government of Church and state into what mold they pleased and ingrosse the chiefest offices to themselves And from these imaginary invisible dangers proceeded these visible calamities and grinding palpable pressures which hath accompanied this odious Warre ever since Peregrin Herein methinks your statists have shewne themselves politique enough but not so prudent honest for Prudence Policy though they often agree in the end yet they differ in election of the meanes to compasse their ends The one serves himself of truth strength of Reason integrity and gallantnesse in their proceedings the other of fictions fraudulence lies and other sinister meanes the work of the one is lasting and permanent the others worke moulders away and ends in infamy at last for fraud and frost alwaies end foule But how did they requite that most rare and high unexampled trust his Majesty reposed in them when he before passed that fatall Act of continuance a greater trust then ever English King put in Parliament How did they performe their solemn promise and deepe Protestations to make him the most glorious at home and abroad the richest and best belovedst King that ever raigned in that Island Patricius Herein I must confesse they held very ill correspondence with him for the more he trusted them the more diffident they grew of him and truly Sir herein white differs not so much from black as their actions have been disconsonant to their words Touching the first promise to make him glorious if to suffer a neighbouring Nation the Scot to demand and obtain what they pleased of him if to break capitulations of peace with a great forrein Prince the French King by the renvoy of the Capuchins and divers other Acts if to bring the dregs and riffraffe of the City to domineere before his Court-gate notwithstanding his Proclamations of repressing them if to confront him and seek his life by fire and sword in open field by open desiance and putting him upon a defensive war if to vote his Queen a Traytresse to shoot at her to way-lay her to destroy her if to hinder the reading of his Proclamations and the sleighting of his Declarations enclosed in Letters sign'd and seal'd with his own hand for fear they shold bring the people to their wits again if to call them fetters of gold divellish devises fraught with doctrines of division reall mistakes absurd suppositions though ther never dropt from Princes pen more full more rationall and strong sinewy expressions if to suffer every shallow-brain'd Scolist to preach every Pamphletter to print every rotten-hearted man or woman to prate what they please of him and his Queen if to sleight his often acknowledgment condissentions retractions pronunciations of Peace and proffers of Pardon if to endeavour to bring him to a kind of servile submission if to bar him of the attendance of his Domestiques to abuse and imprison his messengers to hang his servants for obeying his Commission if to prefer the safety and repute of five ordinary men before the honour of their King and being actually impeach'd of Treason to bring them in a kind of triumph to his House if for subjects to Article Treat and Capitulate with him if to tamper with his Conscience and make him forget the solemn sacramentall oath he took at his Coronation if to devest him of all regall rights to take from him the election of his servants and officers and bring him back to a kind of minority if this be to make a King glorious our King is made glorious enough Touching the second promise to make him the richest King that ever was if to denude him of his native rights to declare that he hath no property in any thing but by way of trust not so much property as an Elective King if to take away his customs of inheritance if to take from him his Exchequer and Mint if to thrust him out of his own Towns to suffer a lowsie Citizen to lie in his beds within his Royall Castle of Windsor when he himself would have come thither to lodg if to enforce him to a defensive war and cause him to engage his Jewells and Plate and so plunge him in a bottomlesse gulph of debt for his necessary defence if to anticipate his revenue royall and reduce him to such exigents that he hath scarce the subsistence of an ordinary Gentleman if this be to make a rich King then is our King made sufficiently rich Concerning their third promise to make him the best belovedst King that ever was if to cast all the aspersions that possibly could be devised upon his Government by publique elaborat remonstrances if to suffer and give Texts to the strongest lung'd Pulpiteers to poyson the hearts of his subjects to intoxicat their brains with fumes of forg'd jealousies to possesse them with an opinion that he is a Papist in his heart and consequently hath a design to introduce Popery if to sleight his words his promises his Asseverations Oaths and Protestations when he calls heaven and earth to witnesse when he desires no blessing otherwise to fall upon himself his wife and children with other pathetick deep-fetcht expressions that wold have made the meanest of those millions of Christians which are his vassals to be believed if to protect Delinquents and proclaim'd Traytors against him if to suscitate authorise and encourage all sorts of subjects to heave up their hands against him and levy armes to emancepate themselves from that naturall allegiance loyalty and subjection wherein they and their fore-fathers were ever tyed to his Royall Progenitors if to make them swear and damn themselves into a rebellion if this be to make a King beloved then this Parliament hath made King Charles the best beloved King that ever was in England Peregrin I cannot compare this Rebellion in England more properly then to that in this Kingdom in King Iohn's time which in our French Chronicle beares to this day the infamous name of Iaquerie de Beauvoisin The Peasans then out of a surfeit of plenty had grown up to that height of insolency that they confronted the Noblesse and Gentry they gathered in multitudes and put themselves in armes to suppresse or rather extinguish them and this popular tumult never ceased till Charles le Sage debell'd it and it made the Kings of France more puissant ever since for it much increased their Finances in regard that those extraordinary taxes which the people imposed upon themselves for the support of the war hath continued ever since a firm revenue to the Crown which makes me think of a facecious speech of the late Henry the Great to them of Orleans for wheras a new imposition was laid upon the Townsmen during the league by Monsieur de la Chastre who was a great stickler in those wars they petitioned Henry the fourth that he wold be pleased to take off that taxe the King asked them Who had laid that taxe upon them they said Monsieur de la Chastre during
subsidies and the King inclinable to take them The said Vane being the Secretary of State stood up and said His Majesty expected no less then twelve which words did so incense and discompose the House that they drew after them that unhappy dissolution His Majesty being reduced to these straits and resenting still the insolence of the Scot proposed the busines to His Privy Councell who suddenly made up a considerable and most noble summe for his present supply whereunto divers of his domestick servants and Officers did contribut Amongst others who were active herein the Earl of Strafford bestir'd himself notably and having got a Parliament to be call'd in Ireland he went over and with incredible celeritie raised 8000. men who procured money of that Parliament to maintain them and got over those angry Seas again in the compasse of lesse then six weeks You may infer hence to what an exact uncontrollable obedience he had reduced that Kingdom as to bring about so great a work with such a suddennes and facilitie An armie was also raised here which marched to the North and there fed upon the Kings pay a whole Summer The Scot was not idle all this while but having punctuall intelligence of every thing that passed at Court as farre as what was debated in the Cabinet Councel and spoken in the bed-chamber and herein amongst many others the Scot had infinite advantage of us He armed also and preferring to make England the stage of the warre rather then his own countrey and to invade rather then to be invaded He got over the Tweed and found the passage open and as it were made for him all the way till hee came to the Tine and though there was a considerable army of horse and foot at Newcastle yet they never offered so much as to face him all the while At Newburgh indeed there was a small skirmish but the English foot would not fight so Newcastle gates flew open to the Scot without any resistance at all where it is thought he had more friends then foes and who were their friends besides for this invasion I hope Time and the Tribunall of Justice will one day discover His Majesty being then at York summoned all his Nobles to appear to advise with them in this exigence Commissioners were appointed on both sides who met at Rippon and how the hearts and courage of some of the English Barons did boil within them to be brought to so disadvantageous a Treatie with the Scot you may well imagin So the Treatie began which the Scot wold not conform himself to do unless he were first unrebell d and made Rectus in Curia and the Proclamation wherein he was declared Traitour revoked alledging it wold be dishonorable for His Majesty to treat with rebels This treaty was adjourned to London where this present Parliament was summoned which was one of the chiefest errands of the Scoâ—… as some think And thus far by these sad and short degrees have I faithfully led you along to know the tru Originals of our calamities Peregrin Truly Sir I must tell you that to my knowledg these unhappy traverses with Scotland have made the English suffer abroad very much in point of National honour Therefore I wonder much that all this while ther is none set a work to make a solid Apologie for England in some communicable language either in French or Latin to rectifie the world in the truth of the thing and to vindicat her how she was bought and sold in this expedition considering what a party the Scot had here and how his comming in was rather an Invitation then an Invasion and I beleeve if it had bin in many parts of the world besides some of the Commanders had gone to the pot Patricius It is the practise of some States I know to make sacrifice of some eminent Minister for publick mistakes but to follow the thred of my Discourse The Parliament being sate His Majesty told them that he was resolved to cast himself wholly upon the affection and fidelity of his people whereof they were the Representative body Therfore he wished them to go roundly on to close up the ruptures that were made by this infortunat war and that the two armies one domestick the other forrain which were gnawing the very bowels of the Kingdom might be dismissed Touching grievances of any kind and what State was ther ever so pure but some corruption might creep into it He was very ready to redresse them concerning the Ship-money he was willing to pass a Bâ—…ll for the utter abolition of it and to establish the property of the subject therefore he wished them not to spend too much time about that And for Monopolies he desired to have a list of them and he wold damn them all in one Proclamation Touching ill Counsellours either in Westminster-Hall or White-Hall either in Church or State he was resolved to protect none Therefore he wished that all jealousies and misunderstandings might vanish This with sundry other strains of Princely grace he delivered unto them but withall he told them that they shold be very cautious how they shook the fram of an ancient Government too far in regard it was like a Watch which being put asunder can never be made up again if the least pin be left out So ther were great hopes of a calm after that cold Northern storm had so blustered and that we shold be suddenly rid of the Scot but that was least intended untill som designs were brought about The Earl of Strafford the Archbishop of Canterbury the Iudges and divers Monopolists are clapt up and you know who took a timely flight Lord Finch to the other side of the Sea And in lieu of these the Bishop of Lincoln is enlarged Bastwick Burton and Prynn are brought into London with a kind of Hosanna His Majesty gave way to all this and to comply further with them he took as it were into his bosom I mean he admitted to his Privy Councell those Parliament Lords who were held the greatest Zelots amongst them that they might be witnesses of his secret'st actions and to one of them the Lord Say he gave one of the considerablest Offices of the Kingdom by the resignation of another most deserving Lord upon whom they could never fasten the least misdemeanour yet this great new Officer wold come neither to the same Oratory Chappell or Church to joyn in prayer with his Royall Master nor communicat with him in any publick exercise of devotion and may not this be called a tru Recusancie To another he gave one of the prime and most reposefull Offices about his own Person at Court The Earl of Essex and thereby he might be said to have given a Staff to beat himself Moreover partly to give his Subjects an Evidence how firmly he was rooted in his Religion and how much he desired the strenthning of it abroad The treaty of marriage went on 'twixt his eldest daughter and the young
Cordiall a Protestant as any that breathes under his three Crowns which besides his publick deep Protestations and his constant quotidian exemplary open practise many other convincing private reasons induce me to believe and it is in vain to think the Pope can take footing here to any purpose without the Kings leave You know as well as I Sir that of all the Reformed Churches in Christendom the Lutheran retains most of the Roman both in his positions and practise and comes much nearer to him then we do yet I have observed that from the first day of his Reformation to this He is as averse and as far off from Rome as the rigidest Calvinist that is And shall I think because ther are som humble and hansom postures and decent vestures revived in our Church for they were never abolished because the Communion table stands in the East end where it ever stood since Christianity came in all our Cathedralls which shold be a rule to all inferiour Churches though the Seperatist cries it up most falsly to be an Innovation because the Queen hath a few simple Capuchins fewer then was allowed by the Matrimoniall Capitulations whither to retire sometimes Because Schismaticks were proceeded against with more care and the Government of the Church born up â—…ately with more countenance shall I beâ—…ieve out of all this that the Pope must preâ—…ently come in shall I believe the weakness â—…f our Religion to be such as to be so easily â—…aken and overturn'd Yet I believe ther was a pernicious plot to introduce a new Religion but what I pray not Popery but Presbitry and with it to bring in the doctrine of Buchanan and Knox for civill government and so to cast our Church and State into a Scots mould Peregrin Indeed I heard the English much derided abroad for resigning their intellectualls in point of Religion to the Scots whom from Infidels they made Christians and Reformed Christians first and now for the English to run to them for a Religion and that the Uniformity reformation shold proceed from them having disdain'd us formerly what a disparagement is it thinke you to the Anglican Church This with other odd traverses as the eclipsing the glory of the King and bringing him back to a kind of minoritie the tampering with his conscience I will not say the straining it so farre the depriving him of all kind of propertie the depressing of his Regall power wherein the honour of a nation consists and which the English were us'd to uphold more then any other for no King hath more awful attributs from his subjects as Sacred Sovereigne gracious and most Excellent Majestie nor any King so often prayed for for in your morning Liturgie he is five times prayed for whereas other Princes are mentioned but once or twice at most in their's I say that this with interception of letters some incivilities offered Ambassadors and the bold lavish speeches that were spoken of the greatest Queenes in Christendome and his Majesties late withdrawing his Royall protection from some of his Merchant-Subjects in other countreys hath made the English lose much ground in point of esteeme abroad and to be the discourse I will not say the scorne of other people They stick not to say that there is now a worse maladie fallen upon their minds then fell upon their bodies about an age since by the Sweating sicknesse which was peculiar onely unto them and found them out under all Climes Others say there is a pure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amongst them that they are turn'd to Wolves as you know it is a common thing in Lâ—…pland that the old Adage is verified in them Homo homini lupus Nay our next neighbours give out that the saying was never truer then now Rex Anglorum Rex Diabolorum Nor is it a small disrepute to the English that the word Cavalier which is an attribute that no Prince in Christendome will disdain and is the common Appellation of the Nobilitie and Gentrie in most parts of the world is now us'd not onely in Libels and frivolous Pamphlets but in publicke Parliamentarie Declarations for a terme of reproach But truely Sir what you have related touching the Pulpit and the Presse transformes me into wonder and I should want faith to beleeve it did you not speak it upon your knowledge but the English when they fall to worke upon a new humour use to overdoe all people Patricius You have not yet the tithe of what I could give you you would little think that Coachmen and Feltmakers and Weavers were permitted to preach up and down without controulment and to vent their froth and venome against Church and State to cry downe our Hierarchy and Liturgie by most base and reviling speeches Peregrin Touching your Lyturgie I have heard it censur'd abroad by the regidest Calvinists of Generva and Dort yet I never heard any other Character given of it but that it is a most Pious Pathetick and perfect peece of devotion both for the matter and forme of it which I have been a little curious to observe It begins with some choise passages of holy Scripture and a previous Declaration or Monitory to excite us to the worke in hand The first addresse wee make to God is by an humble and joynt Confession which is appliable to any conscience and comprehends in it all kind of sins Then followeth a pronuntiation of Gods promises and pronesse to pardon and absolve us We goe on to the Lords Prayer which having bin dictated by our Saviour himself we often use and is as Amber throwne in amongst our Frankincense to make the Sacrifice more precious and pleasing unto God Then we proceed to som choice Psalms and other portions of holy scripture taken out of the old and new testament Then we fall to the Symbole of faith whereof we make a solemn joynt confession in such a posture as shews a readinesse and resolution in us to defend it and so to the Letany wherein the poor penitent peccant soul may be said to breath out herself into the bosome of her Saviour by tender ejaculations by panting groans eviscerated ingeminations and there is no sin no temptation whatsoever that humane frailty is subject unto but you shall find a deliverance from it there it is so full of Christian charity that there is no condition of people but are remembred and prayed for there Then wee proceed by holy alternatif interlocutions whereby wee heare our selves speak as well as the Minister to some effectuall short prayers because in long prayers the minde is subject to wander as some Zelots now a dayes use to bring their Hearers into a Wildernesse by their Prayers and into a Labyrinth by their Sermons Then goe we on to the Decalogue and if it be in a Cathedrall there is time enough for the Hearer to examine himselfe while the Musick playes where and when he broke any of Gods holy Commandements and ask particular forgivenesse accordingly
for his time play'd his Cards more cunning than ever Count Gondomar did knew well and therefore as I heard som French men say he got Letters of Revocation before his designed time but it seems strange to me that the King who is the Protectour of the Law and Fountain of Justice cannot have the benefit of the Law himself which the meanest of his vassals can claim by right of inheritance 'T is strange I say that the Law shold be a dead letter to him who is the Life of the Law but that for omission of some punctillio in the form of the Processe the charge of high Treason shold be so slightly wav'd specially Treason of so universall a concernment that it may be call'd a complication of many Treasons for if in every petty State it be High Treason to treat only with any Forrein Power without the privity of the Prince it must needs be Treason of a higher nature actually to bring them in And hereof I could alleadge you many pregnant instances ancient and modern but that I do not desire to interrupt you in your relation Patricius The Parliament as I told you before armed apace it was not fitting then His Majesty shold sit idle therfore he summons those Nobles and others who had an immediate relation unto him by Office or Service to attend him at York according to their particular obligation and oath But it seems the Parliament assumed power to dispence with those oaths and excuse their attendance which dispensation prevail'd with som tender consciences yet the Great Seal posted to Court and after it most of the Nobles of the Land with the flower of the Gentry and many of the prime Members of the Commons House so that were it not for the locall priviledge the Parliament for number of Members might be said to be ever since about the King These Nobles and Gentlemen resenting His Majesties case and what practices ther were on foot to alter the Government both of Church and State not only advised His Majesty to a royall war for defence of his Crown and Dignity but contributed very chearfully and have stood constant to the work ever since Peregrin They have good reason for it for the security of the Nobility and Gentry depends upon the strength of the Crown otherwise popular Government wold rush in like a torrent upon them But surely those Nobles and those Parliament Gentlemen and others som of whom I understand were reputed the wisest and best weigh'd men for experience and parts thorowout the whole Kingdom and were cryed up in other Parliaments to be the most zealous Patriots for the propriety and freedom of the Subject wold never have stuck so firmly to His Majesty had they not known the bottom of his designs that it was far from his thoughts to bring in the Pope or French Government for therby they shold have betrayed their own posterity and made their children slaves Patricius To my knowledge these Nobles and Gentlemen are still the very same as they were in former Parliaments wherin they were so cryed up for the truest lovers of their Country and best Common-wealths-men yet now they are branded and voted to be Seducers and Traytors because according to their oaths and consciences they adhere to the King their Master and Liege-Lord for maintenance of that Religion they were baptized and bred in Those most Orthodox and painfull Divines which till this Parliament began were accounted the precisest sort of Protestants are now cryed down for Papists though they continue still the very same men both for opinions and preaching and are no more Papists than I am a Pythagorean In fine a tru English Protestant is put now in the same scale with a Papist and made Synonyma's And truly these unhappy Schismaticks could not devise how to cast a greater infamy upon the English Protestant than they have done of late by these monstrous imputations they wold fasten upon him such opinions which never entred into his thoughts they wold know ones heart better than himself and so would be greater Kardiognosticks than God Almighty But to draw to a conclusion The Parliaments Army multiplyed apace in London the Kings but slowly in the North so that when he displayed his Royal Standard at Nottingham his Forces were not any thing considerable so that if the Parliaments Generall Essex had then advanced towards him from Northampton he had put him to a very great strait they encreased somthing at Derby and Stafford but when he was come to Shrewsbury the Welch-men came running down the mountains in such multitudes that their example did much animate the English so that his army in lesse than a month that the Court continued in Shrewsbury came to near upon twenty thousand Horse and Foot not long before the Nephew Princes came over and the first encounter Prince Rupert had with the Parliaments Forces was at Worcester where he defeated the flower of their Cavalry and gave them a smart blow At Shrewsbury His Majesty took a resolution to march with His whole Army towards London but after seven days march he understood the Parliaments Forces were within six miles side-long of him and so many miles he went out of His road to find them out and face them Upon Sunday morning he was himself betimes upon Edge-Hill wher the Enemies Colours plainly appear'd in vale before Keinton it was past two in the after-noon before all his Infantery could get to the bottom who upon sight of the Enemies Colours ran as merrily down the Hill as if they had gone to a Morris dance So His Majesty himself being Generalissimo gave command the great Ordnance shold flye for a defiance so the battell began which lasted above three hours and as some French and Dutch Commanders who were engag'd in the Fight told me they never remembred to have seen a more furious battail for the time in all the German wars Prince Rupert pursued the Enemies Horse like a whirl-wind near upon three miles and had ther bin day enough when he came back to the Infanterie in all probability a totall defeat had bin given them So that the same accident may be said to fall out here as happened in that famous battell at Lewis in Henry the thirds time where the Prince of Wales afterwards Edward the first was so eager and went so far by excesse of courage from the body of the Army in pursuance of the Londoners that it was the fatall cause of the losse of that mighty battail His Majesty to his deserved and never-dying glory comported himself like another Caesar all the while by riding about and encouraging the Souldiers by exposing his person often to the reach of a Musket-bullet and lying in the field all that bleak night in his Coach Notwithstanding that many lying Pamphlets were purposely printed here to make the world believe that he had retir'd himself all the time of the fight what partiall reports were made in the Guild-Hall to the
and withstand the same to the uttermost of your power and either cause it to be revealed to himself or to others of His Privy Counsell The Oaths you took when Bedchamber man and L. Chamberlain bind you as strictly to His Person Your Lordship may also call to memorie when you were installed Knight of the Garter whereof you are now the oldest living except K of Denmark you solemnly swore to defend the Honour and Quarrels the Rights and Lordship of your Soveraigne Now the Record tells us that the chiefest ground of instituting the said order by that heroick Prince Edward the Third was that he might have choice gallant men who by Oath and Honour should adhere unto him in all dangers and difficulties and that by way of reciprocation Hee should protect and defend them Which made Alfonso Duke of Calabria so much importune Henry the Eight to install him one of the Knights of the Garter that he might engage King Harry to protect him against Charles the Eighth who threatned then the conquest of Naples How your Lordship hath acquitted your self of the performance of these Oaths your conscience that bosome record can make the best affidavit Some of them oblige you â—…o live and dye with King Charles but what Oaths or any thing like an Oath binds you to live and die with the House of Commons as your Lordship often gives out you will I am yet to learne Unlesse that House which hath not power as much as to administer an Oath much lesse to make one can absolve you from your former Oaths or haply by their omnipotence dispence with you for the observance of them Touching the Politicall capacitie of the King I feare that will be a weak plea for your Lordship before the Tribunall of heaven and they who whisper such Chimeras into your ears abuse you in grosse but put case there were such a thing as politicall capacitie distinct from the personal which to a true rationall man is one of the grossest Buls that can be yet these forementioned Oaths relate most of them meerly unto the Kings Person the individuall Person of King Charles as you are His Domestick Counsellor and cubicular Servant My Lord I take leave to tell your Lordship and the Spectator sees sometimes more then the Gamester that the world extreamely marvels at you more then others and it makes those who wish you best to be transformed to wonder that your Lordship shold be the first of your Race who deserted the Crown which one of your Progenitors said he would still follow though it were thrown upon an hedg Had your Princely Brother William Earl of Pembrock bin living he wold have bin sooner torn by wild horses than have banded against it or abandoned the King his Master and fallen to such grosse Idolatry as to worship the Beast with many heads The world also stands astonished that you shold confederate to bring into the bowels of the Land and make Elogiums in some of your Speeches of that hungry people which have bin from all times so crosse and fatall to the English Nation and particularly to your own honour Many thousands do wonder that your Lordship shold be brought to persecute with so much animosity and hatred that reverend Order in Gods Church Episcopacy which is contemporary with Christianity it self and wherunto you had once designed and devoted one of your dearest Sons so solemnly My Lord if this Monster of Reformation which is like an infernall Spirit clad in white and hath a cloven head as well as feet prevailes you shall find the same destiny will attend poor England as did Bohemia which was one of the flourishingst Kingdoms upon that part of the earth which happen'd thus The Common people ther repind at the Hierarchy and riches of the Church therupon a Parliament was pack'd where Bishops were abolished what followed The Nobles and Gentry went down next and afterwards the Crown it self and so it became a popular confus'd Anarchicall State and a Stage of bloud a long time so that at last when this Magot had done working in the brains of the foolish peeple they were glad to have recourse to Monarchy again after a world of calamities though it degenerated from a successive Kingdom to an Elective Methinks my Lord under favour that those notorious visible judgements which have fallen upon these Refiners of reform'd Religion shold unbeguile your Lordship and open your eyes For the hand of heaven never appeared so clearly in any humane actions Your Lordship may well remember what became of the Hothams and Sir Alexander Cary who were the two fatall wretches that began the War first one in the North the other in the South Plymouth and Hull Your Lordship may be also pleased to remember what became of Brooks the Lord and Hampden the first whereof was dispatched by a deaf and dumb man out of an ancient Church at Litchfield which he was battering and that suddenly also for he fell down stone dead in the twinkling of an eye Now one of the greatest cavils he had against our Liturgy was a clause of a Prayer ther against sudden death Besides the fag end of his Grace in that journey was that if the design was not pleasing to God he might perish in the action For the other Hampden he besprinkled with his bloud and received his death upon the same clod of earth in Buckingham-shire where he had first assembled the poor Country people like so many Geese to drive them gaggling in a mutiny to London with the Protestation in their Caps which hath bin since torn in flitters and is now grown obsolet and quite out of use Touching Pym and Stroud those two worthy Champions of the Utopian cause the first being opened his stomack and guts were found to be full of pellets of bloud the other had little or no brain in his skull being dead and lesse when he was living Touching those who carryed the first scandalous Remonstrance that work of night and the verdict of a starv'd jury to welcome the King from Scotland they have bin since your Lordship knows well the chief of the Eleven Members impeached by the House And now they are a kind of Runnagates beyond the Seas scorn'd by all mankind and baffled every where yea even by the Boors of Holland and not daring to peep in any populous Town but by owle-light Moreover I believe your Lordship hath good cause to remember that the same kind of riotous Rascals which rabbled the K. out of Town did drive away the Speaker in like manner with many of their Memberships amongst whom your Lordship was fairly on his way to seek shelter of their Janizaries the Redcoats Your Lordship must needs find what deadly fewds fal daily ' twixâ—… the Presbyterian and the Independent the two fiery brands that have put this poor Isle so long in combustion But 't is worthy your Lordships speciall notice how your dear Brethren the Scots whom your Lordship so
afford you som satisfaction and enlighten you more in the Irish affaires The allegeance I owe to Truth was the Midwife that brought it forth and I make bold to make choice of you for my Gossip because I am From the prison of the Fleet 3. Nonas April is 1643. Your true servant I. H. Mercurius Hibernicus THere is not any thing since these ugly warrs begun whereof there hath been more advantage made to traduce and blemish His Majesties actions or to alienate and imbitter the affections of his people towards Him to incite them to armes and enharden them in the quarrell than of the Irish affaires whether one cast his eyes upon the beginning and proceedure of that warre which some by a most monstrous impudence would patronize upon their Majesties or upon the late Cessation and the transport of Auxiliaries since from thence There are some that in broken peeces have written of all three but not in one entire discourse as this is nor hath any hitherto hit upon those reasons and inferences that shall be displayed herein But he who adventures to judge of affaires of State specially of traverses of warre as of Pacifications of Truces Suspensions of Armes Parlies and such like must well observe the quality of the times the successe and circumstance of matters past the posture and pressure of things present and upon the Place the inducement or enforcement of causes the gaining of time the necessity of preventing greater mischiefes whereunto true policy Prometheus like hath alwaies an eye with other advantages The late Cessation of Armes in Ireland was an affaire of this nature a true Act of State and of as high a consequence as could be Which Cessation is now become the Common Subject of every mans discourse or rather the discourse of every common Subject all the three Kingdomes over And not onely the subject of their discourse but of their censure also nor of their censure onely but of their reproach and obloquy For the World is come now to that passe that the Foot must judge the Head the very Cobler must pry into the Cabinet Counsels of his King nay the Distaffe is ready ever and anon to arraign the Scepter Spinstresses are become States-women and every peasan turned politician such a fond irregular humour reignes generally of late yeers amongst the English Nation Now the Designe of this small discourse though the Subject require a farre greater volume is to vindicate His Majesties most pious intentions in condescending to this late suspension of Arms in His Kingdome of Ireland and to make it appeare to any rationall ingenious capacity not pre-occupied or purblinded with passion that there was more of honour and necessity more of prudence and piety in the said Cessation than there was either in the Pacification or Peace that was made with the Scot. But to proceed herein the more methodically I will lay downe first The reall and true radicall causes of the late two-yeers Irish Insurrection Secondly the course His Majesty used to suppresse it Lastly those indispensable impulsive reasons and invincible necessity which enforced His Majesty to condescend to a Cessation Touching the grounds of the said Insurrection we may remember when His Majesty out of a pious designe as His late Majesty also had to settle an Uniformitie of serving God in all his three Kingdomes sent our Liturgie to his Subjects of Scotland some of that Nation made such an advantage hereof that though it was a thing only recommended not commanded or pressed upon them and so cald in suddenly againe by a most gracious Proclamation accompanied with a generall pardon Yet they would not rest there but they would take the opportunity hereby to demolish Bishops and the whole Hierarchy of the Church which was no grievance at all till then To which end they put themselves in actuall Armes and obtained at last what they listed which they had not dared to have done had they not been sure to have as good friends in England as they had in Scotland as Lesly himself confessed to Sir William Berkley at Newcastle for some of the chiefest Inconformists here had not onely intelligence with them but had been of their Cabinet-counsels in moulding the Plot though some would cast this war upon the French Cardinall to vindicate the invasion we made upon his Masters dominions in the Isle of Rets as also for some advantage the English use to do the Spâ—…niard in transporting his Treasure to Dunkerk with other offices Others wold cast it upon the Iesuit that he shold project it first to â—…orce His Mâ—…jesty to have recourse to his Roman Catholick Subjects for aid that so they might by such Supererogatory service ingratiate themselves the more into his favour The Irish hearing how well their next Neighbouâ—…s had sped by way of Arms it filled them full of thoughts and apprehensions of fear and jealousie that the Scot wold prove more powerful hereby and consequently more able to do them hurt and to attempâ—… waies to restrain them of that connivency which they were allowed in point of Religion Now ther is no Nation upon earth that the Irish hate in that perfection and with a greater Antipathy than the Scot or from whom they conceive greater danger For wheras they have an old prophesie amongst them which one shall hear up and down in every mouth That the day will come when the Irish shall weep upon English mens graves They fear that this prophesie will be verified and fulfilled in the Scot above any other Nation Moreover the Irish entred into consideration that They also had sundry grievances and grounds of complaint both touching their estates and consciences which they pretended to be far greater than those of the Scots For they fell to think that if the Scot was suffered to introduce a new Religion it was reason they shold not be so pinched in the exercise of their old which they glory never to have altered And for temporall matters wherin the Scot had no grievance at all to speak of the new plantations which had bin lately afoot to be made in Conaught and other places the concealed lands and defective titles which were daily found out the new customs which were imposed and the incapacity they had to any preferment or Office in Church and State with other things they conceived these to be grievances of a far greater nature and that deserved redresse much more than any the Scot had To this end they sent over Commissioners to attend this Parliament in England with certain Propositions but those Commissioners were dismissed hence with a short and unsavoury answer which bred worse bloud in the Nation than was formerly gathered and this with that leading case of the Scot may be said to be the first incitements that made them rise In the couâ—…se of humane actions we daily find it to be a tru rule Exempla movent Examples move and make strong impressions upon the fancy precepts are not so
ther never happen'd such strange shocks and revolutions The great Emperour of Ethiopia hath bin outed he and all his children by a petty companion The King of China a greater Emperour than he hath lost almost all that huge Monarchy by the incursion of the Tartar who broke ore the wall upon him The grand Turk hath bin strangled with 30. of his Concubines The Emperour of Muscovy hath bin content to beg his life of his own vassals and to see before his face divers of his chief Officers hack'd to pieces and their heads cut off and steep'd in strong water to make them burn more bright in the market place Besides the above mentioned this King hath also divers enemies more yet he bears up against them all indifferently well though with infinit expence of treasure and the Church specially our Society hath stuck close unto him in these his exigents whence may be inferr'd that let men repine as long as they will at the possessions of the Church they are the best anchors to a State in a storm and in time of need to preserve it from sinking besides acts of charity wold be quite lost among men did not the wealth of the Church keep life in them Hereupon drawing a huge pair of Beads from under his cloak he began to ask me of my Religion I told him I had a long journy to go so that I could not stay to wait on him longer so we parted and me thought I was very glad to be rid of him so well My soul then made another flight over an Assembly of hideous high hills Pyreneys and lighted under another Clime on a rich and copious Country France resembling the form of a Lozenge but me thought I never saw so many poor peeple in my life I encountred a Pesan and asked him what the reason was that ther shold be so much poverly in a Country wher ther was so much plenty Sir they keep the Commonalty poor in pure policy here for being a peeple as the world observes us to be that are more humerous than others and that love variety and change if we were suffered to be pamper'd with wealth we wold ever and anon rise up in tumults and so this Kingdom shold never be quiet but subject to intestine broils and so to the hazard of any invasion But ther was of late a devillish Cardinal whose humour being as sanguin as his habit and working upon the weaknes of his Master hath made us not only poor but stark beggars and we are like to continue so by an eternal war wherein he hath plung'd this poor Kingdom which war must be maintained with our very vital spirits but as dejected and indigent as we are yet upon the death of that ambitious Cardinal we had risen up against This who hath the Vogue now with whom he hath left his principles had not the fearful example of our next transmarin Western neighbours the English and the knowledg we have of a worse kind of slavery of those endles arbitrary taxes and horrid confusions they have fool'd themselfs lately into utterly deterr'd us though we have twenty times more reason to rise then ever they had yet our great City Paris hath shew'd her teeth and gnash'd them ill-favouredly of late but we find she hath drawn water only for her own Mill we fare little the better yet we hope it will conduce to peace which hath bin so long in agitation I cannot remember how I parted with that Peasan but in an instant I was landed upon a large Island and methought 't was the temperat'st Region I had bin in all the while England the heat of the Sun ther is as harmless as his light the evening sereneâ—… are as wholsom ther as the morning dew the Dog-daies as innocuous as any of the two Equinoxes As I rang'd to and fro that fair Island I spyed a huge City London whose length did far exceed her latitude but neâ—…ther for length or latitude did she seem to bear any politicall proportion with that Island she look'd methought like the Iesuits hat whom I had met withall before whose brimms were bigger then the crown or like a peticoat whose fringe was longer then the body As I did cast my eyes upwards methought I discern'd a strange inscription in the aire which hung just over the midst of that City written in such huge visible characters that any one might have read it which was this Woe be to the bloudy City Hereupon a reverend Bishop presented himself to my view his gray haires and grave aspect struck in me an extraordinary reverence of him so performing those complements which were fitting I asked him of the condition of the place he in a submiss sad tone with clouds of melancholy waving up and down his looks told me Sir this Island was reputed few years since to have bin in the completest condition of happiness of any part on earth insomuch that she was repin'd aâ—… for her prosperity and peace by all her neighbours who were plung'd in war round about her but now she is fallen into as deep a gulf of misery and servitude as she was in a height of felicity freedom before Touching the grounds of this change I cannot impute it to any other then to a surfet of happiness now there is no surfet so dangerous as that of happinesse Ther are such horrid divisions here that if they were a foot in hell they were able to destroy the Kingdom of Satan truly Sir ther are crep'd in more opinions among us about matters or Religion then the Pagans had of old of the Summum bonum which Varro saith were 300. the understandings of poor men were never so puzzled and distracted a great while there were two opposit powers King and Parlement who swayed here in a kind of equality that peeple knew not whom to obey many thousands complyed with both as the men of Calecut who adore God and the Devil Tantum Squantum as it is in the Indian language They adore the one for love the other for fear ther is a monstrous kind of wild liberty here that ever was upon earth That which was complained of as a stalking horse to draw on our miseries at first is now only in practice which is meer arbitrary rule for now both Law Religion and Allegiance are here arbitrary Touching the last 't is quite lost 't is permitted that any may prate preach or print what they will in derogation of their annointed King which word King was once a Monosyllable of som weight in this I le but 't is as little regarded now as the word Pope among som which was also a mighty Monosyllable once among us the rule of the Law is that the King can do no wrong ther is a contrary rule now crept in that the King can receive no wrong and truly Sir 't is a great judgement both upon Prince and peeple upon the one that the love of so many of his
vassals shold be so alienated from him upon the other that their hearts shold be so poyson'd and certainly 't is the effect of an ill spirit both the one and the other in all probability tend to the ruine of this Kingdom But now Sir because I see you are so attentive and seem to be much mov'd at this Discourse as I have discover'd unto you the general cause of our calamities which was not only a satiety but a surfet of happinesse so I will descend now to a particular cause of them it was a Northern Nation Scot that brought these cataracts of mischiefs upon us and you know the old saying Out of the North All ill comes forth Far be it from me to charge the whole Nation herewith no but onely som pernicious Instruments that had insinuated themselfs and incorporated among us and sway'd both in our Court and Counsels They had a hand in every Monopoly they had out of our Exchequer and Customs near upon 400000. Crowns in yearly Pensions viis modis yet they could not be content but they must puzzle the peace and policy of this Church and State and though they are a peeple of a differing Genius differing Laws Customs and Manners unto us yet for matter of conscience they wold bring our necks into their yoak as if they had a greater talent of reason and clearer illuminations as if they understood Scripture better and were better acquainted with God Almighty then we who brought them first from Paganisme to Christianity and also to be reformed Christians but it seems matters have little thriven with them nay the visible hand of heaven hath bin heavily upon them divers waies since they did lift their hands against their native King For notwithstanding the vast summs they had hence yet is the generality of them as beggarly as ever they were besides the Civil Sword hath rag'd ther as furiously as here and did as much execution among them Moreover the Pestilence hath bin more violent and sweeping in their chief Town Edenburgh then ever it was since they were a peeple And now lately ther 's the notablest dishonour befaln them that possibly could light upon a Nation in that 7000. of ours shold upon even ground encounter kill slay rout and utterly discomfit thrice as many of theirs though as well appointed and arm'd as men could be And truly Sir the advantages that accrue to this Nation are not a few by that exploit For of late years that Nation was cryed up abroad to be a more Martial peeple then we and to have baffled us in open field in divers traverses besides I hope a small matter will pay now their Arrerages here and elsewhere but principally I hope they will not be so busie hereafter in our Court and Counsel as they have bin formerly Another cause of our calamity is a strange race of peeple the Puritans sprung up among our selfs who were confederat with those of the North they wold make Gods House cleane and by putting out the candle of all ancient learning and knowledge they would sweep it only by the light of an Ignis fatuus but 't is visibly found that they have brought much more rubbage into it and wheras in reforming this house they shold rather find out the groat that is lost they go about to take away the mite that 's left and so put Christs Spouse to live on meer almes True it is there is a kind of zeal that burns in them and I could wish there were so much piety but this zeal burns with too much violence and presumption which is no good symptom of spirituall health it being a rule that as the naturall heat so the spirituall shold be moderat els it commonly turns to a frenzy and that is the thing which causeth such a giddinesse and distraction in their braines This proceeding from the suggestions of an ill spirit puffs them up with so much spirituall pride for the Devill is so cunning a Wrastler that he oftentimes lifts men up to give them the greater fall they think they have an inerring spirit and that their Diall must needs go tru howsoever the Sun goes they wold make the Gospell as the Caddies make the Alchoran to decide all civill temporall matters under the large notion of slander whereof they forsooth to be the Judges and so in time to hook in all things to their Classis I believe if these men were dissected when they are dead they would be a great deale of Quicksilver found in their braines Proh Superi quantum mortalia pectora coecae Noctis habent But I could pitty the giddinesse of their braines had they not so much gaul in their breasts were they not so thirsting after blood so full of poison and irreconcileable malice in so much that it may be very well thought these men are a kin to that race which sprung out of the Serpents teeth these are they which have seduced our great Counsell and led this foolish City by the nose to begin and foment this ugly War insomuch that if those numberless bodies which have perish'd in these commotions were cast into her streets and before her doores many thousand Citizens noses would bleed of pure guilt Not to hold you long these are the men who have baffled common sence blasted the beams of nature and offered violence to reason it self these are they who have infatuated most of the peeple of this Iland so that whereas in times past som call'd her the I le of Angels she may be term'd now the I le of Gulls or more properly the I le of Doggs or rather indeed â—…he I le of Wolfs there is such a true Lycanthrepy com in among us I am loth to call her the Iland of Devills though she hath bin branded so abroad To conclude Sir the glory of this Isle is quite blasted 't is tru they speak of peace but while the King speakes to them of it they make themselves ready for battle I much fear that Ixion-like we imbrace a cloud for peace out of which there will issue out Centaures and Monsters as sprung out of that cloud Touching that ancient'st holy Order whereof you see me to be I well hoped that in regard they pretended to reforme things only they wold not have quite extirpated but regulated only this Order it had bin enough to brayle our wings not to have â—…ear'd them to have lopp'd and prun'd not to have destroyed root and branch of that ancient tree which was planted by the hands of the Apostles themselfs In fine Sir we are a lost peeple 't is no other Dedalus but the high Deity of heaven can clue us out of this labyrinth of confusions can extricat us out of this maze of miseries the Philosopher saith 't is impossible for man to quadrat a Circle so 't is not in the power of man but of God alone to make a loyall Subject of a Round head Among other things that strangers report
a rough account of a rambling Noctivagation up and down the world I may boldly say that neither Sir Iohn Mandevile or Coryat himself travell'd more in so short a time whence you see what nimble Postillions the Animal Spirits are and with what incredible celerity the imagination can crosse the Line cut the Tropiques and pass to the other Hemisphere of the world which shews that humane souls have somthing in them of the Almighty that their faculties have a kind of ubiquitary freedom though the body be never so under restraint as the Authors is They erre as much who think all Dreams false As They who think Them alwayes tru In the prison of the Fleet 3. Idus Decembris 1645. I. H. A VINDICATION OF HIS MAJESTY Touching a Letter He writ to Rome from the Court of Spain in Answer to a Letter which Pope Gregory the 15th had sent Him upon passing the Dispensation for concluding the Match with the Iâ—…fanta Which Letter Mr. Pryn mention's in his Book call'd the Popish Royal Favorit wherby the World is apt to beleeve that His Majesty had Inclinations to Popeâ—…y Ther goe's also herewith A clearing of som Aspersions that the said Mr. Pryn cast's upon the Author hereof in the same Pamphlet viz. That he was a Malignant and no friend to Parlements WHERBY He takes occasion to speak somthing of the first Rise And also of the Duty as well as the Authority of Parlements To my worthily honor'd friend Sir W. S. Knight SIR I Have many thanks to give you for the Book you pleased to send me called the Popish Royal Favorite and according to your advice which I value in a high degree I did put pen to paper and somthing you may see I have done though in a poor pamphleting way to clear my self of those aspersions that seem to be cast upon His Majesty But truly Sir I was never so unfit for such a task all my Papers Manuscripts and Notes having bin long since seized upon and kept from me Adde hereunto that besides this long pressure and languishment of close restraint the sense wherof I find hath much stupified my spirits it pleased God to visit me lately with a dangerous fit of sickness a high burning fever with the new disease wherof my Body as well as my Mind is yet somwhat crazie so that take all afflictions together I may truly say I have passed the Ordeal the fiery Tryal But it hath pleased God to reprieve me to see better daies I hope for out of this fatal black Cloud which now ore-sets this poor Island I hope ther will break a glorious Sun-shine of peace and firm happinesse To effect which had I a Jury a grand-Jury of lives I wold sacrifice them all and triumph in the oblation So I most affectionately kiss your hands and rest Your faithfull though afflicted Servant From the Prison of the Fleet. I. H. The Pre-eminence and Duty OF PARLEMENT Sectio Prima I Am a Free-born Subject of the Realm of England wherby I claim as my native Inheritance an undoubted right propriety and portion in the Laws of the Land And this distinguisheth me from a slave I claim likewise protection from my Soverain Prince who as He is my Liege Lord is obliged to protect me and I being one of His Liege peeple am obliged to obey Him by way of Reciprocation I claim also an interest and common right in the High National Court of Parlement and in the power the priviledges and jurisdiction therof which I put in equal ballance with the Laws in regard it is the fountain whence they spring and this I hold also to be a principall part of my Birth-right which Great Councell I honour respect value and love in as high a degree as can be as being the Bulwark of our liberties the main boundary and bank which keeps us from slavery from the inundations of tyrannicall Rule and unbounded Will-government And I hold my self obliged in a tye of indispensable obedience to conform and submit my self to whatsoever shall be transacted concluded and constituted by its authority in Church or State with the Royal assent whether it be by making enlarging altering diminishing disanulling repealing or reviving of any Law Statute Act or Ordinance whatsoever either touching matters Ecclesiastical civil common capital criminall martial maritime municipall or any other of all which the transcendent and uncontrollable jurisdiction of that Court is capable to take cognizance Amongst the three things which the Athenian Captain thank'd the gods for one was That he was born a Grecian and not a Barbarian For such was the vanity of the Greeks and after them of the Romans in the flourish of their Monarchy to arrogat all civility to themselves and to terme all the world besides Barbarians so I may say to rejoyce that I was born a vassall to the Crown of England that I was born under so well-moulded and tempered a Government which endows the subject with such Liberties and infranchisements that bear up his naturall courage and keep him still in heart such Liberties that fence and secure him eternally from the gripes and tallons of Tyranny And all this may be imputed to the Authority and wisedome of this High Court of Parlement wherein there is such a rare co-ordination of power though the Soveraignty remain still entire and untransferrable in the person of the Prince there is such a wholsom mixture 'twixt Monarchy Optimacy and Democracy 'twixt Prince Peers and Commonalty during the time of consultation that of so many distinct parts by a rare co-operation and unanimity they make but one Body Politick like that sheaâ—…e of arrows in the Emblem one entire concentricall peece the King being still the Head and the results of their deliberations but as so many harmonious diapasons arising from different strings And what greater immunity and happinesse can there be to a Peeple than to be liable to no Laws but what they make themselves to be subject to no contribution assessement or any pecuniary erogations whatsoever but what they Vote and voluntarily yeeld unto themselves For in this compacted Politick Body there be all degrees of peeple represented both the Mechanick Tradesman Merchant and Yeoman have their inclusive Vote as well as the Gentry in the persons of their Trustees their Knights and Burgesses in passing of all things Nor is this Soveraign Surintendent Councell an Epitome of this Kingdom only but it may be said to have a representation of the whole Universe as I heard a fluent well-worded Knight deliver the last Parliameut who compared the beautifull composure of that High Court to the great work of God the World it self The King is as the Sun the Nobles the fixed Stars the Itineant judges and other Officers that go upon Messages 'twixt both Houses to the Planets the Clergy to the Element of fire the Commons to the solid Body of Earth and the rest of the Elements And to pursue this comparison a little