Religion was the pretence For in every alteration of Kingdoms few are so modest but they will throw in the Hook of their vain Hopes thinking to get something in the troubled Stream The Iesuits were not slack coming with the Seal of the Fisher in spreading their Nets but a Proclamation broke through them The King being contented to let them alone till they came too near him willing to comply rather than exasperate the safety of his own person made him look to the safety of Religion and to secure both He found this the best Remedy Declaring to all the World the cause of this Restriction VINVIT QVI PATITVR OBIIT ANNO AETATIS SVAE 73 Having after some time spent in setling the Politick affairs of this Realm of late bestowed no small labour in composing certain Differences We found among Our Clergy about Rites and Ceremonies heretofore established in this Church of England and reduced the same to such an order and form as We doubt not but every spirit that is led only with piety and not with humour should be therein satisfied It appeared unto Us in debating these Matters that a greater Contagion to Our Religion than could proceed from these light differences was eminent by persons common Enemies to them both namely the great numbers of Priests both Seminaries and Iesuits abounding in this Realm as well of such as were here before Our coming to the Crown as of such as have resorted hither since using their Functions and Professions with greater liberty than heretofore they durst have done partly upon a vain confidence of some Innovation in matters of Religion to be done by Us which We never intended nor gave any man cause to suspect and partly from the assurance of Our general Pardon granted according to the Custom of Our Progenitors at Our Coronation for offences past in the days of the late Queen which Pardon 's many of the said Priests have procured under Our Great Seal and holding themselves thereby free from danger of the Laws do with great audacity exercise all offices of their Profession both saying Masses and perswading Our Subjects from the Religion established reconciling them to the Church of Rome and by consequence seducing them from their Duty and Obedience to Us. Wherefore We hold Our self obliged both in Consequence and Wisdom to use all good means to keep Our Subjects from being affected with superstitious Opinions which are not only pernicious to their own souls but the ready way to corrupt their Duty and Allegiance which cannot be any way so safely performed as by keeping from them the Instruments of that infection which are Priests of all sorts ordained in Foreign parts by Authority prohibited by the Laws of the Land concerning whom therefore We have thought fit to publish to all Our Subjects this open Declaration of Our pleasure c. Willing and Commanding all manner of Iesuits Seminaries and other Priests whatsoever having Ordination from any Authority by the Laws of this Realm prohibited to take notice that Our pleasure is that they do before the nineteenth of March next depart forth of Our Realm and Dominions And to that purpose it shall be lawful for all Officers of Our Ports to suffer the said Priests to depart into Foreign parts between this and said nineteenth day of March Admonishing and assuring all such Iesuits Seminaries and Priests of what sort soever that if any of them after the said time shall be taken within this Realm or any of Our Dominions or departing now upon this Our pleasure signified shall hereafter return into this Our Realm or any of Our Dominions again they shall be left to the penalty of the Laws here being in force concerning them without hope of any favour or remission from Us c. Which though perhaps it may appear to some a great severity towards that sort of Our Subjects yet doubt We not when it shall be considered with indifferent judgment what cause hath moved Us to use this Providence all men will justifie Us therein For to whom is it unknown into what peril Our Person was like to be drawn and Our Realm unto Confusion not many Months since by Conspiracy First conceived by persons of that sort Which when other Princes shall duly observe We assure Our selves they will no way conceive that this alteration proceedeth from any change of disposition but out of
Title of Roaring Boys Bravadoes Roysters c. commit many insolencies the Streets swarm night and day with bloody quarrels private Duels fomented especially betwixt the English and Scots many Discontents nourished in the Countries betwixt the Gentry and Commonalty about Inclosure the meanest gaping after new hopes growing in some places to a petty Rebellion Daily discords incident to peace and plenty betwixt private Families Papist against Protestant one Friend against another the Papists being a strong and dangerous Faction missing their hopes strove to make the Scots more odious than they could make themselves though some of them went so high as to counterfeit the Kings Privy-Seal and make Addresses thereby to Foreign Princes for which one Thomas Dowglas taken in the fact was executed in Smithfield Others were so insolent as to quip and jear the English Nobility and other misdemeanours which caused secret heart-burnings and jealousies betwixt the Nations But then comes a Proclamation like a strong Pill and carries away the grossest of these humours Something yet stuck especially in the Consciences of the Popish Party that could not be purged away without a Toleration which they Petition for but not being granted they contrived one of the most Horrid and Stupendious Mischiefs that ever entred into the Hearts of Men For their heat of malice would not be quenched with the Blood Royal but the Nobility and Gentry the Representative Body of the whole Kingdom United at Westminster must be shattered in pieces and dis-membred by the blast of six and thirty Barrels of Gun-powder which those dark Contrivers had hid in a Cellar under the Parliament House being discovered by a light from Heaven and a Letter from one of the Conspirators when the fire was already in their hands as well as rage in their hearts to put to the Train The principal of these Contrivers was Robert Catesbie a Gentleman of a good plentiful Estate who first hatched and brooded the Plot and promised to himself the glory of an Eternal Name by the Propagation of it making choyce of Thomas GUY FAWKES Executed in the Year 1606. for the GUNPOWDER PLOT Percy Robert Winter Thomas Winter Iohn Grant Ambrose Rookwood Iohn Wright Francis Tresham Sir Everard Digby and others Gentlemen of good Estates for the most part and spirits as implacable and furious as his own who like combustible matter took fire at the first motion their zeal to the Roman cause burning within them which nothing but the blood of Innocents can quench The design thus set afoot they bind themselves to secresie by those Sacraments which are the greatest ties upon the Soul and Saint Garnet the Iesuit was their Confessor The foundation being laid every man betakes himself to his work some to provide money some materials Percy was to hire the Cellars under the Parliament House to lay Wood and Coal in for his Winter-provision Guido Faux a desperate Ruffian who was to give fire to the Train was appointed to be his man to bring in the Wood and Coal The Gunpowder provided in Flanders is brought from Lambeth in the night and covertly laid under the Wood. Thus they prepare all things ready for a Burnt-offering against the day the Parliament should meet which was to be upon the seventh of February But the King for some Reasons of State which at that time the dictates of Providence did much approve of prorogued the Parliament of the fifth of November following which scattered the Contrivers at present and they were at their wits end and some of them went beyond Seas because they would not beat too much about the Covert their materials being fitted others that staid here persisted with Patience made a Vice by them and met often to consult how they should manage their great business if it took effect They looked upon the King and Prince as already sacrificed to their Cruelty And Percy undertook to dispatch the Duke of York But because they must have one of the Blood Royal that must serve as a center to adhere to to keep all from Confusion they meant to preserve the Lady Elizabeth and make her Queen that under her minority and innocency they might the better establish their bloody Principles of Piety and Policy They had designed the fatal day to be upon the fifth of November when the King and both Houses were to meet and that day they appointed a great Hunting-match at Dunsmore-beach in Warwick-shire to be nearer the Lord Harington's House where the Lady Elizabeth was And they had by their horrid Art and Experience so fitted their Matches that were to convey the fire to the Powder that they could know a hundred Miles off to a minute when that Monstrous Fiery Exhalation would break out Solacing themselves in this bloody expectation and thinking their Conveyances under ground were not seen above by the Divine Discoverer they stood like Vultures gaping for their Prey when behold one tender-hearted Murderer among the Pack willing to save the Lord Monteagle writ this Letter to him MY Lord out of the love I bear to some of your friends I have a care of your Preservation therefore I would wish you as you tender your Life to forbear your attendance at this Parliament for God and Man have concurred to punish the wickedness of this Time And think not sleightly of this advertisement for though there be no appearance of any stir yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament and yet they shall not see who hurt them This Counsel is not to be contemned because it may do you Good and can do you no Harm for the danger is past as soon as you have burnt this Letter I hope God will give you grace to make use of it to whose Holy Protection I commend you THOMAS PERSI NOBILIS ANGLVS MAGNIBRITANNIAE REGIS STIPENDIARIVS ANNO 1605 Haec est vera prima originalis editio ThoÌ„ae Perci Os vultumq vides Thomae cognomine Percy Inter Britannos nobileis noâ—…ssimi Queis rebus 〈◊〉 ambitione superstitioso Animo nefandam machinatur dum necem Regi Regina Ordinibus diprenditur ipsum Deo volente seclus in auctorem 〈◊〉 A Thomas Ichryâ— Capâ—â—â—runt B Tho IehrusÌ„ Regi adduxerit C Tho Persi in Arce fugit D Thomas Persi sagittatus mortuus Execution of the Conspirators In the Gunpowder Plot in the Year 1606. This Prodigious Contrivance did not only stupifie the whole Kingdom with amazement but Foreign Princes made their Wonderment also And though for the Propagation of the Catholick Cause they might have Conscience enough to with it had taken Effect yet they had Policy enough to Congratulate the Discovery and some of them to take off the asperity of the Suspect sweetned their Expressions with many rich Gifts and Presents to the King and Queen But this bloody Design found in the hand of the Malefactors grasping the Mischief and confirmed by their own Confessions being such Spirits as were fit
the delights she suckt in there made his condition again known to her Father The old man being troubled with his Daughters disobedience imbitter'd her being near him with wearisome and continual chidings to wean her from the sweets she doted on and with much ado forced her into the Country But how harsh was the parting being rent away from the place where she grew and flourished Yet she left all her Engines and Imps behind her the old Doctor and his Confederate Mrs. Turner must be her two supporters She blazons all her miseries to them at her depart and moystens the way with her tears Chartley was an hundred miles from her happiness and a little time thus lost is her eternity When she came thither though in the pleasantest time of Summer she shut herself up in her Chamber not suffering a beam of light to peep upon her dark thoughts If she stirred out of her Chamber it was in the dead of Night when sleep had taken possession of all others but those about her In this implacable sad discontented humour she continued some moneths always murmuring against but never giving the least civil respect to her Husband which the good man suffered patiently being loth to be the divulger of his own misery yet having a manly courage he would sometimes break into a little passion to see himself sleighted and neglected by himself but having never found better from her it was the easier to bear with her Robert Earle of Essex his Excellence Generall of the Army etc For coming to London next Winter with this full sail loaden with lust she found the Viscount much prepared for her who being at first fastned on the Object absence and all those little Artifices that mischievous Women and cunning Impostures could devise had advanced him as much in his desires as they had hindred the other We could dispute the Nature of these Operations how far they are Contingent and how the fancy works with them though ignorant of them making their impulsions more active being the sparks that kindle this combustible matter for we will never allow there was any other Diabolical means used Nature being strong enough for such a production but being not pertinent to the Story will leave it and follow them that found the effects of it and had affections suitable to it which they made use of with an unbridled appetite yet meeting closely in corners Sin being at first shamefaced but afterwards they grew more bold and every hour that the Viscount could steal from his Royal Master he dedicated it to his Disloyal Mistris being caught in this Net of Adulation he becomes a willing Prisoner Lust only getting liberty to all looseness and licentiousness Places of frequent Meetings are daily renewed Persons fitted for such practices are employed and when Nature was exhausted Art her subtil Imitator brought in her store to contribute new Spirits purchased at any rate All outward Adornment to present Beauty in her full Glory were not wanting on both sides being Lusts fuel which tended to the Consumption of all Reason And among the rest yellow starch the invention and foyl of Iaundice Complexions with great Cut-work Bands and Piccadillies a thing that hath since lost the name crouded in and flourished among us Mrs. Turner being nominoted to be the first Contriver happily in England but the Original came out of France which fashion and colour did set off their lean sallow countenances Thus did the Viscount get the Conquest of two the King and this Lady but could not subdue his own lustful Appetite The Wheel of Fortune running towards the Scots turned by the Viscount Rochester was unhappily diverted upon the Lord Sanquir a Baron of that Nation and married to a good Family in England who some years before meeting with a sturdy Fencer one Iohn Turner who was a Master of the Weapon-Trade in his own School the young Lord strove to put some affront upon him making it no little Conquest to disgrace a Master in the Art as they termed it and the man apprehensive of the Attempt with a bold rudeness prest so hard upon him that he thrust out one of the Barons eyes This business was much regretted by Turner and the Baron being conscious to himself that he meant his Adversary some ill took the Accident with as much patience as men that lose one eye by their own default use to do for the preservation of the other Some time after being in the Court of the late great Henry of France and the King courteous to Strangers entertaining discourse with him askt him how he lost his eye he cloathing his answer in a better shrowd than a plain Fencers told him it was done with a Sword The King replies Doth the man live And that question gave an end to the Discourse but was the beginner of a strange Confusion in his working Fancy which neither Time nor Distance could compose carrying it in his breast some years after till he came into England where he hired two of his Country-men Gray and Carlile men of low and mercenary spirits to murther him which they did with a Case of Pistols in his own House in White-Fryars many years after the loss of his bodily eye thus the Baron lost the eye of his Reason This bold nefarious Act was very deeply resented at Court and the Kings Commands were so active for apprehension of the murderers that they were all three taken one upon the Borders of Scotland so far had his fears carried him another in a Ship bound for Hamburgh who scaping in a Storm the Seas delivered up and the Lord himself being obscured in this Tempest of his Soul hearing a thousand pound was offered to bring his Head so liberal was the King for Iustice threw himself into the Arms of his Mercy by the mediation of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to whom he presented himself an Object of pity but no intercession could prevail their lives satisfied the Law the Baron not having the honour of a Noble death Edward Earle of Dorset Lord Chamberlaine to the Queene etc. The Kings affections were not so monopolized but that his crafty Servant the Earl of Salisbury had a good hole as well in his Councils as Treasure And being not well pleased to see himself bearded by a Youth new started into the affairs of the World and mounted by the wing of love not of merit he cast out many mists before him to hinder and damp his passage so that the Viscount could not rise to that pitch during his life that he afterwards arrived at And one thing among the rest he obstructed was five thousand pounds the King had given him to maintain his Riot Which sum the Treasurer thought too great a bulk to be carried lightly away and therefore he desired the King might see what he did And having layd the money in Silver upon Tables in his Gallery at Salisbury-house he invited the King to dinner making
this the passage to his entertainment The King strucken suddenly with such heaps asked the Treasurer what this money was for who told him he had received his Majesties Commands to give so much to the Viscount Rochester The King that either carelesly thought five thousand pound to be no more than the noise so much makes in Scotland which doth not amount to above five hundred pounds or cunningly if he knew the value knew also the Treasurers meaning said it was too much for one man and made him be contented with less than the half And now the King casts his thoughts towards Peterborough where his Mother lay whom he caused to be translated to a Magnificent Tomb at Westminster And somewhat suitable to her mind when she was living she had a translucent passage in the night through the City of London by multitudes of Torches The Tapers placed by the Tomb and the Altar in the Cathedral smoaking with them like an Offertory with all the Ceremonies and Voices their Quires and Copes could express attended by many Prelates and Nobles who payd this last Tribute to her memory This was accounted a Piaculous action of the Kings by many though some have not stuck to say That as Queen Elizabeth was willing to be rid of the Queen of Scots yet would not have it her action and being it could not be done without her command when it was done she renounced her own act So though the King was angry when he heard his Mother was taken away by a violent death recalling his Ambassador threatning War and making a great noise which was after calmed and closed up with a large Pension from the Queen yet he might well enough be pleased that such a spirit was layd as might have conjured up three Kingdoms against him For Patrick Grey that the King sent to disswade Queen Elizabeth from taking away his Mothers life was the greatest Instrument to perswade her to it Distilling always into her this Sentence Mortua non mordet When she is dead she cannot bite But the Love that tends to self-preservation is an adjunct of Nature more powerful than Filial duty and therefore there will be no great strife where there are not adequate operations This time was also presented unto us in a various dress and the event shewed though some years after there was more cause of Mourning than Rejoycing though the latter got the predominance For the Prince Elector Palatine came over into England to Marry the Kings only Daughter and Death deprived us of the Kings eldest Son A Prince as eminent in Nobleness as in Blood and having a spirit too full of life and splendour to be long shrouded in a cloud of flesh If that which gave life to his life had been less he might happily have lived longer Not that there was too much Oyl or that concurrent Natural Balsamum in this fair and well-composed Lamp to extinguish it self but the light that came from it might cast so radiant a lustre as by darkning others it came to lose the benefit of its own glory Iealousie is like fire that burns all before it and that fire is hot enough to dissolve all Bonds that tends to the diminution of a Crown The Prince of Spain his contemporary Son to Philip the second not long before this like a young Phaeton wished himself but one day in his Fathers Throne and he fell not long after into the hard hand of an immature fate before he could step into the Chariot So dangerous are the paths of Greatness that the tongue many times rouling aside makes men tread awry Strange Rumors are raised upon this sudden expiration of our Prince the disease being so violent that the combate with Nature in the strength of youth being almost nineteen years of age lasted not above five days Some say he was poysoned with a bunch of Grapes others attribute it to the venemous scent of a pair of Gloves presented to him the distemper lying for the most part in the head They that knew neither of these are strucken with fear and amazement as if they had tasted or felt the effects of those violences Private whisperings and suspicions of some new designs a foot broaching Prophetical terrors That a black CARLO D'AVSTRIA PRINCIPE DI SPAGNA Christmas would produce a bloody Lent For the Spaniard who opposed the marriage of the Prince Palatine and saw their ruin growing up in Prince Henries towardly Spirit were reputed vulgarly the Mint-masters of some horrid practices and that a Ship of Pocket Pistols was come out of Spain fit Instruments for a Massacre And these Trepidations were not only in the lower Region but wrought upwards so high that Proclamations were sent abroad to forbid the making or carrying of Pistols under a foot long in the Barrel And all Papists are not only dis-armed being ever esteemed Vassals to the Catholick King but their Actions with caution pried into In such dark clouds as these the whole Kingdom was at a loss all ordinary Transitions of Nature are imputed to prodigious Omens the greater the fears are the more blazing is the Meteor that arises from them Some that knew the bickerings betwixt the Prince and the Viscount muttered out dark Sentences that durst not look into the light especially Sir Iames Elphington who observing the Prince one day to be discontented with the Viscount offered to kill him but the Prince reproved him with a gallant Spirit saying If there were Cause he would do it himself Now whether these rumors begot a further scrutiny or whether it be the Court-trick to daub and slubber over things that may be perspicuous I know not But the Physicians about the Prince gave it under their hands which was spread abroad in several copies that he died of a strong malignant Feaver so are all violent dissolutions where Nature hath power of resistance that his Liver was pale and livid lead-like the Gall had no Gall but was full of wind the Spleen was unnaturally black and the Lungs in many places spotted with much corruption the Midriff or Diaphragma blackish and the Head in some places full of blood and in some places full of clear water Thus was he Anatomized to amuze the World and clear the suspicion of poyson as if no venoms could produce these effects He died the sixth of November and was carried on a Hearse Triumphing even in Death to Westminster the seventh of December following the pomp of the Funeral being fully compleated with the People tears and Lamentations But the King though he could not but be troubled to lose so near a part of himself looked over all these Mists and like the Sun dispelled all these Clouds and Vapours commanding no man should appear in the Court in mourning he would have nothing in his Eye to bring so sad a Message to his Heart The jollity feasting and magnificence of Christmas must not be laid down There were Princes and Nobles
slow But he that knew he might be too active kept on his old pace as the only way to have it pass unsuspected aiming at his own preservation as well as Overburies destruction He gets therefore by the help of Franklin several sorts of poysons tempering them with his broaths and every bit of meat he eat that he might diminish by degrees for his very Salt was mixt with white Mercury And besides these Sir Thomas Monson sent Tarts and Jellies of the Countesses and Mrs. Turners composition by some of his servants to Weston for the better expedition Thus was the poor Gentleman tortured and rackt in a horrid distemper who being young and of a strong constitution was able to grapple a long time with these corroding Tormentors But his body being not always able to bear it at length he fell extreme sick and having no friend that could or durst visit him none to complain to but the causers of his misery such strict guards were kept about him he languished both in body and mind But some friend by accident taking the advantage for a visit and finding him very sick procured him a wholsom Glister which Weston was willing enough to have administred because he would not be too quick and that retarded the work by carrying away some of the poysonous matter Which Northhampton hearing the Lieutenant was checkt for being so careless and commanded that none should come near him being fearful lest the desperateness of his condition should make him reveal some thing of high concernment that had been machinated among them And Mrs. Turner rebuked her Minister Weston for looking no better to his charge so that they dealt with him now upon a new account The Countess got loose from her Husband grows wanton in her prosperity Nature is unbounded where neither Law nor Grace doth limit The good Earl of Essex must repay the Portion to do which he is forced to sell Benington in Hartford-shire a very gallant seat and glad he is rid of a Torment at any rate She now mounted on her Car drives over all oppositions her Beauties shine in the Court as she would have it she is the Kings Favourite as well as her Husband the glories of her Marriage must appear there and she is a fit gift for the King to bestow he that took her away from one Husband can give her to another who must be of equal rank to her that she may not descend therefore he is Created Earl of Somerset and all the splendid Equipage and magnificent Preparation that can either fill a Court with delight or People with admiration are not wanting for the Marriage She thinking all the World ignorant of her sly practices hath the impudence to appear in the habit of a Virgin with her hair pendant almost to her feet which Ornament of her Body though a fair one could not cover the deformities of her Soul But these and her high Elations are Clouds to her Conscience that though her Bauds might for her her indeed lovely Cheeks did not betray themselves to blushes These glorious Days are seconded with as glorious Nights where Masks and Dancings had a continued motion the King naturally affecting such high-slying Pastimes and banquetings as might wrap up his Spirit and keep it from descending towards Earthly things The City of London and the Court at White-hall like two great Stars in Conjunction had one and the same influence and operation they must do something for the Man whom the King loves Therefore a great Feast is prepared by them in Merchant-Taylors Hall and all the Grandees and Ladies are invited with so much magnificence as if it had been Competitor and vyed with Whitehall for Glory They all rod on horseback into the City in the Evening following their two Leaders the Men attending the Bridegroom and the Women the Bride so mounted furnished and adorned with Trappings and so bespangled with Iewels that the Torches and Flambeaux which were numerous were but little light to the Beholders The noise of these Triumphs resounding in the closest Corners brought the news to Sir Thomas Overbury which was an unfit and comfortless Companion to a Man in misery conscious to himself that all his sufferings proceeded from his opposition to that which was now in agitation so that in his obscure Prison and darker thoughts he could not see the least glimps of hope that looked towards liberty when he considered the implacable nature of the Woman But yet he was not so guilty to his own Reason and that friendship as he thought that was betwixt him and the Earl of Somerset as utterly to despair he having so faithfully promised to procure his Release Therefore Overbury writes to him in the midst of his glory to let him know the sad condition wherein he was and how much his health was impaired which he imputed to his reclusedness and want of Air humbly imploring his assistance that he might no longer languish under the burthens of his infirmities Somerset not willing to have him exclaim made answer That the King was now full of great business but he would take the first opportunity to move him for his Release though he was highly incensed against him and make his indisposition a ground for the Kings mercy to work upon including in the Letter a white Powder which he desired him to take assuring him that though it made him a little sick at first it would do him much good in the end The poor abused Gentleman took his Powder which having a poysonous Quality added to his affliction But there must be something more violent to work the Feat The Lieutenant of the Tower that was his frequent Visitor opened his Breast to his complaints and with an outward pity received them against those that were Authors of his calamities and discharged them again into their bosoms against whom they were spoken so that he could say nothing that came not to their knowledg his very words being racked as well as his body tormented For the Lieutenant confest after with repenting tears as one of his great sins that he was unfaithful and treacherous to him doing things to his disadvantage that he trusted him to do promising him secrecy and betraying him to satisfie greatness Thus he continued in this dismal Den above four Months whipt daily as it were with Scorpions whose venomous stings entred even into his Soul So that his Enemies being more impatient for his enduring so long than he was to endure so much forced Nature so with an impoysoned Glyster compounded by Franklin that within a short time after he died And to kill him again after death they brand him with the scandal of a lascivious life giving out that he died of the Pox Which Northampton expressed to Somerset in a Letter telling him of strange Sores and Vlcers found upon his Body ugly to behold stinking intolerably the People forced to throw him in a loose Sheet
place in Court or dignity in State to be bestowed which was not sweetned with his smile that gave it or their bounty that injoyed it so that it was thought he ingrossed a mass of Coin as if his soul intended to take her ease This Pride and Covetousness added to his other miscarriages such a number of Vnderminers that he stood upon a tottering foundation having no support but the Kings favour which whether by Providence from above or purposes below both ever concurring from the Will to the Means was soon removed For about this time the King cast his eye upon a young Gentleman so rarely moulded that he meant to make him a Master-piece His name was George Villers he was second Son to Sir George Villers a Knight of Leicester-shire by a second Venter For the old man coming to Colehorton in that County to visit his Kinswoman the Lady Beaumont found a young Gentlewoman of that name allyed and yet a servant to the Lady who being of a handsom presence and countenance took his affections and he married her This was the soil where the glorious Cedar grew who having only the breeding and portion of a younger Brother with the Mothers help and travel got the addition of a French garb which brought him to the Court in no greater a condition than fifty pounds a year is able to maintain The King strucken with this new object would not expose him to so much hazard as the malice of a jealous Competitor nor him self to so much censure as to be thought changeable and taken again with a sudden affection therefore he instructs some of his Confidents to bring him in by degrees who intimated the Kings pleasure to him that he should wait Cup bearer at large being so at too strait a distance of place to have any mark of favour for suspition to level at And if the King had not received a new Impression thus the old Character of Somerset that was imprinted in his soul could not so soon as many men thought have been blotted out But Courts that are the wisest though not the most vertuous Schools do teach their Scholars to observe the Seasons and by the Astronomy of the Princes eye to calculate what Fortune such Aspects and such Conjunctions may happily produce And they found so much as gave them incouragement to hear and boldness to discover that which pulled down the one and set up the other But Somerset that had the pulse of his Conscience always beating at Overburies door was as active to preserve himself as his Enemies were to ruin him and finding himself shaking though there was nothing yet laid to his Charge but the imbezelling some of the Crown Iewels he throws himself at the Kings feet acknowledging the great Trust his Majesty had reposed in him and the weight of business lying on him might make him incounter him with some miscarriages through youth and ignorance great imployments often meeting with envy that jossels them in the way he therefore humbly besought his Majesty to grant him a general Pardon for what was past that he might not be exposed to the malice of those that would wrest all his Actions to the worst meaning The King that raised this fair Edifice being loth to have it quite pulled down again gave order for the drawing up of a general Pardon in so ample and full a manner that it might rather exceed than take rise from any former precedent This the King signed and sent to the Great Seal But the Queen having notice of it and using her Power with the Lord Chancellor gave stop to the Seal till the Kings coming to Town who was on his Progress in the West and then what was mutter'd in corners before rung openly in the Streets For the Apothecaries boy that gave Sir Thomas Overbury the Glister falling sick at Flushing revealed the whole matter which Sir Ralph Winwood by his Correspondents had a full Relation of and a small breach being made his Enemies like the noise of many Waters rise up against him following the Stream VERA EFFIG REVERâ—â—â—… DOMINI IOHANÌ„IS KING EPISCOPI LONDINâ—… Lo here his shade whose substaÌ„ce is divine Like God in all that may his Angell fitt Whose light before men like a lampe doth shyne The Oyle of Grace and learning feeding it Yet like a lampe that others light doth gieve Still wast's the Oyle by which him self doth lieve See thy true shadowe Nature and suppose How much thy Substance is belov'd of Harts O Cunning if thy Mirror could diclose His heavenly Formes of Zeale Religion Arts This picture might exactllie shewe in Hym. Each vertue done to Life for each dead Lym. For a little before this Weston was taken and examined but like a stubborn piece unmoulded for impression nothing could be drawn from him but God by the means and persuasion of the Bishop of London Doctor King a man eminent for piety in his time so wrought upon his heart that the eye of his soul being opened to the foulness of his sin he discovered all so that the whole Confederacy were laid hold on Who falling into the hands of the Lord Chief Justice Cook a Spirit of a fiery exhalation as subtil as active he left no stone unturned till he had ript up the very foundation But in the mean time between Westons standing mute and his Trial one Lumsden a Scotchman took upon him to make a false and libellous Relation of the business and delivers it to Henry Gib of the Bed-Chamber to be put into the Kings hand in which Writing he falsifies and perverts all that was done the first day of Westons Arraignment turning the edg of his imputations upon the Lord Chief Justice Cook which Bolt was boldly shot by him but it was thought not to come out of his own Quiver and it lighted into an ill hand for him for the King discovered it and left him an open Mark to that Iustice he had traduced Weston was the first that suffered by the hand of the Law which Sir Iohn Hollis after Earl of Clare out of friendship to Somerset and Sir Iohn Wentworth a Person debauched and riotous hoping from the beams of of Somersets favour to increase his wanting fortunes strove to blast in the spring for they rod to Tyburn and urged him at his Execution to deny all hoping that way to prevent the Autumn that followed but Westons Soul being prepared for Death resisted their temptations sealing penitently the Truth of his Confession with his last And this attempt of Hollu Wentworth and Lumsden to pervert Iustice being aggravated against them in the Star-Chamber by the Kings Atturney Sir Francis Bacon they were sentenced there and found the reward of their Presumption Mistris Turner followed next A Pattern of Pride and Lust who having always given a loose Rein to her life she ran this carreer at last into the jaws of death Sir Iervis Ellowis Lieutenant of the Tower
the Peace of the Land and had opposed himself against the wholsom advice of divers Princes Lords and excellent Persons aswel without as within the Land and that he had injured some of their mightiest Allies by his secret practices namely by calumniating the King of Great Britain as though he had been the Author of these troubles in the Low-Countries For that he had kindled the fire of Dissention in the Provinces had raised Souldiers in the Diocess of Utrecht had disreputed his Excellency as much as lay in his power had revealed the secrets of the Council and had received Presents and Gifts from Foreign Princes Finally for that by his Machinations and Plots new States have been erected in the State new Governments against the Government and new Unions and Alliances against the ancient Union to the general perturbation as well of Policy as of Religion to the exhausting of the Treasures of the Land to the jealousie and dislike not only of the Confederates but of the Natives of the Country who by this means were brought into danger that they were like to fall into final ruine He was born in Amersford descended from the Antient Family of Olden Bernevelt in his Fortune a private Gentleman but by his Industry Travels and Studies at home and abroad he made himself capable of managing the highest affairs which he did almost for forty years together He was five times Extraordinary Ambassador into England and France had been in the Field with the Princes of Orange and the Army as one of the States thirty two several Leaguers nothing was acted without his Advice Indeed he was the Tongue and Genius of the State But whether Ambition now in his old Age mounted him to grapple with the Prince for power or whether that wild and frantick fancy that men often brand their spirits with and call it Conscience but is nothing but pertinacy in opinion impt the wings of his Affections we cannot discover being only the secret Companions of his own Breast and let them dye with him But thus he ended in the seventy first year of his Age. He lived to see that which he had so much opposed a National Synod held at Dort whither our King sent Doctor George Carlton Bishop of Landaff Doctor Ioseph Hall Dean of Worcester Doctor Iohn Davenant Professor Regius in Cambridge and Master of Queens College and Doctor Samuel Ward Regent of Sidney College in Cambridge Divines of great Reputation sound Learning and well-grounded Faith Where they met with divers Divines from Switzerland and Germany besides the Natives of the Netherlands who altogether in a full Synod quashed as much as in them lay the Arminian Opinions and though they could not utterly extirpate the roots of the Heresie yet they laid them so low that they never broke out there since into exuberant branches though some of the Fibrae the small veins left behind much tainted our Nation as shall be expressed hereafter And now the Heavens declare the Glory of God A mighty blazing Comet appears in Libra whose bearded Beams covered the Virgin Sign it began on Wednesday morning the 18th of November this year and vanished away on Wednesday the 16th of December following making in 28 days motion its Circumgiration over most Parts of the known World extending its radiant locks by the observation of Astronomers sometimes 45 Degrees in length And as our Doctor Bambridge observed towards the Declination of it about the 11th of December it past over London in the morning and so hasted more Northwards even as far as the Orcades VERA EFFIGIES R.DI IN CHRISTO PATRIS GEORGII CARLETON EPISC.PI CICESTRIENSIS GEORGIUS CARLETONVS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Age tu solus regai cor Orbis cor Sol est regai cor tu Pateriut Sol Orbe â—at reg sui seripta meant 〈◊〉 Si cor principum 〈…〉 Anglie reite Per 〈…〉 Nunquam futilibus excanduit ignibus Aether they make not their Course in Vain These Apparitions do always portend some horrid Events here below and are Messengers of mischief to poor Mortals The Divine Wisdom pointing to us what we should do to prevent these threatned dangers that we may have our lives for a prey It appears first in Libra the Emblem of Iustice and streams over the Virgin Astrea which as the Poet saith was last of all the Virtues left the Earth Ultima Coelestum terras Astrea reliquit We must by this Admonition from Heaven learn to do justly and it is for injustice that these sad Omens threaten us What miserable Effects of War Ruine and Devastation in most parts of the known World followed at the heels of this stupendious Harbinger is obvious to all and so far as relates to us may be declared God willing in the Progress of this History but I hope the operation and power of it is almost at an end for it began in Germany took France and Spain in the way and past over England to the Orcades and so vanished as Bainbridge relates in the Description of it Fol. 7. Fulgura non semper nec semper praelia durant let 's count it almost past For War like lightning doth not always last The first remarkable Accident that happened in England after this Prodigious Forerunner was the death of Queen Anne who died of a Dropsie at Hampton-Court and thence brought to her Palace in the Strand for the more triumphant glory of her Obsequies The Common People who naturally admire their Princes placing them in a Region above ordinary Mortals thought this great Light in Heaven was sent as a Flambeau to her Funeral their dark minds not discovering while this Blaze was burning the fire of War that broke out in Bohemia wherein many thousands perished She was in her great Condition a good Woman not tempted from that height she stood on to embroyl her spirit much with things below her as some busy-bodies do only giving her self content in her own House with such Recreations as might not make Time tedious to her And though great Persons Actions are often pried into and made Envies mark yet nothing could be fixt upon her that left any great impression but that she may have engraven upon her Monument a Character of Virtue About this time Henry Earl of Northumberland who had been a Prisoner in the Tower ever since the Powder plot a long Recluse was set at liberty The Cause of his Confinement was upon a Sentence in Star-Chamber for nourishing in his House Thomas Piercy his Kinsman who was one of the Complotters of the Treason And though nothing could be proved against the Earl to endanger his life yet upon the presumpâ—â—on of his knowledge of it he was fined in thirty thousand pounds and imprisoned in the Tower He was married to Dorothy eldest Daughter to Walter Earl of Essex by whom hâ— had a Nâ—ble yet surviving Issue two Sâ—ns and tâ—o Daughters Algernon now Earl of Northumberland and Henry both in
these Times young Dorothy the eldest Daugâ—teâ— married Robert Viscount Lisle after the death of his Father Eâ—â—l of Leicester by whom he had a numerous Issue like Clive branches aâ—out his Table The younger Daughter Lucy a Lady of â—â—â—ompâ—rable Beauty solemnized in the Poâ—â—s oâ—â—he most exquiâ—â—e Witsâ—f â—f her time married the Lord Hayes now made Viâ—count Doncaster against hâ—r Father's will â—ho aimed at higher â—xtractiâ—â—â— during his Imprisonment which the old Earâ—'s stubborn spirit not brooking would never give hâ—r any thing And Doncaster whose affection was abâ—ve money â—etting only a valuationâ—pon â—pon his much-admired Bride strove to make himselâ— meritorious and prevailed so with the King for his Fâ—ther-in 〈◊〉 that he got his Release But the old Earl would hâ—rdly be drawn to take a Release from his hand so that when he had liberty he restrained himself and with much importunity was wrought upon by such as knew the distempers of his body might best qualifie those of his mind peâ—â—uading him â—oâ—â—ome indisposition to make a journey to the Bath â—hich was one special motive to accept of his Son-in-laâ—'s respects HONORATISSâ—â—â—â— Dê° HENRICVS PERCEY COMâ—â—â—â— NORTHVMBERIANâ—… If Art could shewe the Spirit in the Face And in dead Sines expresse a Liuing Grace You might though wanting an Inscription sweare That this the shadowe of a PERCY were For when the Noblest Romane worthies Liud Though greater Fame their Fortunes have atcheiud No brauer Spiritts did in ROME command Then were the PERCYS of NORTHVMBERIAND But now War breaks in upon us following that blazing Fore-runner the House of Austria like Pyrrhus and Lysander extending their Dominions no further than the Sword could reach having long seat hered their Nests with the Eagles plumes grew formidable to the Princes and States of Germany And because they found the Popes had shrewdly plumed some of their Predecessors till they had wrested most parts of Italy from the Empire they were content to maintain their Grandure by the Popes power and to ingratiate themselves the more became great Persecutors of the Reformed Religion A little before this time Ferdinand Uncles Son to Matthias the Emperor was Crowned King of Bohemia with this Reservation that he should not exercise the Power of a King as long as the old Emperor lived This kind of Crowning of Kings one in the life of another was the great Chain that link by link held the Empire and the two Kingdoms of Hungaria and Bohemia together in the Austrian Family so that the State of either Kingdom could not or durst not put forth their Strength to shake them asunder The Emperor kept his Court at Vienna King Ferdinand at Gretz in Stiria so that the Government of Bohemia rested in such Counsellors as the Emperor Matthias left there for the management of Publick Affairs These Counsellors and Ministers with the Archbishop of Prague broke out about this time not only to demolish the Protestant Churches but by the help of the Iesuits their bitter Enemies strove to undermine the Religion it self The Protestant States and Nobles of the Country summoning an Assembly to redress their Grievances were opposed by some of them Emperor's Ministers of State the very day of their meeting which exasperated them to such a height of Passion being backt by some Forces they brought with them for their Security that they threw Slabata the Emperor's chief Justice Smesansius one of the Council of State and Fabricius a pragmatical Secretary from a high Window in the Castle down into the Court though some of them took little hurt and lived as reports go to this time This rash Action the Bohemians strive to palliate by Apologies to the Emperor but withal strengthned themselves making Leavies both of Horse and Foot the better to secure their own Peace and banishing those Firebrands the Iesuits out of Prague whose malicious and distemper'd Zeal first kindled the Flame The Emperor hearing of these mischiefs raises an Army under the command of Count Bucquoy and the Protestant States finding the Emperor exasperated raise two Armies one commanded by Count Thurne the other by Count Mansfeldt some bickrings past betwixt the Imperial Army and the Bohemians some Towns taken on both sides and in the heat of this stir the old Emperor dies Ferdinand King of Hungary and Bohemia and adopted heir of old Matthias meeting after summons at Frankford with the three Electors of Mentz Collen and Trevers and only with the Representatives of the other three Electors The Church carried it for him and he was chosen King of the Romans The States of Bohemia disclaimed the election as invalid because he could not be an Elector himself as King of Bohemia for that he had never been actually in possession of the Crown And though their dissent could not lessen Ferdinand's Election to the Empire yet they protested by oath never to acknowledge him for their King These eruptions made a noise all over Christendom and most knowing men looked on this heavenly Torch the late Comet as fit fuel to give fire to such a train Our King fearing the clap would fall heavy upon the Protestant party sent the Viscount Doncaster extraordinary Ambassador to mediate a Reconciliation betwixt the Emperor and the Bohemians But the asperity and bitterness was too great to find an allay by his sweet and candid Complements being sitter for the bosoms of Lovers than the armed breasts of Uprores and Tumults LOTHARIVS PAR LA GRACE DE DIEV ARCHEVESQVE DE TREVES B. Moucorneâ— excudit Our King that looked upon his own condition through the Optique of the peoples mutable and unstable affection would by no means countenance such a Precedent as should give them power to dispose of an established Royal dignity at their pleasure and upon every change of humor for so he might shake his own foundation which made the Barons addresses crude and nauseous to his Appetite till time had a little digested them And then he dispatched two Ambassadors into Bohemia One was Sir Richard Weston who was afterwards Lord high Treasurer of England and left to his posterity the Earldom of Portland a man of a haughty spirit yet knew how by suppling it to make his way to the height he arrived at For his Religion gave place to his Policy and mounted him till he became one of the great grievances of the Kingdom The other was Sir Edward Conwey a man of a grosser temper bred a Soldier being Governor of Bril when England gave over her interest in the cautionary Towns who was after made a Viscount and Secretary of State a rough impollished peice for such an imployment But the King that wanted not his Abilities would often make himself merry with his imperfect scrouls in writing and hacking expressions in reading so that he would break into laughter and say in a facetious way Had ever man such a Secretary that can neither Write nor Read These two were suited for the imployment happily upon
unto your Lordships I hope I may say and justifie with Iob in these words I have not hid my sin as did Adam nor concealed my faults in my bosom This is the only justification which I will use It resteth therefore that without Fig-leaves I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge that having understood the Particulars of the Charge not formally from the House but enough to inform my conscience and memory I find matter sufficient and full both to move me to desert my defence and to move your Lordships to condemn and censure me Neither will I trouble your Lordships by singling those Particulars which I think might fall off Quid te exempla juvant spinis de pluribus Uva Neither will I prompt your Lordships to observe upon the proofs where they come not home or the scruple touching the credits of the Witnesses Neither will I represent to your Lordships how far a defence might in divers things extenuate the offence in respect of the time and manner of the guilt or the like circumstances But only leave these things to spring out of your more noble thoughts and observations of the Evidence and examinations themselves and charitably to wind about the Particulars of the Charge here and there as God shall put into your minds and so submit my self wholly to your piety and grace And now I have spoken to your Lordships as Iudges I shall say a few words unto you as Peers and Prelates humbly commending my Cause to your noble minds and magnanimous affections Your Lordships are not simply Iudges but Parliamentary Iudges you have a further extent of Arbitrary Power than other Courts and if you be not tied by ordinary course of Courts or Precedents in Points of strictnâ—ss and severity much less in Points of mercy and mitigation And yet if any thing which I shall move might be contrary to your honourable and worthy end the introducing a Reformation I should not seek it but herein I besech your Lordships to give me leave to tell you a Story Titus Manlius took his Son's life for giving Battail against the prohibition of his General Not many years after the lâ—ke severity was pursued by Papirius Cursor the Dictator against Quintus Maximus who being upon the point to be sentenced was by the intercession of some particular persons of the Senate spared Whereupon Livy maketh this grave and gracious observation Neque minùs firmata est Disciplina Militaris periculo Quinti Maximi quà m miserabili supplicio Titi Manlii The Discipline of War was no less established by the questioning of Quintus Maximus than by the punishment of Titus Manlius And the same reason is in the Reformation of Iustice For the questioning of men in eminent Places hath the same terrour though not the same rigour with the punishment But my Cause stays not there for my humble desire is that his Majesty would take the Seal into his hands which is a great downfall and may serve I hope in it self for an expiation of my faults Therefore if mercy and mitigation be in your Lordships power and no way cross your Ends why should I nâ—t hope of your favour and commiseration Your Lordships will be pleased to behold your chief pattern the King our Soveraign a King of incomparable clemency and whose heart is inscrutable for wisdom and goodness And your Lordships will remember there sate not these hundred years before a Prince in your House and never such a Prince whose presence deserveth to be made memorable by Records Acts mixt of mercy and justice Your selves are either Nobles and Compassion ever beateth in the veins of noble blood or Reverend Prelates who are the Servants of him that would not breâ—k the bruised Reed nor quench the smoking Flax. You all sit upon a high Stage and therefore cannot but be sensible of the changes of humane conditions and of the fall of any from high place Neither will your Lordships forget that there are Vitia Temporis as well as Vitia Hominis and the beginning of Reformation hath the contrary power to the pool of Bethesda for that had strength to cure him only that was first cast in and this hath strength to hurt him only that is first cast in And for my part I wish it may stay there and go no further Lastly I assure my self your Lordships have a noble feeling of me as a Member of your own Body and one that in this very Session had some taste of your loving Affections which I hope was not a lightning before the death of them but rather a spark of that Grace which now in the Conclusion will more appear And therefore my humble sute to your Lordships is That my penitent submission may be my sentence the loss of my Seal my punishment and that your Lordships would recommend me to his Majestie 's Grace and Pardon for all that is past God's holy Spirit be among you Your Lordships humble servant and suppliant Fran. St. Albans Can. April 22. 1621. Thus was his great spirit brought low and this humiliation might have raised him up again if his offences had not been so weighty as to keep him down He lost his Peerage and Seal and the Scale was wavering whether he should carry the Title of Viscount St. Albans to his grave and that was all he did having only left a poor empty being which lasted not long with him his honor dying before him And to heighten his misery the more many others were crushed to pieces by his fall for he had a vast debt lay upon him which they were forced to pay and though he had a Pension allowed him by the King he wanted to his last living obscurely in his Lodgings at Grays-Inn where his loneness and desolate condition wrought upon his ingenious and therefore then more melancholy temper that he pined away And had this unhappiness after all his height of plenitude to be denied Beer to quench his thirst For having a sickly taste he did not like the Beer of the house but sent to Sir Fulk Grevil Lord Brook in neighborhood now and then for a bottle of his Beer and after some grumbling the Butler had order to deny him So sordid was the one that advanced himself to be called Sir Sidnie's friend and so friendless was the other after he had dejected himself from what he was He was of a midling stature his countenance had indented with Age before he was old his Presence grave and comely of a high-flying and lively Wit striving in some things to be rather admired than understood yet so quick and easie where he would express himself and his Memory so strong and active that he appeared the Master of a large and plenteous store-house of Knowledge being as it were Nature's Midwife stripping her Callow-brood and clothing them in new Attire His Wit was quick to the last for Gondemar meeting him the Lent before his Censure and hearing of his Miscarriages thought to
were not well pleased with it which made them present him with this Petition thus Subsigned The Humble Petition of the Nobility of England THat whereas your Majesty at the importunity of some natural Subjects of this Realm of England hath been pleased to confer upon them Honours Titles and Dignities peculiar to other your Majestie 's Dominions by which all the Nobility of this Realm either in themselves their Children or both find they are prejudiced Our humble desire is that with your gracious allowance we may challenge and preserve our Birth-rights And that we may take no more notice of these Titulars to our Prejudice than the Law of this Land doth but that we may be excused if in civil courtesie we give them not the respect or place as to Noblemen strangers seeing that these being our Country Men born and inheritanced under our Laws their families and abode among us have yet procured their Translation into foreign names only to our injury But in this address to your Sacred Majesty it is far from Us to meddle with much less to limit or interpret the Power of your Soveraignty knowing that your Majesty being the Root whence all Honour receives Sap under what Title soever may collate what you please upon whom when and how you please Wherefore in all humbleness We present this to your gracious view confident of your Majesties equal favour herein 1. Oxford 2. Huntington 3. Essex 4. Lincoln 5. Dorset 6. Salisbury 7. Warwick 8. Abergavenie 9. Dacres 10. Darcie 11. Stafford 12. Willoughbie 13. Sheffeild 14. Windsor 15. Gray 16. Wentworth 17. Mordant 18. Scroop 19. Cromwell 20. Sturton 21. Howard 22. St. Iohn 23. Paget 24. Russell 25. Gerrard 26. Dudley 27. Hunsdon 28. Denny 29. Spencer 30. Haughton 31. Stanhope 32. Say 33. Noell Thus we see the Errors of Princes are sometimes put into the Scale and they bring with them so much trouble and vexation that they often weigh down their Glory and Happiness for no man can feel the load and burthen of it but he that wears a Crown The King was conscious to himself that he had done these Noblemen injury especially the Barons to advance their inferiours above them for a little profit either to himself or his Courtiers And if he had not heard of this Petition before such a Troop of attendance together might have startled him but being prepared for it he mustered up his Spirits thinking it too great an abasement for Majesty to stoop at their Summons being so publick an Action or to lesson or recall what he had done Yet he was troubled not knowing what quarrels the strife for place and precedency might produce or what ill blood the discontent of so many of the Nobility at one time might ingender Therefore he sent for them all or the most eminent and leading men of them some days after and expostulated the business with them one by one in private knowing he could deal best with them so beginning with some of them roughly yet still he closed with them at last his anger being as it were raised to make them humble and reconcile themselves to him that he might the better reconcile himself to them And to the Earl of Essex he vented this Expression I fear thee not Essex if thou wert as well beloved as thy father and hadst forty thousand men at thy heels Which words he uttered as if he had chid himself that they made an escape from him And though this Petition did not derogate from the Dignity of those creations past yet the King willingly restrained himself for the time to come But the House of Commons found the King's Letters to entangle the way rather than make a free passage to their Liberties for that which was their birth-right would now come to be derived from his Ancestors And for all the King's finenesses they thought Religion very un secure for as long as the bent of his Affections tended to the Spanish match there must needs be a wide Gap open as an inlet to Popery and if it may be made Treason for his Parliament to advise him from it they saw but a very small door left open to liberty But whatsoever befell them they resolved to leave to posterity some prints and footsteps of their Parliamentary Rights and Privileges left them by their great Ancestors that though they could not preserve them intire those that succeed them might at least find some Reliques and ruins of what they had Which made them make this Protestation recorded in their Iournal Book 19. Dec. 1621. THe Commons now Assembled in Parliament being justly occasioned thereunto concerning sundry Liberties Franchises and Privileges of Parliament among others here mentioned do make this Protestation following That the Liberties Franchises Privileges and Iurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted Birth-right and inheritance of the Subjects of England And that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the King State and defence of the Realm and of the Church of England and the Maintenance and making of Laws and redress of Mischiefs and grievances which daily happen within this Realm are proper Subjects and matter of Counsel and debate in Parliament And that in the handling and proceeding of those businesses every Member of Parliament hath and of right ought to have freedom of Speech to propound treat reason and bring to Conclusion the same And that the Commons in Parliament have likewise liberty and freedom to treat of these Matters in such order as in their judgments shall seem fittest And that every Member of the said House hath like Freedom from all impeachment imprisonment and Molestation other then by censure of the house it self for or concerning any speaking reasoning or declaring of any matter or matters touching the Parliament or Parliament business And that if any of the said Members be complained of and questioned for any thing done or said in Parliament the same is to be shewed to the King by the advice and assent of all the Commons assembled in Parliament before the King give credence to any private information The King was again Alarum'd by this Protestation and he that naturally loved Peace both at home and abroad found a loud War in his own Breast which indeed was in effect raised by himself for no wisdom could resolve the Intricacies of his Resolutions but his own for he would have a War with the Emperor in Contemplation and a Treaty with the King of Spain in Action both at one time who were as it were one person and because the Parliament like wise Mathematicians would use the Practical part as well as the Theory he was enraged against them and his Prerogative stept in as a stickler and broke out like an Exhalation in thundring and terror to the Astonishment and fear of his people which made them shrowd themselves from those storms by creeping under the Shelter of their Native liberties And now the King flies from his
in that manner So that Cottington's business was quite perverted for whereas he came to complain of the wrongs his Lordship had received he was now driven to excuse the Error he had committed So that the Duke of Lerma left him in his old House a day or two to consider well of it and then the Conde de Salazar one of the King 's Major Domos was sent to accompany him to the Court These were the Glories of the Spanish entertainments the Honour they gave the English and the ground work of that Union betwixt the Nations whereon they built up some great formalities which like Royal shadows vanished in the end and came to nothing As the Lord Digby is sent into Spain to smooth the way over the Pyrene so Gage is sent to Rome to make the Alpes accessible for the Dispensation must be had from thence for the Marriage That Man of sin is the Primum mobile he turns about all inferiour Orbs at his pleasure usurping a Terrene Deity and holds it by the chains of conscience even now when the light of Learning and Knowledge with a marvelous influence shines over the Christian World At home the Prisons are set open Priests and Iesuits walk about at noon day to deceive And Gondemar vaunts of four thousand Recusants that his intercession had released either to make his service the more acceptable to his Master or to let him see how willing Our King is to do any thing to advance that Match that they never intend Who is not so nice but that he can stay for a Dispensation from Rome to expedite which he writes to some of the activest Cardinals there and receives answers from them by Gage his Agent full of alluring Hopes And that he might give some more publick Testimony of his indulgence He commands Dr. Williams Bishop of Lincoln then Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England to pass Writs under the great Seal to require the Iudges of every Circuit to enlarge all such Papists as were imprisoned for Recusancy Whereupon the Lord Keeper issued out these Writs and to let the Iudges see how well he was pleased with this command he Corroborates their Authority with this Letter signed with his own hand AFter my hearty commendations to you His Majesty having resolved out of deep reasons of State and in expectations of like Correspondence from foreign Princes to the Professors of our Religion to grant some Grace and Connivence to the imprisoned Papists of this Kingdom hath commanded me to pass some Writs under the broad Seal to that purpose Requiring the Judges of every Circuit to enlarge the said Prisoners according to the tenor and effect of the same I am to give you to understand from his Majesty how his Majestie 's Royal pleasure is that upon Receipt of these Writs you shall make no niceness or difficulty to extend that his Princely favour to all such Papists as you shall find prisoners in the Goals of your Circuits for any Church Recusancy whatsoever or refusing the Oath of Supremacy or dispersing Popish Books or hearing saying of Mass or any other point of Recusancy which doth touch or concern Religion only and not Matters of State And so I bid you farewel Your loving friend JO. LINCOLN Westminster Coll. 2 Aug. 1622. This Bishop succeeded the Lord Verulam not as Chancellor but Keeper of the great Seal he having been by Buckingham's means made Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Lincoln upon Neils remove to Durham and for a long time had very gracious acceptance with the Countess of Buckingham who was a great means to smooth his passage to all these places and the Marquess her Son was the rather induced to it because he was his creature and could mould him as he thought to serve his own turn though when he had sifted and tried him he found some Pharisaical leaven in him and afterwards in the next King's Reign threw him by For though he were composed of many grains of good Learning yet the Height of his Spirit I will not say Pride made him odious even to those that raised him happily because they could not attain to those Ends by him that they required of him For great and good Officers ought to be just to their own principles and not deviate from them for any wordly Respects William Arch-B of Canterbury Primate of all England etc. But that which heightned him most in the Opinion of those that knew him best was his bountiful Mind to Men in Want being a great Patron to support where there was Merit that wanted supply Among the rest Monsieur de Molin a very famous Minister of France in the persecution there driven into England for Refuge The Bishop hearing of him spoke to Doctor Hacket his Chaplain to make him a Visit from him And because saith he I think the Man may be in Want in a strange Country carry him some Money not naming the Sum because he would sound the depths of his Chaplain's mind Doctor Hacket finding the Bishop nominate no proportion told him he could not give him less than twenty pound I did demur upon the Sum said the Bishop to try you Is twenty pound a fit gift for me to give a man of his parts and deserts Take a hundred pounds and present it from me and tell him he shall not want and I will come shortly and visit him my self Which he after performed and made good his Promise in supplying him during his abode in England But these great Actions were not publickly visible those were more apparent that were looked on with an Envious rather than an Emulous Eye For the close and intimate Correspondence that was betwixt this Bishop and the old Countess set many scurrilous tongues and Pens a work though he was as I have been assured Eunuchus ad Utero which shews that nothing can prevent Malice but such an innocence as it cannot lay hold on For it hath ever been accounted a crime not to endeavour to prevent the voice of Calumny His breach with Land Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the disgraces put upon him by the Court will not fall in here nor his closing again and Strugling when he saw the Axe laid to the Root of Episcopacy But by this man's Actions as in a Mirror may be seen that a great Estate which besides his bounty his places procured him is a liquorish Temptation to make a Proteus-like vary from one shape to another and to shape no direct course but to go still as the wind blows Not long before this that Reverend Prelate George Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a man of a holy and unblamable life medling with edged Tools that he used not to handle in his Study by a sad accident killed a keeper with a forked arrow as he was shooting at a Dear This was a great perplexity to the good man and a heavy Knell to his Aged Spirit which he petitioned the King might ring a
by the Text of Scripture free both the Doctrine and the Discipline of the Church of England from the aspersions of either adversary especially where the Auditory is Suspected to be tainted with the One or the other infection 6. Lastly that the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of the Kingdom whom his Majesty hath good cause to blame for this former remissness be more wary and choice in their licensing of Preachers and revoke all Grants made to any Chancellor Official or Commissary to pass Licences in this kind And that all the Lecturers throughout the Kingdom of England a new Body severed from the ancient Clergy as being neither Parsons Vicars nor Curates be licensed henceforward in the Court of Faculties but only from a Recommendation of the Party from the Bishop of the Diocess under his hand and seal with a Fiat from the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a Confirmation under the great Seal of England And that such as do transgress any one of these Directions be suspended by the Bishop of the Diocess or in his default by the Arch-Bishop of the Province ab officio beneficio for a Year and a Day until his Majesty by the advice of the next Convocation shall prescribe some further punishment The Directions the Archbishop recommended to his several Diocesans that they might be put in execution with caution And then may be observed that the King's affections tended to the peaceable comportment of his people that both Papist and Puritan might have a quiet being which preponderation of His puts them in Aequi-librio nay the Papist was in the prime Scale But this new thing called a Lecturer he could by no means endure unless he past through all the Briers of his several Courts to the Broad Seal which was a kind of pungent Ordeal Tryal to which he must put his Teste me ipso and then it was Orthodox so that though Lecturers were not absolutely forbidden yet the charge and trouble to come to it made the way inaccessible Preachers by an Order of Star-chamber in Heaven were first licensed with an Ite praedicate before Henry the Eighth's time and certainly they have a great Seal from thence for what they do Therefore it behoves them to take heed what they say left that Spirit they receive Directions from bind them not up But this Animosity of the King 's against Puritans was thought to be fomented by the Papists whose Agent Bishop Laud was suspected to be though in Religion he had a Motley form by himself and would never as a Priest told me plainly in Flanders bring his neck under the obedience of the Roman Yoak though he might stickle for the grandure of the Clergy And now he began to be Buckingham's Confessor as he expresseth in his own Notes and wore the Court Livery though the King had a sufficient character of him and was pleased with Asseveration to protest his incentive Spirit should be kept under that the flame should not break out by any Preferment from him But that was now forgotten and he crept so into favour that he was thought to be the Bellows that blew these Fires For the Papists used all the Artifices they could to make a breach between the King and his People that they might enter at the same for their own Ends which to accomplish they slily close with the chief ministers of State to put the King upon all his Projects and Monopolies displeasing to the people that they might the more Alienate their Affections from him Sowing their seeds of Division also betwixt Puritan and Protestant so that like the second Commandment they quite exclude the Protestant For all those were Puritans with this high-grown-Arminian-popish party that held in judgment the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches or in practice live according to the Doctrine publickly taught in the Church of England And they attribute the name of Protestant 1. To such Papists as either out of policy or by popish indulgence hold outward Communion with the Church of England 2. To such Protestants as were either tainted with or inclinable to their opinions 3. To indifferent Men who imbrace always that Religion that shall be commanded by Authority Or 4. To such Neutrals as care for no Religion but such as stands with their own liking so that they allow the Church of England the Refuse both of their Religion and Ours Then they strive to make a Division of Regians and Republicans The Regians are the great Dependents upon the Crown both in Church and State who swell up the Prerogative preaching and distilling into the King the Almightiness of his power That all that the People hath is the King 's and that it is by his mercy they have a bare empty Being And this hoisting up of the King they knew would stir up the Republicans to oppose him in his Designs by which they pinch as the King thinks his Prerogative feeding a strife betwixt Law and Prerogative whereby they escape the Dint of both and hope the fire they kindle will break out at last to consume their Adversaries That these things were acted and fomented by Papists was very probable for they were great Sticklers about the Court and Council-Table But it was too apparent that some of the Clergy to make their way the smoother to their wished end began so to adore the King that he could not be named but more reverence was done to it than to the Name of God And the Iudges in their itinerant Circuits the more to enslave the people to Obedience being to speak of the King would give him such Sacred and Oraculous Titles as if their advancement to higher places must necessarily be laid upon the foundation of the peoples debasement On the other side The well affected to Religion that knew no other inclination than the Dictates of their own Reason experiences of former times and the constant practices of the Romanists for propagating their own designs did by their writings and discourses strive to warm the King 's cold temper and put fresh spirits into his chilled veins shewing the Tyranny of the incroaching Monarchy of the House of Austria who was Rome's great Factor and how just and secure the opposing of such a growing power will be That no Sword is so sharp nor Arm 's so strong as those that are cemented with true Religion The security of Conscience grounded upon the Word of Truth being not only a Bulwark to defend but the best Engin to oppose Idolatry and Ambition Thus stood the Kingdom divided in it self But as the King strove after this Rupture betwixt him and the Parliament to settle things at home and keep his people in obedience so he was as active abroad to keep up his own Reputation For he made a full account to salve up all these miscarriages by the intended Match with Spain that his people might see he could discern further into the intrinsical matters of State than they and so make the
or wary in such an Eruption as this so contrary to his Nature as he saith himself a War was a new World to him fearing to lay out by it more than he should receive And in this he was like the Man that when his Master gave great Charge to go and gather up his Rents in the Country and to take a pair of Pistols with him to bring home his Money with the more security After the Master had appointed him to pay so much in one place and so much in another that the Man saw he should not receive so much as he should disburse Bid his Master take his Pistols again he should not use them So the King fearing that when the War was begun there would not be where withal to maintain it Thanked the Parliament for their Advice and he would consider better of it And they seeling the King's Pulse by his expressions resolved now not to let him flag but to keep up the temper of his Spirit that a little thing would make decline again And therefore they seriously settled to their Business and answered his Expectation fully which they presented unto him shortly after in these words to his great Satisfaction Most Gracious Soveraign WE your Majesties most Humble and Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled do first render to your Sacred Majesty Our most Dutiful Thanks for that to Our unspeakable Comfort you have vouchsafed to express your Self so well satisfied with Our late Declaration made unto your Majesty of Our general Resolution in pursuit of Our Humble Advice to assist your Majesty in a Parliamentary way with Our Persons and Abilities And whereas your Majesty in your Great Wisdom and Iudgment foreseeing that it will make a deeper impression both in the Enemies of that Cause and in your Friends and Allies if they shall not onely hear of the Cheerful Offers but also see the Real performance of your Subjects towards so great a Work Your Majesty was pleased to descend to a particular Proposition for the advancing of this great Business We therefore in all humbleness most ready and willing to give your Majesty and the whole World an ample Testimony of Our Sincere and Dutiful Intentions herein upon Mature Advice and Deliberation as well of the Weight and Importance of this great Affair as of the present Estate of this your Kingdom the Weal and Safety whereof is in Our Iudgments apparently threatned if your Majesties Resolution for the Dissolving of the Treaties now in question be longer deferred and that Provision for defence of your Realm and aid of your Friends and Allies be not seasonably made have with a Cheerful Consent of all the Commons no one dissenting and with a Full and Cheerful Consent of the Lords Resolved That upon your Majesties publique Declaration for the Dissolution and utter Discharge of both the said Treaties of the Marriage and the Palatinate in pursuit of Our Advice therein and towards the Support of that War which is likely to ensue And more particularly for those four Points proposed by your Majesty Namely for the Defence of this your Realm the Securing of Ireland the assistance of your Neighbours the States of the United Provinces and other your Majesties Friends and Allies and for the setting forth of your Royal Navy We will grant for the present the greatest Aid which ever was given in Parliament That is to say Three intire Subsidies and three Fifteens to be all paid within the compass of one whole Year after your Majestie shall be pleased to make the said Declaration The Money to be paid into the Hands and expended by the Direction of such Committees or Commissioners as hereafter shall be agreed upon at this present Session of Parliament And We most humbly beseech your Majesty to accept of these First Fruits of Our Hearty Oblation dedicated to that Work which We infinitely desire may prosper and be advanced And for the Future to rest confidently assured That We your Loyal and Loving Subjects will never fail in a Parliamentary way to assist your Majestie in so Royal a Design wherein your Own Honour and the Honour of your most Noble Son the Prince the Antient Renown of this Nation the Welfare and very Subsistence of your Noble and Onely Daughter and her Consort and their Posterity the Safety of your Own Kingdom and People and the Prosperity of your Neighbours and Allies are so deeply ingaged The Parliament by this Declaration came up so close to the King that he could make no evasion but rested contented now in his Latter time when the Almonds as it were begun to Blossom upon his head to plunge himself into a War which brought him again to the Parliament to thank them for their Readiness to assist him telling them That he is willing to follow their advice in the Anulling and Breach of these two Treaties They having given enough to begin a War but when the end will be he said God knows Yet he will ingage for himself and his Son his Successour That no means shall be left unused for recovery of the Palatinate And for all his Old Age if it might do any good he would go in person to further the Business But as he is contented to have the Parliament Committees to dispose of the Moneys by their Directions so the Design must not be acted by publique Councels For whether he shall send Two thousand or Ten thousand whether by Sea or Land East or West by Diversion or Invasion upon the Bavarian or the Emperor that must be left to the King And this he did that there might be no jealousies but to smooth every Rub betwixt them And to put it in execution a Council of War is chosen out of the old and long discontinued Militia of Ireland and some others of the Nobility and upon result of their Counsels after some debate it was concluded to send fix thousand men for the present into the Low Countreys to joyn with the States Forces against the King of Spain's mighty Armies under the command of Marquess Spinola that threatned the next Summer to over-run the Netherlands that weakning the Spaniard in Flanders they might have the more free access into Germany The Dissolution of the Treaties with Spain and the preparation for War resounding in every Ear gave such an Allarm to the Spanish Ambassadour the Marquess of Inoiosa that whether out of Truth and Knowledge as he pretended or Malice only cannot be determined But he sent to the King to let him know that the Duke of Buckingham had some dangerous Machination a foot that tended to his Destruction and the best he could expect would be a confinement to a Countrey-house in some Park during his life the Prince being now in full abilities and ripe in Government This Concussion was strong enough to shake an old Building that was of a fearful and tottering Temper especially if he considered how his Mother was
presenting himself before him the King rowsed up his Spirits and raised himself up as if he meant to speak to him but Nature being exhausted he had not Strength to express his Intentions but soon after expired Being upon Sunday morning the 27. of March 1625. at Theobalds in the nine and fiftieth year of his Age and the two and twentieth year compleat of his Reign And was buried at Westminster with great Solemnity the 7. of May following Not long after our King's Death as if the Time and Season as well as the Disease were Epidemical to Princes old Maurice the Prince of Orange died And his Brother Prince Henry being made General of the States Army put his Fortune into an unhappy Ballance which lost much of the Weight For either valuing his Soldiers lives less than his Brother or the loss of so brave a Town as Breda more or thinking to spring up with more Glory Phoenix-like from the ashes of his Brothers funerals being recruited with the Relicks of Mansfeldt's Army he set upon one of Spinola's strong Works at Terheiden either to relieve the Town or beat the Enemy out of his Trenches but he failed in both and lost many gallant Men especially English in the Enterprise The Earl of Oxford having the leading of the Van being a man Corpulent and heavy got such a sweltring heat in the service that though he came off without hurt from the enemy yet he brought Death along with him for he fell sick presently after went to the Hague and there dyed The other two gallant Collonels Essex and Willoughby survived to command two English Armies in a Civil-War Essex being General for the Paliament and Willoughby for the King in Kinton-field in Warwick-shire where Essex remained Victor the King being there in Person and leaving him the Honour of the Field his General Willoughby then Earl of Lindsey being slain in the Battel But there will be a long Tract of Time and Discourse before these Armies incounter being the first Cloud of that fiery exhalation which broke out in the next King's Reign and could not be quenched without the blood of many thousands of the Nation But Our King that was very much impatient in his Health was patient in his Sickness and Death Whether he had receibed any thing that extorted his Aguish Fits into a Feaver which might the sooner stupifie the Spirits and hasten his end cannot be asserted but the Countess of Buckingham who trafficked much with Mountebanks and whose Fame had no great savour had been tampering with him in the absence of the Doctoâ—s and had given him a Medicine to drink and laid a Plaster to his side which the King much complained of and they did rather exasperate his Distemper than allay it and these things were admitted by the insinuating persuasions of the Duke her Son who told the King they were appoved Medicines and would do him much good And though the Duke after strove to purge himself for this Application as having received both Medicine and Plaster from Doctor Remington at Dunmow in Essex who had often cured Agues and such Distempers with the same yet they were Arguments of a complicated kind not easie to unfold considering that whatsoever he received from the Doctor in the Countrey he might apply to the King what he pleased in the Court besides the Act it self though it had been the best Medicine in the World was a Daring not justisiable and some of the King's Physicians mutter'd against it others made a great noise and were forced to fly for it and though the still voice was quickly silenced by the Duke's power yet the Clamorous made so deep impressions that his Innocence could never wear them out And one of Buckingham's great provocations was thought to be his fear that the King being how weary of his too much greatness and power would set up Bristol his deadly enemy against him to pull him down And this Medicine was one of those 13 Articles that after were laid to his Charge in Parliament who may be misinformed but seldom accuse any upon false Rumor or bare Suggestion and therefore it will be a hard task for any man to excuse the King his Successor for dissolving that Parliament to preserve one thar was accused by them for poisoning his Father For Doctor Lamb a man of an infamous conversation having been arraigned for a Witch and found guilty of it at Worcester and arraigned for a Rape and found guilty of it at the Kings-Bench-Bar at Westminster yet escaped the stroak of Iustice for both by his favour in Court was much imployed by the Mother and the Son which generally the people took notice of and were so incensed against Lamb that finding him in the Streets in London in the year 1628. they roâ—e against him and with stones and slaves knockt out his Brains as may be more particularly â—elated in its due time And besides Lamb there was one Butler an Irishman which vaunted himself to be of the house of Ormond who was a kind of Montebank which the Duke and his Mother much consided in This Butler was first an Apprentice to a Cutler in London and before his time expired quitted his Master having a running head and went to the Barmudoes where he lived some time as a Servant in the Island and walking by the Sea-side with another of his Companions they found a great Mass of Ambergreece that the Seas bounty had cast up to them which they willingly concealed meaning to make their best Markets of it Butler being a subtle Snap wrought so with his Companion with promises of a share that he got the possession of it and in the next Dutch ship that arrived at the Barmudoes he shipt himself and his Commodities for Amsterdam where having sold his Bargain at a good Rate and made his credit with his fellow Venturer cheap enough ingrossing all to himself he came into England lived in a gallant and noble Equipage kept a great and free Table at his lodgings in the Strand which were furnished suitable to his Mind and had his Coach with six Horses and many footmen attending on him with as much State and Grandure as if his Greatness had been real But though his means lasted not to support this long yet it brought him into great acquaintance and being Pragmatical in tongue and having an active pate he fell to some Distillations and other odd extracting practices which kept him a float and some men thought he had gotten the long-dreamed-after Philosopher's Stone but the best Recipe which he had to maintain his Greatness after his Amber money fumed and vapoured away was suspected to come from his friends at White-Hall And the Story of his Death if it be true is one great Evidence of some secret Machination betwixt the Duke and him that the Duke was willing to be rid of him For Mischief being an ingrosser is Unsecure and Unsatisfyed When their Wares are to
free Trumpet sending into England with the Prince Don Mendosa de Alcorcana to our King to congratulate the Princes happy Voyage into Spain and his safe return into England And from thence he had instructions to go into Flanders Germany and Italy to make known to all Princes and Potentates Allies to the King of Spain how neer the Treaty of Marriage betwixt the Prince of England and the Infanta of Spain was to be consummated And the Polonian Ambassadour at Madrid that solicited to have the Infanta for the Prince of Poland when he saw such preparations for the Match with England fainted in his Hopes and returned home For as soon as the Dispensation came from the new Pope which was in the Beginning of December Bonefires were made throughout all Spain for joy and the great Ordnance every where thundred out the noise of it The ninth of the month was prefixt for the Mariage day a Tarras being erected betwixt the Court and the next Church almost a quarter of a mile in length covered with Tapestry for the more magnificence and all things appointed in the highest State for so great a Solemnity Presents were providing in the Court of Spain for Our King and Prince the Infantas family to take into England was setled and established She had used her best skill among the Sweets of Spain as one of the Principal of them to cloth her Lord and Husband with some suits of perfumed Amber leather some imbroidered with Pearl and some with gold she had practiced long the English tongue to make it natural by the help of her two Iesuit Tutors Wadsworth and Boniface and began to draw the letters which she intended to have written the day of her Espousals to the Prince her Husband and the King her Father-in-law Her journeyinto England being resolved on about the Beginning of March In this State and perfection were the affairs of Spain when Our King's commands like a Cloud overshadowed the Brightness of them For Bristol had now Order to declare positively to the King of Spain that without the Restitution of the Palatinate and the Electoral Dignity the Treaty should proceed no further Four Messengers viz. Mr. Killigrew Gresly Wood and Davies followed each other at the heels which raised such a dust of Discontentment among the people at Madrid that as some report they wished they had broken their necks by the way so highly were the Commonalty of Spain affected with the Match And if they felt the Influence of this cloudy Message what did the Lady Infanta and the King do The one to lose her Lover the other to lose his Honour She whose Heart was affected and He who found himself affronted But his answer to Bristol was The Palatinate was none of his to give and the Electorate was in the Power of another but if the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria would not yield to reason he would Arm himself on our King's part against them But this would not satisfie fair Promises having now lost their Virtue and the King of Spain discerning a Breach towards by this Various Motion sent to the Earl of Bristol to demand no more Audience of him to deliver no more Letters to the Infanta and gave command that none should call her hereafter Princess of England This was the end of seven years Treaty Wherein the King of England a King of Peace in spight of all the Spanish Armadoes got the Victory and Spain for many years did not receive so great an overthrow Yet they were paid in their own Coin For at the first and in the highest Progress of the Treaty when Our King was so eager for the Match in all likelyhood they never intended it But the Prince's Presence gaining much with both Sexes his Journey into Spain being esteemed among them so glorious an action and the hopes they had now by this Marriage to propagate the Catholick Cause finding the Prince as they thought something inclined that way better digested their first intentions and brought it to the state from whence it declined The Duke of Buckingham by the insinuation of a long converse having brought the Prince up to his own Humor taught him to look back to the Beauty he had seen in France which was neerer to him that he might remember the Spanish no more now esloigned from him But the Treaty with Spain must be first dissolved to give a tincture of Honor to a proceeding with the other and nothing but a Parliament shall do that which thâ—y had fore-determined For a Parliament taking away the cause which was a Treaty of Peace were best able to make good the effect which would be a War that must follow it Therefore a Parliament was summoned to meet the 12 th of February but a sad accident intervened which made it to be deferred for some few daies That morning the Parliament was to begin the King missed the Duke of Richmond's attendance who being a constant observer of him at all times the King as it were wanted one of his Limbs to support the Grandure of Majesty at the first solemn meeting of a Parliament and calling for him with earnestness a Messenger was dispatched to his Lodgings in Hast where the King's Commands and the Messenger Importunity made the Dutchess his wife somewhat unwillingly go to the Duke's Bed-side to awake him who drawing the Curtain found him dead in his Bed The suddenness of the affright struck her with so much Consternation that she was scarce sensible of the Horror of it and it was carried with that violence to the King that he would not adorn himself that day to ride in his Glories to the Parliament but put it off to the nineteenth of February following dedicating some part of that time to the Memory of his dead Servant who might serve as a fore-runner to the King and an Emblem to all his People That in the dark caverns of Man's Body Death often lurkes which no Humane Prudence or Providence is able to discover For the Dutchess to some of her intimates confessed afterwards that She found the effects of his full Veines that night that he was found dead the next Morning The portraiture of the illustreous Princesse Frances Duchess of Richmond and Lenox daughter of Thomas LD. Howard of Bindon sonne of Thomas Duke of Norfok. whose mother was Elisabeth daughter of Edward Duke of Buckingham Anno 1623. When She was Countess of Hertford and found admirers about her She would often discourse of her two Grand-Fathers the Dukes of Norfolk and Buckingham recounting the time since one of her Grand-Fathers did this the other did that But if the Earl her Husband came in presence she would quickly desist for when he found her in those Exaltations to take her down he would say Frank Frank How long is it since thou wert Married to Prannel which would damp the Wings of her Spirit and make her look after her feet as well as gawdy Plumes One
Little Vanity of this great Dutchess with your Patience may yet croud in this Story She was a Woman greedy of Fame and loved to keep great State with little Cost For being much visited by all the Great ones she had her formality of Officers and Gentlemen that gave attendance and this advantage that none ever eat with her Yet all the Tables in the Hall were spread as if there had been Meat and men to furnish them but before eating time the house being voided the Linnen returned into their folds again and all her people grased on some few dishes Yet whether her Actions came into Fames fingring her Gifts were suitable to the greatness of her Mind For the Queen of Bohemia to the Christning of whose Child she was a Witness had some taste of them And being blowing up by Admiration for this Bounty either by her own design to magnifie her Merit or by others in Mockery to magnifie her Vanity huge Inventories of Massie Plate went up and down from hand to hand that she had given that Queen and most believed it yet they were but Paper presents those Inventories had an non est inventus at the Hague they saw the Shell the Inventory but never found the Kernel the Plate Such difference there is betwixt solid worth and Airy-paper-Greatness And it is hoped these sleight intermixtures will be no great transgression because long serious things do dull the Fancy The King having digested his sudain loss of the Duke of Richmond and fitted himself to make his mind known to his people in Parliament he went to the House the nineteenth as is said and opened himself to them to this effect To testifie to the World how far my mind hath been from esohewing to assemble a Parliament and how willing I have been upon all Occasions to have the advice of my people I have at this present called you to approve unto you the earnest desire I have ever had and still have to deserve the love of my people by improving your trust and communicating unto you a Matter of as great Consequence as ever King imparted to his people to have their advice and Counsel in I shall say unto you as Christ said to the Church I am your Husband and you are my Spouse And as it is the Part of a good Husband to procure and maintain the love of his wife which he usually doth by often visiting her and upon extraordinary Occasions communicating the secrets of his affairs unto her and by all gentle and affable wayes to gain her Love So in the administration of Government I desire to carry my self towards my People There are two wayes by which a King may shew his love to his People One is by a constant administration of Iustice according to the Laws established the other is by communicating himself to his People in their Representative the Parliament For the first I know there 's no particular Man of you that hath not injoyed the Blessing and Benefit of it which I will say nothing of because you have been all Witness of it for who hath not found the fruits of it If he considers the Peace which my Kingdomes injoy in the midst of the Miseries our Neighbours are afflicted with And though I cannot say my Government hath been without Error yet this I can truly say and will avouch it before God and his Angels That never King governed with a more pure sincerity and uncorrupt Heart than I have done far from all intention and meaning of the least Error or imperfection in my Reign I have assembled you at this time to perform the other part which is duely to impart unto you a Secret and a Matter of as great importance as can to be to my Estate and the Estate of my Children I crave your best and safest advice and Counsel as the Writ whereby you are assembled imports That the King would advise with you in matters concerning his Estate and Dignity And as I have ever indeavoured by this and the like waies to procure and cherish the love of my People towards me So do I hope and fully believe that never any King was more beloved of his People whom you my Lords and Gentlemen do here represent so I would have you truly represent their loves also to me that in you as in a true glass I may perfectly behold it and not as a false glass presents it not at all or otherwise than it is indeed Give me your free and faithful Counsel in this Matter which is that of which you have often heard the Match of my Son Wherein as you may know I have spent much time with great Cost in long Treaty desiring alwaies therein and not without reason hoping to have effected my desires the advancement of my Estate and Children and the general Peace of all Christendom Wherein I have alwaies constantly laboured depending too much upon fair Hopes and Promises But at the earnest instance of my Son I was contented although it was of an extraordinary Nature to send him to prosecute his Desires in Spain and for his more safety I sent Buckingham in whom I ever reposed the most trust of my Person with him with this command to be continually present with him and never leave him till he returned safe again unto me which he performed though not with such effect as I expected yet not altogether without Profit for it taught me this Point of Wisdom that Qui versatur in Universalibus c. is easily deceived and it generally brings nothing to good issue for before any Matter can be fully finished it must be brought to particulars I thought before their going the affairs had been produced to a narrow Point relying upon their general Propositions but when they came to the matter it proved so Raw as if it had been never treated of the Generals giving them easie way to evade and affording them means to avoid the effecting of any thing The Particulars that passed in the Treaty I mean not now to discover unto you the time being too short I referre that to Charles and Buckingham and the Secretaries who shall relate unto you all the Particulars And after that Super totam materiam I desire your best assistance and advice what is best and fittest for me to do for the good of the Common-wealth the advancement of Religion and the good of my Son and my Children of the Palatine And of Our Estate I know you cannot but be sensible considering your Welfare consists in Ours for you shall be sure to have your share in what misery shall befal us therefore I need to urge no further Arguments unto you for your choicest and surest Counsel And I assure you in the faith of a Christian King that it is Res integra presented unto you and that I stand not bound nor any wayes ingaged but remain free to follow what shall be best advised To plant is not sufficient unless like