Discouragements Whilst those of the Royal Party impatient to see the King so much less then he should be thought it as necessary as just to attempt the making him something more then ever he had been but straining the Sinew-shrunk Prerogative beyond its wonted height disjoynted the whole Frame of Government and broke those Ligaments of Command and Obedience whereby Prince and People are bound up together Unhappy King to whom the love and hatred of his People was alike fatal who whilst himself was thus unhappily ingaged against himself was sure to be the Loser which side soever was the Gainer and so much the more miserable by how much even Victory it self must at once weary and wast him but great was his Prudence as great his Patience And next the Power of making Tempests cease Walleri Was in this Storm to have so calm a Peace Behold now the great Soveraign of the Seas expos'd as it were upon a small Raft to the raging of the People as a Shipwrackt Pilot to that of the Sea without any hope but what was next despair to recover some desolate Rock or Isle where he might rest himself in the melancholy expectation of being deliver'd as it were by Miracle So he being drove first from London to York from thence having in vain tryed to touch at Hull passed on to Nottingham where he set up his Standard but not his rest from thence he marched to Leicester so towards Wales and having a while refreshed himself at Shrewsbury after divers tossings and deviations fix'd at last at Oxford the famous Seat of the Muses ill Guards to a distressed King and perhaps no great Assistants to those about him who were to live by their Wits Here he continued near three years acting the part of a General rather then a King his Prerogative being so pinion'd and his Power so circumscrib'd that as none of his own People paid him Homage where he could not come to force it so the Neighbour States of the United Netherlands though they disown'd not a Confederation with him made so little shew of having any regard to his Amity as if it were Evidence enough of their being his Friends that they did not declare themselves his Enemies Only the Complemental State of France sent over a glorious * Prince liurcourt Ambassador who under the pretence of Mediating a Peace was really a Spy for continuing the War The only fast Friend he had was his helpless Uncle the King of Denmark who was so over-match'd by the Swede all that time that he could give little or no assistance to him During his abode here he did as much as the necessity of his streightned Condition would permit convening another Parliament there to Counter those at Westminster least it should be thought there was a Charm in the name where there appear'd no less then One hundred and forty Knights and Gentlemen in the lower House and in the upper House Twenty four Lords Nineteen Earls Two Marquesses and Two Dukes besides the Lord Treasurer the Lord Keeper the Duke of York and the Prince of Wales who if they were not equal in number as some think they were were much more considerable in quality then that other Parliament at London But being a Body without Sinews they sate as so many Images of Authority or if with decency we may say it like Legislators in Effigie Those at Westminster having in this the better of them that they had got into their hands that pledge of extraordinary Power the Dominion of the Sea which was a sufficient Caution for that by Land †Cic. ad Artic. lib. 10. Epist 7. Nam qui Mare teneat eum necesse est Rerum potiri This brought in Wealth that brought in Men the Men brought in Towns and Provinces under their Subjection so that we find they had an intire Association of divers whole Counties when the King could assure himself of no more then what he made Title to by his Sword Even Yorkshire it self the first County that he made tryal of entring almost as soon as he was gone out of it into Articles of Neutrality But notwithstanding all the disadvantages he had by want of Men and Money of Means and Credit yet we see he brought the Ballance of the War to that even poise that it rested at last upon the Success of one single Battel to turn the Scale either way for had they been beaten at Naseby where they got the day they had been as undoubtedly ruin'd as he was by loosing it which Battel being the last ended as Edge-hill did that was the first with that sinister Fortune to have the left Wings on each side routed by those of the right But the advantage the * So those who served the Parliament were call'd from the shortness of their hair as it was generally worn generally worn amongst those of the Puritan party Round-heads had in this was that they had not forgot the disadvantage of the former Fight but early quitting their pursuit return'd time enough to relieve their distressed Foot and so by their Wisdom recover'd that fatal advantage which the †The Kings Party were so call'd because those that appear'd first on his side were most of them Gentlemen on Horse-back Cavaliers lost by their Courage who pursuing their half-got Victory too far lost the whole unexpectedly In this Battel as in that the Royal Standard was taken and as the King lost his General then so he lost himself acting the Generals part now his Power crumbling away so fast after the loss of this Day for in less then four Months time twenty of his chief Garrisons surrendred General Goring was routed at Lamport the Lord Digby and Sir Marmaduke Langdale near Sherborn which we know caus'd a more unlucky Rout after at Newark the Lord Wentworth was surpriz'd ar Bovy-tracy the Lord Hopton routed at Torrington the Lord Ashly at Stow upon the Wold that he was never able to repair the Breaches made daily upon him but was forc'd to quit his faultring Friends and cast himself into the hands of his fawning Enemies the Scots who having kept all this while hovering at a distance like Eagles that follow Armies for prey expecting what might be the Issue whilst the English were so busie in cutting one anothers Throats were resolv'd to let him know what value they put upon him and accordingly gave notice to the Parliament of his being with them which begot a hot dispute betwixt them for a while to whom of right the Royal Prisoner belonged till in the end it concluded with redeeming the good King by a good Sum who taught them thus to betray him by first betraying himself the failure of their Faith being grounded upon that of his own who had he kept upon the Wing as one observes whilst his Party was beating in the Covert might possibly have retreiv'd the Quarrey and by retiring into some place of present safety recover'd himself
the Fifth and the French King he was stopt before he Landed by the Duke of Gloucester and divers of the chief Nobility who coming into the very water with their Swords drawn in their hands stay'd his Boat and suffered him not to Land till he had declared Nil se contra Regis Superioritatem praetexere So likewise when (n) Sir Hen. Wotton State Observations 208. Baldwin the Greek Emperour came hither to pray aid of Henry the Third being beaten out of his Country the King sent him a Check instead of a Complement for Landing in his Territories before he had leave given him so to do being Jealous least it might be thought that he had pretended to something as an Emperour that might be Interpreted Superiority he himself being Monarcha in Regno suo as we find in the old Lawyer Baldus and descended from Ancestors that had the Imperial Stile of (o) See the Charter of the Abby of Malmesbury MCCCCLXXIV Rex Regum not only in respect of their having (p) Beauchampe King of the Isle of Wight The Kings of Man c. Kings to their Subjects but in regard to their enjoyment of all those fundamental rights which make up the whole Systeme of Supream power by the Feudists indifferently term'd Jura Regalia and Jura summi Imperii by the Civilians Sacra Sacrorum by our own Lawyers sometimes Prerotiva sometimes (q) As being so Inseparable that they cannot be dissolved by any humane power Inseparabilia which that they may be the better understood I shall consider them as I find them (r) Clapmarus lib. 1. de Arean Imper Cap 11. divided into ten parts reducing those ten like the Decalogue of old into two General Heads of Power i. e. Leges Ponere Legibus Solutum esse 20. For the First The Kings of this Isle have ever been the Lawgivers it is to be understood that however the Kings of this Isle have been pleas'd for the better and more equal Administration of Justice to Indulge the three Estates of the Kingdom who were heretofore call'd their Great Council but since the Parliament with the priviledg of making enlarging diminishing abrogating repealing and reviving all Laws and Ordinances relating to all Matters whether Ecclesiastick Capital Criminal Common Civil or Maritime yet it must be understood after all that neither houses of Parliament now both joyn'd together have in themselves no power as of themselves to do any thing without him much less (s) That is not only to be understood to his Dis nherison but the Diminution of his Prerogative Cook 4. Part. Institut fol. 25. against him no more than the body can make use of any of its members longer than it is actuated by the Soul For from him they have their life and motion Vt Caput principium finis as the Lawyers express it is he that gives them their Inchoation Continuation and Dissolution 'T is true that each Law receives its form Ex traduce Parliamenti that is as our vulgar Statutes express it by advice and consent of the Lords and Commons who sit with the resemblance of so many Kings but they find but the grosser substance or the material part 't is the Royal Assent that Quickens and puts the Soul Spirit and Power into it A Roy's avisero only much more A Roy ne veult makes all their Conceptions abortive when he pleases So that they can be but the Law-makers but the King only is the Law-giver and therefore Stiled in the old Books The Life of the Law and The Fountain of Justice The Kings of this Isle how far above Law 21. This prerogative I speak it out of a great States-mans observation consists in this not that Kings need not observe their Laws for that were a Brutal Tyranny insupportable in the most barbarous States but that they may change them And therefore St. Augustine made that a reason why the Emperours of old were not Subject to their own Laws because saith he they might make new when they pleas'd Now if the King of England should exceed the bounds of his own Laws which if it were lawful were no way convenient for him it being that becomes the wisdome of Princes saith Cicero to consider not how much they may do but what they ought to do in which sense (t) Senec. de cons lat cap. 6. Seneca is to be understood when he said that divers things were not lawful for the Emperour himself who might do all which he pleased It might be rather said in that Case as Grotius excellently distinguishes that he did not rightly then that he went beyond his right The Restraint by his Coronation Oath being like a Silken Coard that may be stretch'd without breaking upon any extraordinary force and violence offer'd as we see it happens upon the discovery and for the prevention of any publick mischief or Inconvenience Where our Kings have De proprio Jure suspended the Laws for a time that is until by advice with his Parliaments he might formally alter or totally repeal them Add to this that every Custom which is a Branch of the Common Law is void Si exultat se in Prerogativam Regis which I suppose is to be understood of the lesser Concerns of his Prerogative in points of Pre-eminence relating to civil Actions or Priviledges personal for as the Learned in the Laws tell us no Sale of his Goods alters his Propriety no Occupancy bars his Entry into his own Lands no Laches in point of time prejudices him as it does private men Again in doubtful cases say they Semper presumitur pro Rege No Estopel binds him nor Judgments final in Writs of Right These and many more such as these there are which we may call Minima Inseparabilia but in all cases where his Prerogative in point of Government is prejudic'd there our great Gownmen hold that he cannot be restrain'd no not by an Act of Parliament nor is he to be restrain'd as I take it in lesser cases unless named And to this it was questionless that the Sage Bracton and the Learned Plowden had respect when the one said the King was above Law to'ther that he was not bound by Law and if it were not so there would be no power left in him to grant any special Charter that in its proper nature is no other than a Dispensation with the positive Laws which can be understood to be binding to the King no otherwise than according to the natural Rule of Order as they are essential to the support of his Government In which Case Kings like good Husbands may be said to be Subjectis suis Subjectos mov'd by a Principle of Affection that voluntarily limits it self according to Rules of Prudence which upon all Emergencies of State on extraordinary occasions are wrested or broken as he himself only sees cause there being a necessity upon which the common safety depends that at such times Princes should be
Neither is it so in the Case of a particular Person only but if the whole Body of the people of this Nation should take upon them to do the like absque assensu Regis The Judges holding that where a War shall be so declared against any in League with the King without his consent and allowance the League is not thereby broken The like holds in all cases of Confederacies and Combinations which forced the late Rebels in the time of Charles the First to declare this Kingdom a Common-wealth before they could prevail with any Forrain Princes to treat with them and very few did it then Wherefore it is recorded as a wise answer of that Parliament in the Seventeenth of Richard the Second who when that King out of a necessitous compliance with the People offer'd them leave to take into their consideration some concerns of War and Peace Replied It did not become their Duty neither in Truth durst they presume ever to Treat of matters of so Transcendent Concernment No doubt then can there be of that Jus Foecialis 5. Jus Foecialis or right of Legation in directing sending and receiving all Embassies which Curtius calls Jus Regium a Power so Singular and Absolute that as (b) Bod. de Repub. Bodin and (c) In State Christ printed Anno 1657. H. Wotton both men of sufficient Authority affirm divers of our Neighbour Princes who yet call themselves absolute as the Kings of Hungary Poland Denmark Bohemia c. have nothing like it being bound up to consult with their People about all publick concerns before they can make any Conclusion of Peace or War Whereas all Addresses of State are made to Our Kings as I shewed in part before without any Obligation of their parts to communicate any thing to any of the Members of their great Council Privy Council or Common Council much less to either of the Ministers of State whether Secretaries or others however sworn to Secrecy and Trust Nor needs there a more pregnant Instance of the Kings inherent and determinate Prerogative in this point than that verbal Order of King Henry the Eight to the Lord Gray Governour of Bullen who upon a dispute about demolishing a Fort the French were then erecting by the name of Chastilons Garden contrary to the Sence of all the Lords of his Council expressed in Scriptis and which was more the formality of his own Letters confirming their Order did by a verbal Commission only privately whisper'd to him Justifie him in flinging down that Work which was a manifest breach of the Peace with the French and consequently a Capital crime in the Governour had not the same breath that made him forfeit it given him his life again which President as it was very remarkable so it proves that which follows 6. Jus Vitae Necis 26. Jus Vitae Necis that highest power of Life and Death to be only in the King being signaliz'd by the Ceremony of carrying the Sword before him in all publick Processions and is in truth so antient and undoubted a Right of the Crown that upon this Account only we find all the Pleas touching life and member to be call'd by the Lawyers Placita Coronae and all Capital Offences of high treason are termed Crimina Laesae Majestatis in proceeding whereon no Original Writ is necessary as in civil Causes but every Constable as the Kings Deputy may Ex Ossicio without any Process seize on any Murtherer Traytor or Felon and till the Statute of Magna Charta 17 of King John it is manifest that every mans Person was so subjected to the King by his Oath of Allegiance from those words De vita de membro that the (d) Vita Membrasunt in Potestate Regis Bracton l. 1. fol. 6. Cap. 5. Sect. 18. King at his pleasure might Imprison any man without process of Law or giving any cause for it and however the King has been pleas'd to circumscribe himself by Law since for the greater assurance of his Grace to his People yet the Judges have still so far respect to the Kings honour in this particular that upon the Commitment of any person by the Kings Command or by Order of the Lords of his Council they do not take upon them as perhaps by strictness of Law they might to deliver the Person till the Cause be first shewn and then expecting a Declaration of the Kings further pleasure bind him to answer what may be objected in the Kings behalf 7. Jus Rerum Sacrarum 27. The last and highest Prerogative as being purely Spiritual is that Jus Rerum Sacrarum to which no Princes in the World had a fairer Pretence than those here if considered as the only Christian Kings foster'd with the milk of a distinct National Church The Kings of great Britain the only Kings of a distinct national Church that may as properly be called the Sister as those of France Germany and Italy are call'd the Daughters of Rome and therefore the Pope when he naturaliz'd as I may say all the Christian Nations within the bosom of the Church he declared the Emperour to be Filius Major the French King Filius Minor but our King Filius Adoptivus neither matters it much though they prove our Church to be the younger Sister that disparagement if any it be being abundantly recompensed by being as indeed she is the most innocent the most beautiful and perhaps the most fruitful Parent of the two having Matriculated no less than eight Nations now as great almost as her self in the first Ages of Christianity and been the Foster-Mother to as many more in this last and most knowing age The Protestant Religion more properly called the Catholiâ—k Religion than that of Rome whereby the Reformed Religion as it is now vulgarly called to difference it from that of Rome is become as universal as that they call with so much Ostentation Catholick which if confined within the Range of the Church of Rome is not above a (c) Purchas Pilgrim cap. 13. lib. 1. fourth part of Christendom if so be the Computation of our modern Geographers be not mistaken who put Sweden in the Scale against both the Iberia's Italy and Spain and England Denmark and the Hans Towns against France which yet we know is Checquer'd in their Religion having divers Towns of the Reformed Judgment besides those Lesser Congregations in Poictou Gascony Languedoc and Normandy and take out of Germany suppos'd to be the third part of Europe two intire parts the whole being divided into three that at this day are integrally Protestant that is to say in the East Poland Lithuania Livonia Podolia Russia minor with divers Parts of Hungary and Transilvania even to the Euxine Sea in the West the Cantons of Swizzerland the United Provinces with the Grisons and the Republick of Geneva the South and North parts being yet more intirely Protestant and the heart of it every
distinct Priviledges 1. Jure (i) Senâ—c de benefic lib. 3. Cap. 28. Eut. lib. 10. formali by the distinction of Habit of which they had seven Sorts 1 Saga 2 Pretextae 3 Angusticlavia 4 Laticlavia 5 Paludamenta 6 Trabea and 7 Chlamys of these the Common People wore only the first Sort which were Coats without Sleeves the rest were worn only by Gentlemen and Noblemen differenc'd according to their respective Dignities 2. Jure (k) Aâ—l. Gâ—ll. lib. 3. Cap. 16. Petitionis by the right of their Offices for those that were Senators as afterwards all Noblemen had their Curules or blew Chariots with a Chair plac'd in it to ride through the Streets the Consuls being differenc'd by sitting in an Ivory Chair whereas the rest were wood only 3. Jure (l) Senec. de benef lib. 3. Cap. 18. Imaginum by the use of Images which were the same things to them in point of honour and Ornament as Eschocheons and Arms of Families are to us 4. Jure Gentilitiarum by having names that were hereditary for from the very time of the first League with the Sabins it was agreed that the Romans should praefix Sabin Names and the Sabins Roman before that of their families names which Prenomina being hereditary were therefore call'd Gentilitia whence came our word Gentlemen for at that time no part of the World had taken up that Custome now Tully tells us that these Gentiles were those Qui eodem inter se sunt nomine i. e. Men of the same name for the Common People were not permitted to call their Posterity by their own names but were obliged to give their Children always new uncouth and unheard of names which brought them under such contempt as if they had no names but were as Livy calls them Sine nomine turba a nameless Rabble The original Gentiles or Leaguers of the Latin Stock were the Fabii descended from the Kings of the Aborigines the Romuli Julii Junii Surgii Aurelii Curatii Horatii Servitii Priscorum who were of the Trojan Race that came in with Aeneas at the Conquest of Italy those of the Sabin Race were the Tatii the Issue of King Tatius the Pompilii whereof the Pinarii the Aemuli Mamurcenorum were younger branches the Ancimartii Claudii Regilenses the Tarquinii Publicolae Emilii Aenobarbi the Quintii Capitolinorum and Cincinatorum the Cornelii Scipiorum and Lentulorum these were all the antient Leaguers The Families of most note that sprung from them after they united and mixt together were the Posthumii Cossii Survii Sulpicii Sempronii of which the Gracchi were but a younger branch the Fulvii Flacci Octavii Mutii Pompeii c. These I instance amongst many because it was (m) Vt pat per rescript Dioclesian forbid the Common People under a great penalty to name their Children by any of these names or indeed by any other name that had but a Sound like them or like any name of a Gentleman 5. Jure Suffragii by the difference of Places in all Publick Conventions and Assemblies where they had by the Law of Fulvia a very formal precedence given them as we may see at large in (n) Lip de Amphith c. 14. Lipsius and (o) Senec. de benef lib. 3. cap. 28. Seneca 6. Jure Connubii for by the Law of the Twelve Tables it was forbid under the pain of Degradation for any of the Gentiles to match with a Plebeian 7. Lastly they were distinguish'd Jure Ordinis according to their Titles of Honour wherein they had also Seven gradations of different Stiles the lowest whereof was that of Egregii which were such as we properly call Gentlemen or Esquires next them were the 2 Perfectissimi which were those of the Equestrian Order as our Knights then came the 3 Clarissimi these were the Correctores or Praestas of Provinces much like to our Lord Lieutenants of Counties the next above these were the 4 Spectabiles a title proper only to Dukes and Counts Provincial the 5 Illustres such were all that had any voice in Senate all Praefects Magistri Equitum Peditum the Questores Palatii the Comites Maritimi which were as our Lord Admirals and all Generals and Lieutenant Generals of Armies had the same Stile (p) C. Tit. de Feriis Epigr. L. quoniam 6 Nobilissimi which some barbarous Lawyers of late saith (q) Alciate dispunct lib. 3. Com. 4. Alciate have chang'd and as they think Elegantly into Super-Illustres which the modern more refinedly have render'd Serenissimi this was appropriated only to Princes by birth as were the (r) Seld. Tit. Hon. p. 285. Caesars or heirs apparent of the Empire who were written Principes Juventutis the Emperours took to themselves that of Divi or 7 Augusti which we at this day term Sacred It is further observable that as Romulus was the first of seven Kings so Kingship was the first of seven Orders of Government in that Commonwealth for there were 1 Reges 2 Patricii 3 Tribuni 4 Decemviri 5 Dictatores 6 Triumviri 7 Imperatores the Last of which Titles cost no less than the Lives of seven times seven thousand Citizens a Purchase so dear that it had been impossible for any person to have perswaded them to submit to it but such an one as had first slaughtered seven times seventy thousand Enemies and subdued seven times seven Nations as Caesar did if they that writ his life say truth before he offer'd this Violence to his Country and Friends Again 't is noted that there was just seven hundred years spent betwixt Romulus the first King and Founder and this Caesar the first Emperour and Confounder of the Commonwealth and they that have taken the pairs to compute the years altogether from the time of the Birth to that of the Obsequies of this great State have pointed out just seven Periods which as the seven Ages of man they have measur'd by the 1 Beginning 2 Increase 3 Confirmation 4 Continuation 5 Declination 6 Degeneration 7 Dissolution From the Foundation to the Consulship of Brutus and Tarquinius Colatinus is reckoned the first Age consisting of two hundred and twenty years or thereabouts which we may call its 1 Infancy the time from thence to the beginning of the second Carthaginian War which took up two hundred and fifty years more may be call d its 2 Adolescence the time from that War which happen'd in the Consulship of Ap. Claudius the Bold to the Dictatorship of Caesar being two hundred and twenty years more we may call its 3 Youth Augustus's his Reign passes for its Prime or 4 Full Age continuing so near three hundred years from the time of Gallenus the thirty third Emperour was a sensible 5 Declination unto the time of Arcadius and Honorius which was about two hundred and thirteen years more the time from theirs to the Death of Maximus who slew Valentinian the Third look'd like its 6 Dote Age in which it labour'd with many infirmities
confirm'd by an Allyance with Ethelbert the Proto-Christian who converted his Son III. SIGEBERT that in honour to his Religion made that League perpetual which after his death was broken by his three graceless Sons IV. date of accession 609 SERED SEWARD SIGEBERT Who rul'd together like Brethren in Iniquity persecuting all that were Christians till Ingill the West-Saxon converted but a little before revenged the holy Cause by putting a period to their Triumvirat upon which V. date of accession 623 SIGEBERT Son of the middlemost took place he was surnam'd The Little probability of his little Credit rather then his little Person being so detested by his People that they put by his Son and Brother to admit another of the same Name but of different Temper VI. date of accession 640 SIGEBERT the third Son of Sigebald younger Brother of Sigebert the first who declaring for Christianity was surnam'd The Good and being murther'd during the minority of his Son his Brother VII date of accession 661 SWITHELM succeeded as if to taste of Royalty only falling under the same fate by the same hand and for the same cause by whose death VIII date of accession 663 SIGEHERE the Son of Sigebert the Little assisted by his Uncle Sebba got into the Throne His Successor was IX date of accession 664 SEBBA the Saint on whom Bede fastens that famous Miracle of lengthning the Marble Chest in which his Body was laid which he says was too short by a foot for the Corps till the Body was put into it which who so believes must stretch his Faith as much Successor to him was X. date of accession 694 SIGEHERE the Second one fitter to be a Monk then a Monarch giving up his Scepter for a pair of Beads to his Brother XI date of accession 698 SEOFRID who if he rul'd not with him rul'd very little after him and then came XII date of accession 701 OFFA the Son of Sigehere to succeed who impoverish'd himself by inriching the Church and having quit his Wife to perform a Pilgrimage to Rome tempted her to quit the World and become a Nun whereby either lost the other and both the hopes of any Issue which made well for XIII date of accession 709 SELRED the Son of Sigebert the Good whose old Age was crown'd with an unexpected Succession but he took not so much pleasure in it as to survive it whereby XIV date of accession 740 SUTHRED fill'd up his place who involv'd in the Fate of Baldred King of Kent attacht by the West-Saxons lost this as t'other did that Kingdom whereby it became a Province under the Victorious Egbert IN the midst of the Universal Conflagrations that near about this time began to spread over the Face of the whole Isle the flames whereof were not otherwise to be quench'd but by the blood of the miserable Natives it so â—apned that Essex however nearest to those Countries that first felt the sharpness of the Saxon Swords had the good Fortune to preserve it self untoucht till about the year 527 when Erchenwin landing in Norfolk and taking thence a view of the neighbouring Vales imagin'd there went no more to the taking possession then to enter and make a boâ—d claim But finding the Inhabitants obstinately resolv'd to make their Graves in no other place but where their Bones might mix with those of their Ancestors 't is hard to say Whether his Fury or his Fear prevail'd most with him whilst being ingaged beyond the safety of a Retreat he made his way into the heart of their Country with that precipitate Courage as if he had designed to fly through them into the Provinces beyond which they perceiving like men well acquainted with the violence of such Land Floods made him way to pass into Kent where promising to become a Feodary to that Prince he return'd him with that additional Strength as made him not only Master of this but by uniting Middlesex and a great part of Hertfordshire gave him the honour of setting up a fourth Kingdom call'd that of the East-Sexe which however it was not very great was well fortifi'd with the Ocean on the East the Thames on the South-side the River Coln on the West and the Stour on the North-side and being establish'd by the advantage of a long and peaceable Reign and the reputation of the Allyance he had with the potent King of Kent he was secur'd so far on that side as to put him in condition of securing himself on the other till such time as the East-Angles and the Mercian by the Interposition of their Territories betwixt him and the Common Enemy left him regardless of any further danger but withal so enervated his Successor that being seldome arm'd and never active Fortune grew out of Love with them and never vouchsafed any one of them the honour to be rang'd amongst the Monarchs of the Isle a favour every other House alternately enjoy'd according to the variation or vicissitude of their Successes but however they attained less it appears they aim'd at greater Glory then any of their Neighbours being the second Kingdom that oppenly profess'd Christianity and those that gave it the best entertainment Sacrificing to the Church what others spent in War being repaid with Pardons Benedictions and Indulgences whilst they liv'd and with Shrines Miracles and Canonizations after they were dead Kings in that Age being no less ambitious to be Sainted then Saints in our Age to be made Kings And to say truth they were better Men then Monarchs taking more care of the business of Religion then of State relying more on the Forces of the Kings of Kent with whom they had contracted a perpetual League having been hatch'd under their wings then on their own proper Strength whereby it fell out that they were crush'd with t'others fall and at the same time submitted to the same Fate to be a Province to the West-Saxon So easie it is to conquer those that contribute to their own destruction taking upon them to protect the unfortunate Baldred when they were not able to defend themselves But it is less strange that they fail'd now then that they held out so long their Territories being the very least of the whole Heptarchy and they the laziest of the whole Nation their Majesty being preserv'd by a kind of Antiperistasis lying incompassed with three puissant Neighbours Kent Mercia and West-Sexe who like three great Doggs equally match'd kept this Bone untouch'd betwixt them for two hundred and eighty years in which large portion of time they were preserv'd as by Miracle from the fury of either of them that wanted not appetites to desire nor mouths to devour nor perhaps occasion to urge them to fall upon them but restrain'd by the sense of eithers equal Power they left it to Fortune to give the odds who having declared on the West-Saxon side he run down all at last THE ORDER OF THE KINGS OF MERCIA V. I. date of accession 560 CRIDDA the
hold out than while it was preserv'd by the Courage of such active Princes as those that appear'd upon the Throne the four last Descents following who spight of Fate made good their Ground for an hundred years without any Interruption to the course of honour save by the Interposition of Edwin whom yet the hatred of the Clergy is suppos'd to have made worse than he was EDWARD the Martyr date of accession 975 THE Globe of Soveraignty like that of the Earth is so plac'd that it never stands still but as the Ocean the Emblem of human frailty has its Ebbs and Flows its Falls and Swellings so hath it its Turnings Tumblings and Revolutions No sooner were Edgar's Halcyonian daies done but there appear'd new Signs of the old Troubles and Commotions which like the meeting of contrary Tides prest in each upon other with dreadful noise and Tumult the Laiety opposing the Clergy the Nobility scorning the Populacy and they again dividing from one another But amongst the rest no Feud seemed so fatal as that betwixt the two Unhappy Sons of this so happy Father the one trusting to his Primogeniture t'other standing upon his Legitimacy the right of either being so equally ballanc'd that there wanted only the affections of the Multitude to turn the Scale either way whilst the Clergy favour'd the Eldest the Temporal Lords the younger The head of the Church-Faction was the A. B. Dunstan then and all the time of the last King chief Minister of State Principal of the Lay Faction was Ordgar the great Earl of Devon back'd by the Queen Mothers Party So equal was the power so pressing the necessity on either side that both Consented to stand to the determination of a Publick Convention of all the States at London Accordingly a Parliament was held at Westminster where the bold St. Dunstan not tarrying for the result of any Debate upon the point De Jure set the Crown upon the head of Edward the Elder Brother and so presented him De Facto to the Assembly as their lawful Soveraign which confident Act of his either satisfying or surprizing those of the opposite Party met with an universal submission every Body acquiescing and dissembling their discontent except the Queen only who being his Step-mother could not forget much less forgive an injury so grievous to the Son of her own Body turning therefore her passion of Ambition into that of Revenge she broke over all the bounds of Nature and Right to find the nearest way to the Throne nor wanted she a dismal opportunity however taken from a pretence of humanity and kindness to set up her Darling by the murther of this guiltless Prince who coming alone estray'd from Hunting and altogether unattended to visit her at her Castle of Corffe in the Isle of Purbeck was by her Command slain by an Assassme that took the advantage to stab him in the Reins of the Back as he was drinking her Health at the gate on Horse-back the helpless Youth finding himself wounded clapt spurs to his Horse in hopes to have out-rid her malice but his Spirits failing he fell out of his Saddle and so unfortunately that his Foot fastned in the Stirrup at which his poor Beast affrighted became alike accessary though not alike guilty of his death by dashing our his Brains before that Life had got its passage through his wounds So perished this harmless Prince in the infancy of his Royalty as well as of his Age being rather sacrific'd than slain by a kind of double Death without so much as a single Crime laid to his charge the same malice that envy'd him the honour of being a King becoming instrumental thereby to the dignifying him with the glory of being a Martyr the Charity of those times or rather the Affection of the Clergy leaving him enshrin'd in the Kalendar of Saints Which shews how deplorable his death was wherein the whole Nation were so much more sufferers than himself that it may be truly said that the Same stroak which took away his Life gave the Deaths wound to the English Monarchy bringing upon them the misery of being in Bondage to a Stranger Nation of all other the most cruel and insolent who ow'd their Rise next the immediate determination of Providence to nothing more than the unexpected Fall of this hopeful Prince with whose blood they may be said to have mixt the Morter of that Foundation they after laid taking the same advantage of the Sins of the English as they before of those of the Britains and breaking in upon them as they upon t'other with a Resolution not so much to conquer as to confound them which may be some Excuse for the cruelty of the next King that massacred so many of them in cold blood whilst who like Sampson in the midst of his Enemies thought there was no way left but removing the Pillars of the house and perishing together with them ETHELRED date of accession 978 'T IS easie to imagine by the Title of Martyr given to the last King what Reflex his Death had upon this who like an ill-set plant unhappily plac'd in the same Room from which the other was taken never could recover any firm rooting and consequently never thriv'd being continually wind-shaken from the very first moment that he was set up and vext with uncessant troubles the Sword never departing from his House as 't is reported St. Dunstan preaching at his Coronation boldly foretold till the common Enemy became Master of his ill-got Glory repaying him with the misery of loss and that infelicity which always attends it shame and reproach For 't is observ'd that notwithstanding there were scarcely any King that ever setled the constitutions of his Government upon firmer principles that fought his Battels with braver Resolution that encountred all Emergencies of State with like indifferency and temperance yet neither could his vigilance or valour his prudence fortitude or patience so prevail against Destiny but that all his designs were stifled in the birth or frustrated at the very point of dispatch as if Heaven had decreed to lay such a curse upon the wickedness of his Parent as should weigh down all the merit of his Vertues and â—â—ast the hopes conceiv'd from them One while Famin was his Foe another time Pestilence and it was not rare for the very Elements themselves to fight against him it being more than once or twice that he had a kind of Battel with Heaven it self for his Fleets were in danger of being fired by unexpected Lightning and Thunder-Storms neither was it for a little time that he thus strugled with the perverseness of his Stars hoping the malignity of their Influences might spend it self in due season but finding they gave him no opportunity or incouragement to perform any worthy Action for several years together having plac'd all Glory so far above the reach of his Sword that 't was impossible he could at the same time appear to be
notwithstanding his great good Fortunes as to see his Glory unravel'd as well as his Happiness in great part there being nothing left him of all his great Gettings abroad purchased with so much Travel Expence and Bloodshed but only the poor Town of Calais which signified no more then a Gate of a City left open when all the rest is possest by too potent an Enemy But we must look on 't as a Curse that he inherited with his Crown not to be permitted to dye till he saw himself as his Father was forsaken of every Body but a poor Priest that only tarried to torment him with the remembrance of his Sins and left him at last as he left the World in such a state of uncertainty that our Historians are yet to seek whether to place him amongst the rank of our fortunate or unfortunate Princes the fatal divisions of his Posterity which took their first rise from his weakness being so pernicious to the whole Kingdom as well as to themselves that if the Dead know any thing of what is done amongst the Living he needed no other Hell to torture his guilty Spirit then the vision of those murthered Princes of his own Blood whose Ghosts just led one another where ere they met HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT Now as it is easie to kindle a great Fire with very little blowing when the matter is fitly dispos'd to burn so it happen'd very unluckily that from the casual Rudeness of an inconsiderable Tax-gatherer that came into the House of a poor Tiler of Deptford and would have turn'd up the Coats of his young Daughter to see whether she were of Age to pay her Poll-mony there was occasion'd so over-grown a Riot as bearing down all respect of Laws Order or Government was not to be appeas'd with the Blood of three of the principal'st Ministers of State that is to say the Chancellor although he were Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Treasurer and the Lord Chief Justice and came at last so near to Majesty it self for some of the Rebels were little less rude with the Kings own Mother then his Officer had been with their Captains Daughter that 't was thought nothing could deliver the King himself from the approaching Danger but meeting it half way which he did with so well temper'd a Courage as never King before him shew'd except Caesar and he but once or his own Father at the Battel of Poctiers when begirt with as many perhaps but not so insolent nor unworthy Foes This being as much beyond the expectation of his Years as of his Enemies charmed them into a Submission for a while but the Distemper being universal and raging and the Contagion spread insensibly through so many parts of the Kingdom it was not possible to heal the Evil with a Touch only However one would have thought so hopeful a Prince as this was the Son of so brave a Father and fortified with so unpregnable a Title could not likely have miscarried but must have stood firm as a Mountain whose top was above all Storms but the same Stars ruling at his Birth that govern'd his Great-grand-fathers Nativity 't is no marvail being of the same temper he should fall under the same fate to be kept by Flatterers from the knowledge of himself till being not himself he too late saw his Error in the experience of their Falshood The first ten years of his Government which were the better though not the longer part of it he reign'd with great splendor if so be we may properly say he reign'd whiles he was under the dispose of others taking all occasions to let those that attempted to disturb him both at home and abroad especially his right and left-hand Enemies the French and Scots feel the sharpness of his Sword and the weight of his Power forcing the first to quit their chief Design having prepar'd a Navy of 1287 Ships to invade him the other to quit their chief City which he thereupon reduced into Ashes to make a Bonefire that might give the whole Kingdom notice of his Victory But after he came to be of Age to do all himself he began very visibly to undo himself hastning the slow pace of his Deâ—â—iny by quarrelling with his Parliaments who being actuated by the subtilty of his emulous Uncles gather'd strength by the discovery of his weakness and taking all advantages against him in point of Right or Reputation urged their Priviledges so far in derogation of his Prerogative that he could not forbear telling them the very next Sessions after he was out of his Wardship as he was wont to call it that he perceived they had a mind to rebel and therefore thought he could do no better then to ask Aid of his Cosin the King of France into whose hands he said he had rather fall being a Prince then submit to his own Subjects A rash and unadvised Reply which however it seem'd to be the Result of a proud and vindictive Stomach was in truth so abject and low so unlike himself and so like his little Great-Grandsire Henry the Third that they taking Example from the Nobility of that time as he from that King immediately put the Government into the hands of thirteen Lords of whom his turbulent Uncle Gloucester was the Chief who having Divisum Imperium lookt like a great Wen upon the Face of the State that drew all the ill humours of the Body Politick to it The Duke of Ireland that was the principal Councellor of his party and his Uncle by Marriage was so amaz'd at the sudden birth of this Oligarchy that not daring to give any Opinion of his own in the Case although he were a man of sufficient Courage and Authority he put him upon advising with all the Judges possibly that what himself should think fit might pass for Law out of their mouths and accordingly Questions were fram'd to be propos'd to them by which it was easier understood what the King would have to be Law then what in truth was so To all which having receiv'd positive Resolves on the Kings side the next Consultation was how to frame such a House of Commons as might be brought to take part with the King against the Lords and forthwith Letters were directed to all the Sheriffs and Justices of Peace in every County to interpose their Credit and Authority for the chusing of such Persons Knights and Burgesses for the next Sessions as the King and his Councel had nam'd in a List sent to them This look'd like so dangerous an Industry that the Regency took the Alarm at it and trusting to no other remedy flew to Arms. The King thereupon demanded Aid of the City of London but they failing his Expectation the Lords grew so bold as to send to him to deliver up his ill Councellors whom they call'd Traytors and Seducers Upon this there were very great and grave Deliberations each man
France set forth his own Eloquence and the Kings Title so well deducing his Descent in a direct Line from the Lady Isabel Daughter to Philip the Fourth and Wife to his Grandfather Edward the Second and refuting all the old beaten Arguments brought from the Salique Law to oppose it as being neither consistent with Divinity Reason or Example he at once pleas'd and convinced all his Hearers but most especially the King himself who seem'd to be inspired with a Prophetick confidence of that success which after he had but scorning to steal any Advantage or wrong the Justice of his Title somuch as to seem to doubt 't would be denied before he would make any kind of preparation for the Conquest he sent Ambassadors to Charles the Sixth to demand a peaceable surrender of the Crown to him offering to accept his Daughter with the Kingdom and to expect no other pawn for his Possession till after his death This Message as it was the highest that ever was sent to any free Prince so he intrusted it to those of highest Credit and Trust about him these were his Uncle the Duke of Exeter a man of great esteem as well as of great Name the Arch-bishop of Dublin a very politick Prelate the Lord Gray a man at Arms the Lord High Admiral and the Bishop of Norwich the first as much renown'd for his Courage as the last for his Contrivances to whom for the greater state there was appointed a Guard of five hundred Horse to attend them The Report of this great Embassy as it arriv'd before them so it made such a Report throughout all this side of the World that all the Neighbour Princes like lissening Deer when they hear the noyse of Huntsmen in the Woods began to take the Alarm and consider which side to sly to it being so that England and France never made any long War upon one another but they ingaged all Christendom with them However the Court of France pretending themselves ignorant of the Occasion of their coming dissembled their disdain and treated them with that magnificence as if they had design'd to Complement them out of their business but after the Message was delivered with that faithful boldness that became so great an Affair they were all in that confusion that it was hard to judge whether they were more ashamed incensed or afraid giving such a return as seem'd neither compatible with the honour wisdom or courage of so renown'd a People as they are For first as they did neither deny nor allow the Kings Title but said they would make Answer by Ambassadours of their own So in the next place they were so hasty in their Counsels and the dispatch of their Ambassadors hither that they arriv'd in England almost as soon as those sent hence And lastly at the same time they desired Peace and offer'd to buy it with the tender of some Towns they gave the King an Affront which was a greater Provocation then the denyal of ten such Kingdoms for the Daulphin who in respect of the King his Fathers sickness I might rather say weakness managed the State affecting the honour to give the first Box or perhaps desiring to make any other Quarrel the ground of the approaching War which he foresaw was not to be prevented rather then that of the Title which had been already so fatally bandi'd scornfully sent the King a Present of Tenis-balls which being of no value nor reckoning worthy so great a Princes acceptance or his recommendation could have no other meaning or interpretation but as one should say he knew better how to use them then Bullets The King whose Wit was as keen as t'others Sword return'd him this Answer That in requital of his fine Present of Tenis-balls he would send him such Balls as he should not dare to hold up his Racket against them Neither was he worse then his word however his preparations seem'd very disproportionable for so great a Work For the Army he landed was no more but six thousand Horse and twenty four thousand Foot a Train so inconsiderable and by the Daulphin judg'd to be so despicable that he thought not fit to come down himself in Person to take any view of them for fear he should fright them out of the Country too soon but sent some rude Peasants to attend their Motion who incouraged by some of the Troops of the nearest Garrisons as little understanding the danger they were ingaged in as they did the language of the Enemy they were ingaged with fell in upon the Rear of his Camp but as Village Curs which fiercely set upon all Strangers having the least Rebuke with a Stone or a Cudgel retreat home whining with their Tails betwixt their Legs so they having a Repulse given them ran away and made such Out-cries as dishearten'd the Souldiers that were to second them so much that after that he marched without any Resistance as far as Callice Neither indeed saw he any Enemy till he came to give Battel to the united Forces of France at that famous Field of Agencourt where notwithstanding he was out-numbred by the French above five for one he fought them with that Resolution as made himself Master of more Prisoners then he had men in his Camp to keep them an Occasion Fortune gave him to shew at once her Cruelty and his Mercy who whilst he might have kill'd did not but when he should not was forc'd to be cruel beyond almost all Example for as he gave Quarter in the beginning of the Battel to all that ask'd it his Clemency and Gentleness being such that as he was then pleas'd to declare he consider'd them as his Subjects not as his Captives So being over-charged with their Prisoners Numbers upon a sudden and unexpected accident however of no great Consequence if it had been rightfully understood he was forc'd to write the dismal Fate of France in cold Blood and in order to the saving life destroy it For as he was seeing his wounded men drest having gotten an intire Victory as he thought and as afterward it proved a sudden out-cry alarm'd his Camp occasion'd by a new Assault of some French Troops who being the first had quit the Field were the first return'd into it again in hopes by fighting with Boyes to regain the honour they lost in refusing to fight with men these under the Leading of the Captain of Agencourt set upon the Pages Sutlers and Laundresses following the pursuit with that wonted noyse as if they would have the English think the whole Army was rally'd again and chasing them Upon this the King caus'd all the scatter'd Arms and Arrows to be recollected and his stakes to be new pitch'd and put himself into a posture of Defence neither were the English only deceived by the Shreiks and Cries of those miserable People that fell into these mens hands but all those of the French likewise that were within hearing insomuch that the Earls of Marle and
which were likewise confirm'd by Act of Parliament the great Lords having as yet heard nothing of any Commission of Surrendries which was that great Rock of Offence against which his Successor King Charles the First did so unluckily dash himself to pieces Due care being thus taken for Establishment of Truth and Order in the Church the next great Work was to establish quiet in the State that Righteousness and Peace might kiss each other which he judged to be a consideration not less necessary then prudent the active Government of his Predecessor Queen Elizabeth who led all the brave men in her time to hard duty having tired out almost a l the stirring Spirits of the Nation However though it did ease it did not generally please the People the humor of Fighting being not so wholly spent but that it broke out afterward to worse purpose it being in our Fate as has been observ'd by some Melancholy States-men that whenever we are long kept from quarrelling with others we are apt to quarrel with one another But that which discontented the Men of Mars most was to see the Faction of the Gown-men pricking up and wholly predominant Upon this lower Orb as in the Skie Aleyn Vit. H. 7. Sol constantly is nearest Mercury Neither did he take part with them so much out of the pleasure he had in Books as out of an aversness to Arms whereunto he seem'd to have such an Antipathy that by his good will he did not care to see any Sword-man within his Palace whereby the Court came by degrees to loose two points of its ancient Lustre one in the Exercise of Tilting which was an Entertainment that added much to the Grandeur and Magnificence of the late Queen and King Henry her Father the other in the choice of the Gentlemen Pentioners an Order which being set up by the Wisdom of her Grand-father Henry the Seventh a Prince of severe Gravity she was so fond of and so curious in ordering the state of their attendance that none could attain to that honour all her time but who were men of very good Quality and yet more goodly Stature who by their graceful Personage might set forth the place as she design'd the place should set forth them so that in time it became a kind of Nursery for Officers and Men of Command who were sent abroad into France and the Low-Countries to learn the Art of cutting Throats if need were and so return'd again But this King it seems being taken with no such armed Pomp neglected it so far that some of the ruffling Gallants about the Town began to speak of it with more freedom then became their Duty or Discretion taxing him downright with Pusillanimity and causless fears saying that he trifled away more money in insignificant Embassies and Negotiations for a dishonorable Peace then would have maintain'd an honorable War But he having before shut up the Gates of Janus all his talk was as we commonly say without Doors for he esteem'd it honour enough that he had conquer'd himself according to that of the Poet Fortior est qui se quam qui fortissima vincit Moenia Peace he had at home without his seeking for it O Neil the great Disturber of his Predecessors quiet being presented to him as a Prisoner by the Lord Mountjoy as soon almost as he came in which gave him the occasion to begin with the settlement of Ireland first by giving the possession of the whole Province of Ulster O Neil's Country and the sink of Rebellion to the Citizens of London who thereupon setled two Colonies there the one at Derry every since call'd London-derry t'other at Colraine which they stor'd with Four hundred Artizans whilst the King for the better supplying them with Souldiers erected a new Order of Knighthood call'd Baronets from their taking place next the Sons of Barons each of which was ingaged to lay down as much money at the Sealing of his Patent as would maintain thirty Foot Souldiers one whole year at the rate of Eight pence a day a piece which came to twenty shillings a day And the Complement of these Knights being Two hundred there was a compleat Establishment of Three thousand Souldiers without any further noise to be ready for his Service whenever he had occasion to make use of them Now in order to the having Peace abroad there needed no more but to renew the Leagues he had made before with the Princes his Neighbours under another stile The great Question was Whether he should accept of the Olive-branch from the King of Spain with whom his Predecessor had so long contended for the Laurel and upon debating the whole matter besides the motives of the Half-peace already made with him whilst he was King of Scotland and the whole benefit of Trade that he was like to have as he was King of England the certainty of setting the Catholick and the most Christian Kings together by the Ears the uncertainty of being able to raise monies to maintain a War so easily as Queen Elizabeth did who had the knack of borrowing money which serv'd her to as good purpose as if it had been given the Parliament being for the most part the Pay-masters there were many Reasons of State some whereof were not fit to be publish'd perhaps not to be understood which induced him to call in the Letters of Mart and conclude that League which how acceptable it was to both Kings may be guess'd by the mutual Caressings of each other with extraordinary Embassies and Presents and the more then ordinary Ratification of the Articles of Peace but how far the People were content to have any Friendship with the Catholick King it is easie to guess especially after the discovery of that Catholick Plot commonly call'd the Gun-powder Treason which as it was contriv'd in a hotter place then Spain so it was hatch'd up in Darkness never to partake of the Light but when it was to be all Light and to give such a terrible blow as was at once to Extinguish the Light the Hope and the Glory of this Nation This the All-seeing Eye of Providence which pierces thorow the dark Womb of Conspiracy and blasts the Embrio of Treason before it can be form'd miraculously detected to the amazement of all Mankind no body imagining there could be such danger by Fire so near unto the Water the meaning of it being so little understood even after it was discovered that neither could the Lord Monteagle who receiv'd the first notice in a Letter writ in an unknown hand tell to what Friend he owed his Preservation nor any one else guess from what Enemy they were to expect their destruction till the King himself by inspiration rather then instinct yet admonish'd perhaps by the subversion of that House wherein his Father was murther'd apprehended by the word Blow what the Element must be that was to be so subtil in its Execution as that they who were hurt for
terrible by the ominous Reverberations from Scotland who ecchoed to those Murmurs here with such a dismal Concordance as shew'd to what Instrument they were tuned This drew him into that Kingdom to correct the growing Distemper before it because too virulent wherein he proceeded as wise Physitians do that draw the pains from the Head by Applications to the Feet but as it is hard to discern the true meaning of any mans Intention which being the Soul of every Action is invisible and very easie to abuse it with a malitious Interpretation that is not only against its own but against all Sence and Reason so it happen'd to him who beginning with the Ratification of the Negative Confession subscrib'd by his Father and the whole Kingdom Anno 1580. which was a Renuntiation of the Papal Authority and all the corrupt Principles depending thereon he was charged by those that had before felt the smart of the Commission of Surrendries and were inforc'd to disgorge those Sacrilegious grants they had obtained during his Fathers minority to have a design of bringing in Popery a word that turn'd every mans Blood into Choler and gave the hottest allarm to tender Consciences that ever that cold Clime knew the train of whose Calumnies was so laid that it quickly took fire here in England where the Presbyterian as yet call'd the Puritan Party having as they thought matter enough of Scandal long before from the unhappy Toleration of Sports on the Sabbath-day and the turning of the Communion Table Altar-wise began to chackle as one expresses it like the Geese in the Capitol bespattering the Bishops with that vehemency that much of their unbeseeming Froath fell upon the King himself And for the more intire Concurrence of Civil and Religious Clamors the same evil Spirit that furnish'd them with meet matters of Complaint turning Man-Midwife eased them of many a Spiritual Throw by opening the Womb of their Conspiracy before its full time making way for the new birth of that long expected Parliament from whose heat all the Factions took life and like quickned Snakes began to hiss with such invenom'd rage as shew'd a manifest contempt of all Authority pressing now upon the Kings Conscience as much as they would have the World to think he had press'd upon theirs before not only refusing to admit the use of the Liturgy however compos'd by their own Bishops in any of their Parochial Churches but denying the King himself the priviledge of having it read in his own private Chappel at Edenburgh And least the World should doubt that their Insolence was not come to its wish'd for height they took upon them the marks of Soveraign Power indicting without his Licence or Knowledge four principal Tables or Counsels in the said City one of the Nobility another of the Gentry a third of the Burgesses and a fourth of the Ministry Out of which there was set up a general Table of select Commissioners all alike Enemies to Unity and Uniformity who were to chalk out the Methods for abolishing Superstition and Tyranny by which was meant in their mystical Sense Episcopacy and Monarchy In order to the carrying on of which dâ—sorderly Proceedings they seiz'd as well the Crown as the Church Lands and notwithstanding their hate of Forms began so well a Form'd Rebellion that the unhappy King was provok'd beyond his natural temper to repell Force by Force But before his Justice could reach them they had so firm'd their Faction by their Solemn League and Covenant which was not like that ancient Bond taken in the Year 590. wherein they were bound to the maintenance of the Kings Person and Authority for in this they swore all to the mutual Defence and Assistance of each other against all Persons opposing them whatever not excepting the King himself that he was glad to close in a Pacification which after produc'd a Cessation that by the Artifice of some of their Friends here working upon his tenderness of shedding Blood concluded with a disbanding of his in order to the letting down their Army but after abusing him in this as well as in all other their Intreagues for they determin'd never to sheath the Sword till they got their ends he was forc'd to reinforce himself by new Leavies which necessitated the calling another Parliament here at home This prov'd so much worse then all that had been before it in that they were grown more learn'd in the Discipline of Daring and being fully instructed by the Complaints of all that were weary of the Government or Governours like the first Reformers of Germany they sum'd up their Centum Gravamina in a general Remonstrance which was carried on with that unparallel'd Contumacy that every one that was licentiously inclin'd pleas'd himself with the Imagination of having the Ball of Soveraignty flung down to be scambled for by the Multitude whose Heads being made giddy by the continual Noise of those Spiritual Trumpeters that fill'd their Ears with the joyful sound of the long look'd for Promises of a new Heaven and a new Earth and the Description of such a Kingdom wherein as they said the Saints and Servants of the most High were to reign by a Special Commission written in the Stars which none could read but these Astronomical Rabbins themselves They began like men Spiritually drunk to defie all Carnal Powers and having before broke the Windows of the Royal Pallace resolv'd in the next place to pluck down the two great Pillars of the Throne These were the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the Earl of Strafford the one presiding in Spiritual t'other in Temporal Matters both of whom were Impeached of High Treason the one to gratifie their Malice t'other to secure their Fears the last was the first brought to stake whose Crimes savouring rather of Injustice to the Subject then Unfaithfulness to the King proving no otherwise Treasonable but by accumulation of so many lesser Misdemeanours together as might make up by heap what was wanting in the weight of his Guilt The King refus'd to condemn him till he had first consulted the Judges in point of Law and the Bishops in point of Equity by either of whom being left in greater doubt if possible then before having a natural aversion to all State Phlebotomy as well knowing that this Blood-letting though it might stop the Feaver for some little time would so weaken his Power that he should not be able to resist any future Distemper the consideration whereof brought him into a State Convulsion that drew his Judgment several wayes before he could determine what to do Honour and Justice press'd him on the one side the Common Interest as 't was pretended on which hung the weight of the Publick as well as his own private Peace urg'd him on the other side either grating upon the most tender and sensible part his Conscience which like a Needle betwixt two Loadstones that trembling with equal Inclinations to either at the same time seems to turn
when he was so seemingly lost by the help of the same Invisible Hand that after led his Son thorow many greater dangers and brought him home safe beyond all hope but stooping to this low Pitch to subject himself to those who had so much despis'd all Subjection they thought it a Complement to him to estimate him at so high a rate as that of their Arrears Had he cast himself upon the Parliament in the first place 't is possible by letting go his hold so unexpectedly as he did he might have given them the Fall when they were so hard tugging with him it being more then probable that the long abus'd People finding how he not only sought Peace but pursu'd it might have been mov'd to have indeavour'd his Restoration as tumultuously as they did his Dethronation restoring his Dignity as disorderly as they took it from him which how much the Hogen Mogens of Westminster dreaded appears by the surprize upon them when a little before his giving himself up to the Scots it was bruted that he was conceal'd in London But as in great Storms great Pilots are forc'd when they can no longer bear Sail to let the Vessel drive and take its chance so he being no longer able to Stem the Tide after having done all that could be hop'd for from Prudence was fain to commit himself to Providence and follow it without Light or Compass thorow many dark Dispensations and fantastick Changes the result of their Inconstancy Inhumanity and Impiety from whom he was afterward to expect his doom Trust makes us our own Traytors nor could he Alâ—yn Vit. H. 7. Be sav'd by Faith but Infidelity Having now lost his Authority from the time he lost his Liberty as the last was the occasion of ending the first Civil War so the first was the cause of beginning a second For now all the Doggs fell together by the Ears over the Marybone The Army quarrelled with the Parliament they with one another the Commons differed from the Lords the Scots divided as much from the English the Presbyterians from the Independants Great was the Dissention amongst the Brethren and all for Place Power or Profit for either of which the King appearing to be the best Pawn the Army took him from the Parliament Commissioners to secure him in their own Custody which was so ill resented by the ruling Members that all their Consultations were about disbanding them Upon which the Army drew up a Charge and disbanded Eleven of them the first * The now Lord Hollis whereof was the first of those Five Members impeached by the King who were so little able to trifle with them as they did with him that they were fain not only to quit the House but the Kingdom After this the Army sent up a †The A mies Representation An. 1647. Representation as they call'd it to the two Houses propâ—sing 1. To purge out all those that ought not to sit there meaning all the Presbyterian Party 2. To disable those who had shew'd themselves disaffected to the Army that they might do no mischief meaning those who had voted with the Eleven Secluded Members 3. To settle a determinate Period for their Sitting intending to have all rul'd by the Sword 4. To give Accompt of the vast Sums they had received during the War intending the Overplus to be divided amongst themselves This so incouraged the Independent Party that they voted in favour of the Army to take the Militia of the City of London out of the Citizens hands who were for the most part of the Presbyterian Faction Upon which a Party of Apprentices came down and making the grand Representatives Prisoners in their own House did as I may say ram their Vote down their Throats making them not only retract it but Vote the Militia back again to the City Hereupon they call'd for Aid to the Army and the apprehensions of what Effects their coming up might have divided the Common-Councel of London as much as the last Riot had those of Westminster so that the General easily entred at the breach and possess'd himself of the Strength of the City Now as Maggots are ingendred by warmth out of Corruption so by the heat of these corrupted Factions there was kindled a Generation of Vermin call'd Agitators which were like the Locusts that rose out of the smoak of the bottomless Pit mentioned in the Revelations c. 9. v. 3. to whom sayes the Text was given power like as the Scorpions of the Earth have power who not liking that the King should continue so near as Hampton-Court found an expedient to fright him from thence by muttering something like an intended Assassination the discovery whereof they knew would quickly be brought to him and tempt him to make a private Escape knowing well that they had him as a Bird in a string and could take him again when they pleas'd which Counsel if it had been rejected by him 't is probable he had been murther'd in good earnest but he flying thereupon to the Isle of Wight where he was secur'd by their fast Friend the * Hamen Governour there they thought they might adventure to treat with him at that distance Accordingly they consented that the Parliament should tender him these four modest Propositions following to be reduced into Acts. 1. That it should be lawful for the Parliament to order and dispose the Militia as they pleas'd for the future without his consent and Treason for any to assemble in Arms above the number of Thirty without Commission from them 2. That the Houses should sit at what time they pleas'd and adjourn their sitting to what place they pleas'd and meet at their own pleasure and discretion for ever after 3. That all Oaths Interdictions and Declarations set forth in Publick by the King against either House should be accompted and declared void 4. That all whom the King had dignified with any Titles from the time himself departed with the Great Seal should be degraded of their Honour Which the Scotch Commissioners we must remember it to their Honour thought so derogatory to that of the Kings and contrary to former Ingagements that they follow'd after the Parliament Commissioners with a kind of State Hue and Cry and protested against them I hope it was not all a Juggle for they had been undone doubtless if the King had sign'd them but it took effect as they desired The King refused them and thereby gave them as they would have it thought just cause to refuse him Whereupon they pass'd that never to be forgotten Vote of Non-Addresses After which the Agitators vanish'd and the Committee of Darby-house took place which consisting most of Officers were now the Plenipotentiaries of the Kingdom And near the same time the Power of England was thus given up to them they had the Resignation made of that of Ireland too The King being now civilly dead and one would think buried the Prisons of Princes proving
Bowl once put besides its Byass goes the further from its Mark the more 't is inforced THE FIFTH DYNASTY OF NORMANS OF NORMANS THE Normans so call'd by the French in respect of the Northern Clime from whence they came heretofore call'd * Dionis Patav l. 8. c. 4. Scandia since Norwey were another Branch of the antient Cimbri seated near the frozen Sea whose Country being too barren to nourish so fruitful a People they disonerated their Multitudes wheresoever force could make way for them Some stragling as far as the Mediterranian others farther Southward some few lost in the Frozen Sea attempting the Desert Isles far Northward but most following the Sun infested their Southern Neighbours About the time of Charles the Great they began to grow very troublesome by their frequent Pyracies making several Inroads into England but especially into France pressing so hard upon Lewis the Holy that he was fain to empty all his frontier Garrisons and quitting the Maritime draw them into the interior and more considerable parts of his Empire as the Spirits are drawn to the heart upon all Commotions to preserve life Their Successes in Germany England Scotland and Holland having made them so bold that they doubted not to advance as far as Paris where after divers disputes with Charles the Bald Charles le Grosse and Charles the Simple which concluded with an honourable Composition they six'd their two Chiefs Hastang and Rollo in the most fertile and best parts of that goodly Country the first being made Earl of Charters the last Duke of Neustria from him call'd afterwards Normandy the seventh in descent from whom was Duke William better known to us here by the Name of The Conquerour who with like confidence and not unlike Injustice invaded England as his Ancestors did France pretending a Donation of the Soveraignty from his near Kinsman King Edward the Confessor confirm'd as he alledged by his last Will and Testament in the presence of most of the English Nobility a pretence that could have been of no validity had it not been back'd by more then humane Power to disinherit Edgar Atheling who as being of the whole English Blood was rather Heir to the Kingdom then to the King and so by no Law could have his Right collated to a Stranger but the use he made of it was to convince the World that he had more Reason not to say Right to demand than Harold to detain the Crown who having put Prince Edgar besides the Succession desied the Justice of all Mankind as he was an Usurper and so it was a design worthy his Sword who had so fortunately vanquish'd even before he wrote Man those great difficulties at home given by the Opposition of Domestick Rivals no less puissant and populous then Harold to put him at least out of Possession But that which seems strange and was questionless a great surprize upon Harold was the conjunction of the Peers of France in an Action that was so apparently hazardous to the greatness of their own State every addition to so near and dangerous a Neighbour grown long before too powerful being a kind of diminution unto them whereof there can be no probable Cause assign'd beyond their natural affectation of Glory and wantonness of Courage but that Influence which the Conquerors Father in Law Baldwin Earl of Flanders had by being then Governour of the King and Kingdom of France who not only ingaged most of the grtatest Persons there as the Duke of Orleance the Earls of Champaigne Blois Brittain Ponthieue Maine Nevers Poictiers Aumale and Anjou but drew in the * Henry IV. Emperour himself and many of the German Princes to side with him This Preparation being such as it was it cannot be thought that the English lost any honour by mingling blood with men of that Quality and Condition the sound of whose Names was perhaps little less terrible then that of their Arms much less takes it from the reputation of their Courage to have heâ—d up the dispute but for one day only having fought it out as they did till the number of the slain so far exceeded that of the living as made the Conqueror doubt there would not be enough left to be conquer'd Who knows not that Fate made way for the Normans where their Swords could not guiding them by a Series of Successes near about the same time to the expectation of an universal Empire having but a little before made themselves Lords of Apulia Calabria Scicily and Greece and inlarged their Conquests as far as Palestine But what we allow to the Courage we must take from the Wisdom of the English that being subdued they continued Nescia vinci vexing the Conqueror after they had submitted to him by such continual Revolts as suffered him not to sheath his Sword all his Reign or if he did urged him to continue still so suspicious of their Loyalty that he was sorc'd alway to keep his hand upon the hilt ready to draw it forth having not leisure to intend what was before established much less to establish what he before intended So that they put upon him a kind of necessity of being a Tyrant to make good his being a King Yet such was the moderation of his mind that he chose rather to bind them stricter to him by the old Laws then to gall them with any new guarding his Prerogative within that Cittadel of the Burrough Law as they call'd it from whence as often as they began to mutiny he batter'd them with their own Ordnance and so made them Parties to their own wrong and however some that design'd to pre-occupate the grace of Servitude gave him the ungrateful Title of Conqueror which he esteem'd the greatest misfortune his good Fortune had brought upon him thereby to proclaim his Power to be as boundless as his Will which they took to be above all Limitation or Contradiction yet we find he suffered himself to be so far conquer'd by them that instead of giving to he took the Law from them and contentedly bound himself up by those which they call'd St. Edward's Laws which being an Abbreviation of the great triple Code of Danique Merke and West-Sexe Laws was such a form of Combination as he himself could not desire to introduce a better and if any thing look'd like absolute 't was his disarming them when he found them thus Law-bound hand and foot After which he erected divers Fortresses where he thought fit dispos'd all Offices of Command and Judicature to such as he could best confide in and by that Law of Cover feu obliging them to the observation of better hours of Repose then they had formerly been us'd to gave himself more rest as well as them As for his putting the Law into a Language they understood not whereby they were made more learn'd or less litigious then they were before it was that the Lawyers only had cause to complain of whose practise at the first perhaps was a
little disordered by it but those since who have found the benefit of having the Laws mysterious and less intelligible have little cause to decry him for it unless for this cause that they are never pleas'd with any fighting King In fine he strain'd not the Prerogative so high but his Son Henry the First let it down again as low when he restored to the People their ancient freedom of General Assemblies or rather permitted them a kind of share with himself in the Government by instituting a form of Convention so much nobler then any thing they had been acquainted with in elder timety in that the Peerage sate as so many Kings parting stakes with Soveraigns if what * Who was Lord Chief Justice to his Grandson Hen. 3. Bracton tells us be true who saith there were many things which by law the King could not do without them and some things which legally they might do without him which those that have read upon the Statute of Magna Charta can best explain This was not therefore improperly call'd the Parliament in respect of the Freedom of parlying after another fashion then had been permitted to their Ancestors in former Meetings which being Ex more or as they were wont to phrase it of Custome Grace during all the time of the Saxon Kings we cannot imagine their Debates to be much less restrained then themselves who attending in the Kings Palace like the Lords of the Councel at this day having had the honour to give their Opinions in any point of State submitted the final Judgment and determination to the Kings will and pleasure And whereas then the Commoners were wholly left out of all Consultations unless with the Learned Lambert we may think them included in the word Barones which seems to have been as equivocal a term heretofore in England as that of Laird yet in Scotland they now were made partakers of the like priviledge of voting as the Lords so that in Henry the Third his time to look no further backward we find them call'd by the yet continued stile of Knights Citizens and Burgesses to consult together with the Lords pro Pace asseverandâ firmandâ c. as the †lib. St. Alban f. 207. 4 H. 3. Record expresses it neither sate they when they met as Cyphers to those great Figures For when Pope Alexander the Fourth would have revoked the Sentence of Banishment past upon his proud Legate Adomare Bishop of Winchester for that he was not as he alledged subject to lay Censure they took upon them to give their Answer by themselves and it was a bold one That though the King and Lords should be willing to revoke it ‖ Vt pat Chart. orâ—g sub sigil de Mountford Vic. tot Communitat Rot. Parl. 42 Hen. 3. Communitas tamen ipsius ingressum in Angliam nullatenus sustineret How far their Priviledges were afterward confirmed and enlarged by several Kings successively but more particularly by that most excellent Prince Henry the Fifth who first allowed * 2 Hen. 5. The Petition of Right and permitted it to be entred in their Journals as the Great Standard of Liberty is not unknown from which time it hath been esteemed the second Great Charter of England whereby we were manumitted into that degree of Freedom as no Subjects in the world enjoy the like with like security from the fear of future bondage For as no man can be made lyable to the payment of any more or other Taxes then what himself layes upon himself by his representatives in that great Pan-Anglio call'd the Parliament so all the Kings of England since that time have been pleas'd to accept the Aids given by them even for the necessary support of the Government as so many Freewill-Offerings And well it is that they esteem them free since they are not obtained without a kind of Composition I might say obligation to give good Laws for good mony wherein the performance on the Princes part alwaies precedes that on the Peoples But there is yet something further then all this that renders the Norman Conquest so much more considerable then either that of the Romans Saxons or Danes by how much it spread its wings over the Seas into those goodly Provinces of the South never known to the English before thereby not only giving them Title to keep their Swords from rusting as long as they had any Arms to draw them forth but the Advantage therewithal of a mutual Conversation with a civiliz'd People who introduced so happy a Change in Laws and Language in Habits and Humours in Manners and Temperature that not only their rough I might say rude Natures no way inclin'd before to any kind of Gaiety admitted of smoother Fashions and quicker Motions but their dull Phlegmatick Complexions pale and wan by the continued use of dozing dreggy Liquor Ale became as ruddy as the Wine they drank which having more of Spirit and Fire then that other heavy composition sublimated their Courage and Wit and render'd them more lofty and eloquent both in Action and Language the last being before so asperous harsh and gutteral that an hours discourse together would have indanger'd the skin of their throats but being softned by the French and Latine Accents it became so gentle and smooth that as a Modern Master of Elocution hath observ'd 't is now so soft and pleasing that Lord Faulkland Prefat to Sands his Translation of the Psalms those From whom the unknown Tongue conceals the Sence Ev'n in the sound must find an Eloquence From the Normans likewise we had that honourable distinction of Sirnames which however they borrowed in the first place from the French who as Du Tillet tells us were about the year 1000 much delighted with the humour of Soubriquets * Vid Buck. Vit. Rich. 3. or giving one another Nic-names as we commonly call them insomuch that two of the very chiefest Houses amongst them the Capets and the Plantaginets had no other rise for their Names were continued no where with that certainty and order as amongst us here to the great renown and honour of our Families whose Nobility if it exceed not the date of the Norman Conquest may yet without any disparagement compare with any of those who call themselves the unconquer'd Nations of the World It being space long enough considering the vicissitude of time and power of Chance to antiquate the glory of great States much more of private Families and few there are that have attain'd to that Age. For however Honour like old Age magnifies its reverence by multiplying its years yet it is to be considered that there are visible decayes attend Veneration and it may so fall out that Names as well as Men may out-live themselves while the glory of a Family by over-length of time being less known may be the more suspected to have been but imaginary as some who exceeding the common bounds of certainty do pretend to justifie
great men of Poictou Britain and Normandy being offended that the Regency of the young King should be committed to a Woman and a Spaniard But this design ending with like precipitation as it was begun after the Expence of some Blood and more Treasure neither of which he could well spare he return'd home attended with a petty Army of those Poictovins and Britains who by taking his part had forfeited their own Estates at home These therefore he conceiv'd himself obliged in point of honour to provide for and which way to do it but by displacing such of his principal Officers who were in places of greatest benefit he knew not These were his Cheif-Justiciary his High Treasurer and the Marshal of his Houshold upon whom therefore he permitted the envious Rabble to discharge a volly of accusations to the end that driving them out with shame and loss he might fill up their places with those strangers These great Pillars for they were men whose wisdom he had more need of then they of his favour being thus thrown down and broken to peices by their fall so shook the whole frame of his Throne that every body expected when he would have fallen himself too divers of the Nobility that were nearest to him removing themselves for fear of the worst Amongst the rest was that famous Richard who after the death of his brother William was Earl Marshal a man questionless of great honour and Probity who finding his violences to increase being heightned by the ill advice of the two Peters De Rupibus and De Rivallis the one a Britain t'other a Poictovin now become the two great Ministers of State combined with the rest of the English Nobility to fetch him off from these Rocks first intreating and after threatning him that unless he would put these and all other strangers from him they would remove both him and them and chuse another King Upon this bold menace the plainest and boldest that Subjects could give a Prince De Rupibus advised him to require pledges for their Allegiance which they refusing to give without any Process of Law he causes them to be Proclaym'd Out-laws and Seizes on all their Lands with the profits whereof he rewards the Poictovins This brought both Parties to Arm again with like animosity but more Cruelty then in his Fathers time So that for two years together there was no cessation from all the violences and depredations that usually attend a civil War till the Bishops finding by the much blood had been shed that the heat on either side was much abated interpos'd with the King to do the Barons reason and forc'd him to yeild though he could not consent to a restoration of their Lands and Liberties and to the banishment of all strangers This however proved to be but a temporary shift which the present necessity of his affaires drove him to for not long after the two great Incendiaries were admitted again to Grace and so near came he to the example of his Father as to endeavour a revocation of his Grants by the Popes Authority being done as he alleadged beyond his Power and without consent of the Church by which harsh Intention though it took not effect it is scarce imaginable how much he added to the conceiv'd displeasure of the People to whom however he had no regard till he had wasted himself so far by his profusion and supine Stupidity that he was reduc'd through extremity of want to truckle under his Parliaments who knowing their own Power and his dependence on them for money for as a modern * Sir R. Bakeâ— Vit. H. 3. writer observes his taxations were so many they may be reckon'd amongst his annual revenues scarce any year passing without a Parliament but no Parliament breaking up without a Tax as so many Tyrants press'd no less upon him one way then he upon them the other till at last he became as weary of asking as they of giving him supplies and having no other means to maintain his Riot after he had canvass'd his Officers by chopping and changing of places and rais'd what he could without right or reason he fell to selling his Lands mortgaged Gascoin pawn'd his Jewels and after his Crown and when he had neither Credit nor pawns of his own left he expos'd the Jewels and Ornaments of Saint Edwards Shrine to whoever would lay down most for them After this he preyd upon the Jews the People that always felt the weight of his necessities Neither were his Christian Subjects so free but that he found means to squeeze them by Loans Benevolences and New-years gifts all which not sufficing he fell at last to down-right Beggery and sent to the Clergy men for several Summes to be given him as Alms. And being reduc'd to this incredible lowness when he found he could not prevail upon their Charity he try'd how far he could work upon their piety by pretending to undertake the Cross but that Project failing him too the last and most fatal shift he had was to resign to the King of France whatever right he had in the Dutchy of Normandy the Earldoms of Anjou Poictou Tourene and Main and all for no more then three hundred Crowns and that of Anjovin money too a pitiful Summ to redeem a half lost Crown The Prince likewise unfortunately participating in the wants of his Father was driven to Mortgage several pieces of his Lands too to supply his Particular Necessities And now all things being gone that were valuable or vendible the Barons finding him naked and disarm'd thought not fit to delay the matter longer but being call'd to that fatal Parliament at Oxford in a hot season of the year when all their bloods were boyling and out of temper without more debate they first secur'd London the onely Magazine to begin a Rebellion by shutting up the Gates and after secur'd the Kingdom by shutting up the Ports to prevent the inlet of Strangers appointing twenty four Conservators as they call'd them to manage the Government whereof twelve were to be nam'd by the King twelve by themselves But he thinking it too great a Diminution of his Majesty to consent to any nomination of his own left their twelve call'd the Douze Peers to take the Reâ—ormation into their hands who displacing aâ—l whom they pleas'd to call Evil Counsellors left none about him that were able or perhaps willing to give him advice and grew so insolent at last as to banish amongst other Strangers some of his nearest Relations Out of these as it happens upon all Changes where the People are to be amus'd with Novelty there was chosen afterwards a Triumvirate to be Super-intendent over the Twelve These were the Earl of Leicester the Earl of Gloucester and the Lord Spencer to whom the three great Ministers of State the Chancellor the High-Treasurer and the Chief Justiciar were appointed humble assistants And because 't was believ'd that the Liberty of the People depended on the
ever their Wives had to the Father in attempting to beat down the Pulpit about that Stone-Priests ears that assaid to beat down his Title answering his potent Patron the Duke of Buckingham with a Sullenness that shew'd no less contempt of his Dignity then of the others Divinity Yet after all this honest obstinacy the very next day after they Apostatized into that Compliance as to suffer themselves to be made meer Properties in that most ridiculous Pageantry of State when the aforesaid Duke made it a thing of such great difficulty to get the Protector to shew himself to them out of a high Gallery for nearer he was not to come not knowing as it was to be suppos'd what the intent of their Address was until his Grace saluted his Highness with the tender of their Allegiance and in a long Oration by which speaking for them he rather spoke to them declared that they were abundantly satisfied not only in the Justice but Necessity of his taking the Royal Authority upon him At which the Usurper started being struck dumb with passion for a while but after he had conquer'd his Anger and Amazement he good Man return'd to his wonted Clemency and gently reproached the Duke his Cosin of Unkindness telling him he little thought that he of all men would have moved him to the thing that he knew of all things in the World he most declin'd protesting it was far from him to do such wrong to his deceased Brother and his sweet Children and to his own upright Conscience this he spoke trembling as doubting the Multitude might close with him and cry Amen But scarce were the words out of his Mouth before the Duke seemingly out of his Senses transported with a just indignation to see their profer'd Love scorn'd reply'd like a truly Loyal Traytor Sir I must further add that since it is so well known that your Brothers Children are Bastards they shall never be admitted to the Crown of England and therefore if your Highness shall neither regard your self nor us so much as to accept the Trust We are directly determin'd to confer it upon some one of the House of Lancaster that will have respect to the general Good This made the Crocodile weep and now acknowledging he was not born for himself he so far deny'd himself as to accept the honour thrust upon him by the giddy Multitude who ecchoing to the Duke their Speaker cry'd out all as if it had been with one voice God save King Richard God save King Richard This made him descend the only way to ascend and like that Raven at Rome which flying over the Market-place when a great shout was given fell down amongst the People he condescended and very formally to salute all the Rout becoming on the sudden so gracious so debonair so obliging a Prince that they forgot all their former Exceptions their discontent vanishing in an instant like a Fogg upon the Suns Rising dispell'd by the rayes of the present Grace he did them And now being King who would not but have him so It was high time as the Vulgar Proverb hath it to put the Children to bed and lay the Goose to the fire For after having seen them thus undrest and strip'd naked there remains no more but to draw the Curtains and leave them to their rest like Lambs in the Lions Den who could not sleep at all till he was ascertain'd they had slept their last For which black purpose he call'd a bloody Villain out of his Bed to smother them in theirs who perform'd that horrid deed of Darkness with so much secresie that the truth of his falshood could not be detected till within these very few weeks when some occasionally digging in the Tower at the place where it seems that poor Priest buried them who afterwards dyed for his Piety they found the Coffin and in it the Bones of both the Princes as well his whom Perkin Werbeck personated as the King his Brother which I take it are yet to be seen or were very lately in the Custody of Sir Thomas Chicheley the Master of the Ordnance to whom his Majesty has intrusted the making a fitting Monument for them in the Abbey of Westminster HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE LOVALTO MELIE HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE Yet after all this great care of his to secure his Greatness he run a risk of losing it the very same way he got it his antipathy to the House of York being such for though he were but of the half blood of Lancaster he retain'd their whole hatred even after the consummation of his Nuptials that the other Faction perceiving his Marriage to be an act of Necessity rather then Choice wherein his Nature strove with his Interest and his Ambition with his Affection which should justle the other out they took that umbrage at his coldness that doubting their own they invaded his Security countering his Greatness with something that so amazed the Common People that not being well able to judge whom they ought to oppose like those at Barnet-Field that fatally mistook the Earl of Oxford's Stars for King Edward the Fourth his Suns they knew not whom to obey blinding their Eyes by continual false Lights Amongst which there were no Apparitions terrified them more then those Aiery Typhons Lambert Perkin and Wilford the two first of which adventur'd on such Personations as wanted only Belief to have charm'd all his Forces without further Inchantation and would doubtless have unravel'd his felicity had not the parts which were found in his Vertue as well as those in his Fortune been such as were no less matchless then their Villany But there are some who conclude from their being so silently vanquish'd as they were that all except only those two walking Ghosts of Edward Plantaginet Earl of Warwick and Richard Duke of York were Spirits of his own raising and nourish'd by himself because he would have the more reason not to reign in the Right of his Wife the Glory of whose House he purposed to extinguish as they do Torches which being held downward are put out by the superfluity of their own matter But this as all other his great Acts of State is rather guest at then understood as it was his desire it should giving therefore and not improperly the Percullis the Emblem of Fastness for his Device to forbid all approaches to his Secrets no less then to his Power it being natural to him to keep himself at such a distance and his Heart as that of Kings ought to be so inscrutable that he might render himself thereby more awful to his Counsellors at home and more revear'd of his Confederates abroad to whom he appear'd like one with a dark Lanthorn keeping them alwayes in the Light towards him whilst he himself was not perceiv'd by them In which great point of Glory the great King of France would have been his
consequences of which being justly to be suspected he made use of their present apprehensions to renew the Treaty and by his contrivance there came a Letter to the King from Melancthon to whom the King seem'd alwayes to have great regard exhorting him to perfect the Reformation begun as well in the Doctrinal as the Ceremonial part of Worship To which the King by advice of Gardiner gave this Answer That he would make a League with them in honest Causes as he had done with the Duke of Juliers and after that he would treat of an Accord in Religion This being no way satisfactory to them much less to Cromwell who had slatter'd them with hopes of a better Accommodation he cast about another way to compass his end and knowing very well that the King did alwayes prefer his Pleasure before his Revenge as those that mean to take great Fishes bait their Hooks with flesh so he held up the Treaty with the Proposal of a new Match that he believ'd could not but be very acceptable not only in respect of the Kings having been near three Years a Widower but for that it was such as he said would at once anger and curb the Emperor the Popes only Executioner to make good his late Fulmination This was a Daughter to the Duke of Cleve who being a Protestant and Father in Law to the Duke of Saxony and next Neighbour to the Emperors Dominions in the Low Countries there seem'd to be in the Proposal great considerations of State besides that of Riches and Beauty the last being the first thing in the Kings Thoughts wherein Hans Holbin the famous Painter contributed much to the deceiving him which whether it prov'd more unfortunate to her or Cromwell I cannot say but it so fell out that the King disgusting her after he saw her was easily prevail'd with to repudiate her and consequently to reject the Match-maker who having it in his Fate to be undone as he was at first set up by the Smock was sacrificed to the Envy of the People rather then his Masters Displeasure who let them lay the load of his Faults upon him and being a Prince that drew upon all his great Ministers more blame then either they could bear or durst answer he left him to perish under the weight of it And which made his Case more deplorable perhaps then that of most others that felt the weight of his Iron Rod and therefore look'd more like a Judgment from Heaven then Earth was First that he suffer'd him to be condemn'd at the same time all other men by a general and free pardon were indempnified from the same Crimes of which he stood accus'd Secondly in that he died like Phalaris by an Instrument as some say of his own inventing Thirdly and lastly that after having been Vicegerent to the Defender of the Faith he should dye as an Heretick for opposing the Faith after having had the repute of a faithful Servant indeed so faithful that as Cranmer's Letter to the King yet to be seen testifies he cared not whom he displeas'd to serve his Majesty he should dye like one that had merited no favour from him That he who was so vigilant to detect all Treasons in their Embrio should dye like a Traytor himself That he that had no bounds set to his Authority should dye for exceeding his Commission Lastly That he who was the only Master of Requests and gave an answer to all men that made any Addresses to the King should himself dye unheard as well as unpitied But when we consider all this we must conclude the end of some mens Rise is to keep others from Falling Providence oftentimes upholding Justice even by Injustice that so by correcting some men causlesly she may certainly teach all men Caution The King having thus rid himself of his new Wife and his old Servant both submitting to his Will the first with the loss of her Estate and Dignity for instead of being his Queen she was adopted his Sister the last with the loss of both his Estate and Life he found the means to repair the want of the one though he could not of the other by taking to his Bed perhaps with no disparity to his Greatness if there had been none betwixt her own Vertue and Beauty the fair Lady Katherine Howard Neece to the Duke of Norfolk who seems to be born to be a Scourge of the Injustice shew'd to his former Wives whilst her Incontinence under the veil of a clear and most modest behaviour appear'd so notorious that being confessed by her self he himself was forc'd to suffer in the shame with her which he was so sensible of that we find by a Law ex post facto he labour'd to prevent the like for the future And now being as it were weary of Pleasures of that kind this being his fifth Wife that was executed or suffer'd worse his Love gave place once more to his Ambition which he gratified with a new Title or rather the Superfoetation of an old one causing himself to be stiled King of Ireland whereas none of his Predecessors were otherwise stiled then Lords thereof which as it was in the first place intended by him as an additional honour to that Nation rather then to himself so in the last place he did it to prevent James the Fifth of Scotland who had an Invitation from some of the discontented Nobility there to have taken it on him having before affronted him by assuming the Title of Defender of the Faith with the addition only of the word Christian as if there were any other Faith but what was in truth so and because he was resolv'd to quarrel him upon it he sent to require Homage to be paid him for that Kingdom urging that the Kings of that Nation had for many Ages submitted themselves in a qualified Condition of Vassalage under the Kings his Ancestors both before and since the Conquest This begat a War which ended not with the Life of that King being struck to the heart with the melancholy apprehensions of being over-match'd who dying left a young Daughter to succeed whom King Henry thought a fitting Wife for his Son Prince Edward and accordingly afterward in despight of all the tricks of the French Party that then rul'd there he brought it to such a Treaty as amounted to a Contract being under Hands and Seals of both sides But the Scots shewing themselves by their wonted breach of Faith to be true Scots all ended in War wherein though he were victorious yet the main business was nothing advanc'd by the Success there being more done then became a Suiter for Alliance and too little for one pretending to Conquest Hereupon he was forc'd to try the Fortune of another Treaty with the discontented Earl of Lenox who having formerly been set up by the French to be Governour of the young Queen and the Kingdom but deserted by them when he had most need of their aid he was
unsettledness of the Times or of mens Minds rather whilst some were led by Conscience others by their Temporal Concerns some out of Love to Reformation and others out of fear of Superstition some again out of desire of Change but most out of dread of Forreign Servitude that the Conclusion of this Match gave beginning to a desperate Rebellion which though at first it seem'd despicable enough being headed by no better a man then Sir Thomas Wyat a private Knight of Kent the Duke of Suffolk who was in the Conspiracy being apprehended almost as soon as he appear'd yet before it could be supprest the wise Match-makers found they had met with their Match in that Rebel who was so fortunate as to rout the Queens General and take all their Ordnance and Ammunition Upon which he march'd up with full Assurance of taking the chief City into which though he brought but sive Ensigns 't is probable he might have carried it had not Heaven taken part against him as usually it doth against Rebels first arming them with Impudence and then disarming them with Fear making the Arch-Traytor a terrible Example of unparallel'd Insolence who whiles he was at large continued bold as a Lion but being once apprehended prov'd so base a Coward that brib'd with the hopes of Life he made himself guilty of a greater Treachery then he was to dye for accusing Edward Earl of Devon and the Princess Elizabeth the Queens Sister to have been privy to his Conspiracy which gain'd Credit not so much from the Suspect of any private Affection betwixt them two although he alleadged they were to be married as from the secret disaffection either of them had he to the King that should be as being his Rival she to the Queen that was as being her Disseisor the two Sisters as little agreeing in point of Right of Succession as their two Mothers in point of Right of Marriage but fain he would have acquitted them when he found he could not be acquitted himself by it for having serv'd their turn of him the Statesmen gave the fatal turn to him However the malitious Chancellor Gardner resolving to take the Truth at the wrong end and believe it as he pleas'd secur'd them in several Prisons till he were at leisure to examine the matter being then deeply ingaged in providing Fire and Faggots for those Learned Hereticks Cranmer Ridley and Latimer c. who were to make a Holocaust preparatory to the Queens Nuptials which having been defer'd by this unexpected Rising was now propos'd in Parliament For the greater confirmation the three States of the Kingdom assenting thereto upon the Conditions following First That King Philip should admit no Stranger into any Office but only Natives Secondly That he should Innovate nothing in the Laws and Customes of the Realm Thirdly That he should not carry the Queen out of the Realm without her consent nor any of her Children without consent of the Councel Fourthly That surviving the Queen he should challenge no Right in the Kingdom but suffer it to descend to the next Heir Fifthly That he should carry away none of the Crown Jewels nor remove any Shipping or Ordnance Sixthly and lastly That he should neither directly nor indirectly intangle the Realm of England with the Wars betwixt Spain and France Upon which Terms 't was hop'd by those affected not the Match that Philip would knock off there being neither Youth or Beauty to tempt him But as the House of Austria did ever prefer their Ambition before their Love so designing the universal Monarchy he thought he made a great step to it by being put in possession of England and so near intituled to France And now the most Catholick King being joyn'd with the Faith defending Queen it cannot be imagin'd but that they must begin with Religion In order to the Regulation whereof Cardinal Pool being first restored again in blood and reputation was sent for over who arm'd with his Legatine Power and a natural Force of Eloquence press'd hard upon the Parliament and shewed them the danger they were in by their late Schism being become as he said Exiles from Heaven and in no capacity to have been ever readmitted had he not brought from Rome the Keys that opened the gates of Life and thereupon he advised them to abrogate those Laws which lay as blocks in their way urging them thereto from the Example of their good King and Queen who he said had resigned their Title of Supream Head to shew themselves true Members of the Mystical Body and had made Restitution of those Lands which had been sacrilegiously taken from the Church by their Predecessor Which Speech of his being very Methodically digested and delivered with great gravity startled many of the Lords who reflected upon their Fore-fathers Devotion to the holy See but those of the lower House having it seems lower thoughts and deeming it a rare Felicity to have shaken off that heavy Yoke that had so long gall'd their Fore-fathers necks did not so readily assent to receive his profer'd Fenediction at so dear a rate as to part with their Lands which having been divided by the Queens father amongst them were by several Settlements and Alienations so translated from one Family to another that without great Inconvenience they could not be sever'd from their Temporal Proprieties However they so far complyed as to agree That the first Fruits and Tenths granted by the Clergy to King Henry Anno 1534 should be remitted But after they came to consider the Poverty of the Treasure the reason of the several Pensions that had been granted in Lieu thereof by the said King to divers Religious Persons that were still living they revok'd their Decree again Upon which the Legate not skilful enough to deal with a Multitude as appear'd afterward by his loosing the papal dignity desisted content it seems with the honour of having prevail'd over the more devout Queen the heat of whose Zeal had so softned her heart that it was fit for any Impression Now as he had a better Faculty in Canvassing of the Feminine Sex which Cardinal Carraffa afterward Pope Paul IV upbraided him withal in the open Conclave so he prevail'd with her to give up all that she had in her own possession who to move others to imitate her piety did it with that detestation of the Sacriledg of her Predecessors that when one of her wise Counsellors yet of the same Religion told her it would be a great Diminution to the Revenues of her Crown she answered piously and as she thought prudently that she had another Crown to look after that she valued a thousand times more then that But while she is thus careful for the eternal King Philip her Husband was no less busie to secure his Temporal Crown In order to which he went over to receive the Blessing of the Emperour his Father then in Flanders who upon his Arrival delivered up to him the possession of the Low
Countries having given him the Kingdoms of Naples and Jerusalem before of the first of which the Pope either envying or fearing the Emperour's Greatness had made the French King some Assurance purposely to ingage him thereby in a War that might weaken them both Great Preparations were made by either Party to secure themselves both with Arms and Alliances the Emperor leaving all his Dominions on this side to his Son whilst himself retires into Spain to alarm the French on the other side and by his Vicinity to Italy whose petty Princes he suspected not to be firm to his Interest makes himself as terrible to his Neighbours as his Enemies But whilst this great design was in Prospect only King Philip was suddenly called home by a Brute that his Queen was with Child the Joy whereof was so universal that it is strange to tell how much it transported the whole Kingdom raising them by the hopes of a young Prince to a degree of seeming Infatuation for they not only mock'd God Almighty in the Church with causeless Thanksgivings but troubled the King and Queen every hour in Court withâ—s groundless Petitions for Places of Attendance on the unborn Child and so far did the Delirium prevail to delude even the Parliament themselves with extravagant apprehensions of their future happiness by the enjoyment of such a Prince who however he were like to be Lord of the greatest part of Christendom would yet in all probability make England the Seat of his Empire that they humbly besought the King in case the Queen should dye in Travel that he would be pleas'd to take upon him the rule and government of the Child and Kingdome such ado have great Princes to be born as well as to dye in quiet But this mistaken Embryo proving at length to be nothing else but a Mis-conception whereof she could not be delivered so as to make way for any better Conception turning to such a fleshy inform Substance as Physitians call a Mole and we vulgarly English a Moon-Calf it put King Philip so ouâ— of Countenance that he tarried not a Month here after her time of Reckoning was our but passing into Flanders put it out of his head since he could not put it out of her belly by beginning a War with France whereto he had a good ground upon the account of the Five years Truce being broken that had been made but a little before The Queen to requite him for her late Miscarriage broke with her People and resolving not to stand Neuter whilst her Husband was ingaged found occasion to make the French Aggressors upon the Crown of England Whereupon the Earl of Pembroke was sent over with Ten thousand Horse and Four thousand Foot who joyning with the Kings Forces which were Thirty five thousand Foot and Twelve thousand Horse before they came they all of them sate down before St Quintins a Town of great importance which the French in vain indeavouring to succour lost Twenty five thousand upon the place Amongst whom were divers of the greatest Quality as John of Bourbon Duke of Anguin the Dukes of Monpensier and Longevile the Viscount Turein c. the Lord Chadenier the Mareschal St. Andrew the Rhinegrave the Constable Mount Morency and his Son Brother to Count Lodowick Gonzaga Brother to the Duke of Mantova the Admiral Coligny and his Brother with divers other Lords of no less eminence who being all taken with the Town made it look like the beginning of a War which every Body judged could not end till the Rupture reach'd to the middle of France The report of this Victory gave great matter of rejoycing to every Body but most especially to the Queen her self yet could it not divert that Melancholy occasioned by the conceit of her Misconception which brought her into a Distemper that not long after kill'd her by her Physicians mistaking her Malady who giving her improper Medicines without regard to the over-cooling of her Liver which it seems is the mischief attends those Moles found not their error till she was so far gone into that desperate kind of Dropsie which they call Ascites that there was no help for her now That which added to her Distemper was an over-nice resentment of the Popes displeasure who offended at her breach with the French punish'd her as Princes use to be by whipping their Favourites with taking away the Legatine Power from her beloved Minister Cardinal Pool to whom as she had ever a great regard so she opin'd that the disgrace put upon a Man of so great Authority and Credit who had been so active in the Conversion of the Nation would as indeed it did not only reflect something on her honour but hazard much the reputation of the Catholick Cause whiles the Roman Religion was not so fully establish'd as she design'd it should and the Enemies of the Church no less dangerous to that of her State This gave her great trouble of Mind and that trouble being heightened by the absence of her beloved Husband brought her into a burning Feaver that foretold a death that might have proved a living one had it not been hastned by the news of the revolt of Calais which being lost in less then six dayes time after it had continued English above Two hundred years came so near her heart that drying up all her Blood brought her under such a fix'd sadness as left her not till she left the World Now to say truth she had great reason to resent the loss for as it was the only Key left to let her into France so it was no small over-sight to hang it by her side with so slender a String as she did there being not above Five hundred Souldiers in it when it was attach'd which were much too few to defend a place of that Importance where there was a kind of necessity to keep the Gates alwayes open HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE Christ was the Word that spake it He took the Bread and brake it And what the Word did make it That I believe and take it Which however it seem'd an obscure and uncertain Solution so baffled all her Adversaries that the Priests themselves who hop'd with like Success to have soil'd her as the First Temptor did the First Woman upon the First great Question of Take and Eat found themselves left in the dark to grope after her meaning as well as they could whilst she shut her self up from further Pressures within the Closet of her own private Sense But as Wisdom is perhaps the only Vertue that is distrustful of it self so to shew how little Confidence she had in the strength of her own Abilities she made it her first business to fortifie her self with able Counsellors In the choice of whom her Affections gave place to her Judgment as her Fears to her Foresight admitting divers of her Sisters great Ministers who having been privy to all the Secrets of State were like sharp
should be but short were easily drawn into many desperate Conspiracies which ending with the Forfeiture of their own brought her Life and Government into continual Jeopardy The next great thing that feâ—l under her Consideration was the point of Marriage and Singularity For it being doubtful in what state the Kingdom would be left if the Queen of Scots Title should ever take place who besides that she was an avow'd Papist had married the French Kings Son who in her Right bore the Arms and Title of England as well as of Scotland it was told her she would not shew her self a true Mother of her Country without she consented to make her self a Mother of Children Whereunto King Philip of Spain as soon as he heard of Queen Mary his Wives death gave her a fair Invitation by his Ambassador the Conde Feria whom he sent over publickly â—o Congratulate her as a Queen but privately to Court her as a Mistress assuring her that he much rather desired to have her to be his Wife then his Sister and as the Report of her being Successor to his Queen had much allay'd the grief he conceiv'd for her death so he said 't was his desire she should take place in his Bed as well as in his Throne that so by giving her self to him she might requite the kindness shew'd by him when he gave her to her self after her Sister left her exposed to the malice and power of her Enemies In fine he omitted no Arguments to gain his end that might be rais'd from the Consideration of her Gratitude or his own Greatness But she being naturally Inflexible not to say as some have said Impenetrable lest it to her Councel to return this grave Answer for her That she could not consent to have him of all men for a Husband without as great reflection on her Mother as her self since it could not be more lawful for two Sisters to marry the same Husband then for two Brothers to marry the same Wife Secondly That she could not consent to a Match that was like to prove so unfortunate as this would be if without Issue and yet so much more unfortunate with it in respect her Kingdom of England must by the same Obligation become subject to Spain as she to him Thirdly That nothing could more conduce to the Establishing that Authority which had been so industriously abolish'd by her Father and Brother of blessed Memory and conscientiously rejected by her self Fourthly That it could neither be satisfactory to her self or Subjects to have such a King to her Husband whose greatest Concerns being necessarily abroad could neither regard her nor them as he ought much less as they desired This Denial though it seem'd reasonable enough yet King Philip inferring that she dislik'd his Person rather then his Proposal very temperately recommended his Suit to his more youthful Kinsman Charles Duke of Austria second Son to the Emperour Ferdinand who was Rival'd by Eric eldest Son of Gustavus King of Sweden as he by Adolph Duke of Holst Uncle to Frederick III. King of Denmark But neither of these being more successful then his most Catholick Majesty the whole Parliament became Suiters to her to think of Posterity and to eternize her Memory not so much by a Successor like her self as by one descended from her self Which serious address she answer'd with a Jest telling them she was married already And shewing them a Ring on her Finger the same she had received at her Coronation told them it was the Pledge of Love and Faith given her by her dear Spouse the Kingdom of England which words she delivered with such an odd kind of Pleasantness that all the Wise men amongst them thought she made Fools of them and the Fools thought themselves made so much wiser by it as to understand her meaning to be that she would not look abroad for a Husband but take one of her own Subjects Amongst the rest thus mistaken was Leicester himself who having the vanity to believe he might be the man obstructed his own preferment when he was propos'd as a fitting Husband for the Queen of Scots The Catholick King however he had been rejected hoping that the Catholick Religion might find better acceptation continued his Frâ—endship a long time after his Courtship was ended being so respectful to the Nation not to say to the Queen her self that he would make no accord with the French at the Treaty of Cambray without the restoration of Calais to the English But when he understood how far the Queen had proceeded in point of Reformation how she had as resolutely refus'd to be the Popes Daughter as to be his Wife how she had disallow'd the Councel of Trent and set up a Synod of her own at London he not only left her as slightly as she left him but made such a Conclusion with the French as gave her more cause of Jealousie being not his Wife then she could possibly have had if he had been her Husband For marrying the Lady Isabella eldest Daughter to that King it was suspected that the two Crowns might thereupon unite against England upon the account of the Queen of Scots her Claim who being the Daulphins Wife and the next in Succession after Queen Elizabeth or as some will have it in Right before her as being the undoubted Heir of the Lady Margaret eldest Daughter of Henry the Seventh was therefore the only Person in the World to whom she could never be reconciled holding her self oblig'd by the Impulse of Nature Honour and Religion to oppose her as after she did to the death wherein perhaps there was no less of Envy then Reason of State being as much offended with her Perfections as her Pretensions For that t'other was a Lady that equall'd her in all surmounted her in some and was inferiour to her in no respects but Fortune only This as it prov'd a Feud that puzled that Age to unriddle the meaning of it charging all the Misunderstanding betwixt them upon the despite of Fate only which to speak Impartially was never more unkind not to say unjust all Circumstances of the Story considered to any Soveraign Princess in the World then to that poor Queen so it was the wonder of this till we saw by the no less fatal Example of that Queens Grandson our late Soveraign how the best of Princes may fall under the power of the worst of men For it was Flattery and Feminine Disdain questionless that first divided them beyond what the difference of Nation Interest or Religion could have done which heightning their mutual Jealousies insensibly ingag'd them before they were aware in such a Game of Wit and Faction as brought all that either had at last to stake and made them so wary in their Play on both sides that the Set ended not as long as the one liv'd or the other reign'd The Queen of Scots had the advantage of Queen Elizabeth by the Kings in her Stock the Kings of