party not bound to observe the Articles but to assist the Parliament in defence of the common cause Octob. 16. And by this President they afterwards would not endure any new triall Upon this score of the common cause Mr. Iohn Fountain a Lawyer at London was desired whâ—t he would please to lend who answered That it was against the Petition of Right to answer Yea or No. Whereupon the House of Commons for that contempt in not giving his Answer at all committed him to the Gate-house declaring further the imbecillity of his judgment or positive refraction to draw on others to the like Errour And such as refuse their Contribution of money or plate are disarmed and if in the least measure active in words or perswasion against the Parliament have the brand of Malignancie their persons secured and within a little time after made Delinquents and forfeâ—t all And because the Earl of Essex gave a deep yellow for his colours every Citizens Dame to the Draggle-tail of her Kitchin had got up that colour of the cause untill the Earl of Pembroke and Mountgomerie in a fume with a Parliament Captain swore That his Turdcolour'â— Skarf should not excuse him from Commitment But some not affecting that color set up others in disdain to the Generals which increasing to a Faction some urging of a Design to be distinguished by these Ribands the Parl. declare That such persons as shall be seen to wear them for distinction shall be forthwith committed and further proceeded against as Malignants endeavouring to set Divisions among the people In the Generals Commission the fourth Article is printed and published That whosoever shall return from the King to the Parliaments Armie within ten Days after Publication shall have reception and pardon excepting persons impeached of Delinquencie or Treason or have been eminent Actors against the Parliament and except the Earls of Bristol Cumberland New-castle Rivers and Carnarvan Secretarie Nicholas Endimion Porter Mr. Edward Hide the Duke of Richmond Viscount Newark Viscount Falkland now principal Secretarie of State to the King And thus marshalled in this order The King having sent over the Queen out of the danger of these Distractions into Holland and remaining at the Hague she made application to the Prince of Orange to whose Son the Princess Maria was maried by whose interest she had the fairer means to promote the Kings affairs with the States of the United Provinces for Arms and Ammunition which had been procured by the Lord Digby there and some Officers sent over to the Kings Army The Parliament having knowledg hereof send over Mr. Walter Strickland a Member of the House of Commons their Residenciary with Credential Letters to the States thus To the High and Mighty Lords the States of the United Provinces High and Mighty Lords We are commanded by the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England to signifie unto your Lordships that they have chosen and appointed the Bearer hereof Walter Strickland Esq to repair to your Lordships and to present to you in their Names and in the Name of the whole Kingdom a Declaration and some Propositions and Desires very much importing the maintenance of the Protestant Religion which is the surest Foundation of the safetie and prosperitie of this Kingdom and your State and the ancient amitie between us to the advantage of both desiring your Lordships to give ear to what shall be delivered or propounded to you by him And to expedite your Answer thereunto in such manner as shall stand with your Wisdoms and the due respect of the common good of the State and of your selves which is the earnest desire of Your affectionate Friends and Servants Mandevil Speaker pro tempore for the Lords House William Lenthal Speaker of the House of Commons A Declaration of the Lords and Commons of the Parliament of England to the High and Mighty Lords the States of the United Provinces We the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled taking into serious consideration the meanes of composing the great distempers and combustions begun in this Kingdom which threaten the destruction and ruine of it and of all other Protestant Princes and States have thought good to make this Declaration to the High and Mightie Lords the States of the United Provinces That we under stand by a Letter of the Lord Digby a person fled out of this Kingdom for high Treason That as he often endeavoured by his wicked and malicious counsels to make division between his Majestie and the Parliament and hath been in great part the cause of that miserable and unnatural War which is made against us by his Majestie so he hath laboured by all means in the United Provinces to provide Arms Powder and Ammunition for the fomenting of that War and making it more dangerous to this Kingdom and for this purpose did address himself to the Prince of Orange by whose countenance and help as we are informed by the Lord Digby's own Letters he hath made provision of great quantities of Ordnance Powder Arms and divers other sorts of warlike provision And we are further informed by credible advertisement that the Prince of Orange in favour of the Lord Digby and those other wicked Counsellours and Incendiaries who being joyned together in these mischievous practises against the peace of this Kingdom hath not onely licensed but the better to encourage divers Commanders experienced Officers and Souldiers to resort into this Kingdom in aid of them against the Parliament hath promised to reserve their places for them in their absence and doth cause other provision of the same kinde to be made and prepared to be sent over for their supplie to the great hurt of this Kingdom and the danger of interrupting the most necessarie profitable and long continued amitie between the two States We further desire to let them know that we cannot believe that this is done by any authoritie or direction from their Lordships considering the great help that they have received from this Kingdom when heretofore they lay under the heavie oppression of their Princes and how conducible the friendship of this Nation concurring with the wisdom valour and industrie of their own people hath been to the greatness and power which they now enjoy Neither can we think that they will be forward to help to make us slaves who have been usefull and assistant in making them free-men Or that they will forget that our Troubles and Dangers issue from the same Fountain with their own and that those who are set a work to undermine Religion and Libertie in the Kingdome are the same which by open force did seek to bereave them of both It cannot be unknown to that wise State that it is the Iesuitical Faction here that hath corrupted the counsels of our King the consciences of a greaâ— part of our Clergie which hath plotted so many mischievous Designs to destroy the Parliament and still endeavoureth to divide Ireland from
as many or if you shall finde that any way inconvenient to come in person that then your Lordship will appoint such or so many to meet with the like number from hence that may consider of all means possible to reconcile these unhappie Differences and misâ—understandings that have so long afflicted this Kingdom And for the securitie of your Lordship and those that shall come with and be imploied by your Lordship we do engage our Faith and Honour and do expect the same from your Lordship desiring withall your speedie Answer which must be a Guide to our Proceedings concluding that if this shall be refused we shall hold our selves justified before God and Men whatsoever shall be the Success so we rest From the Armie Aug. 8. 1644. Your Lordships humble Servants Maurice Thomas Wentworth Lindsey Lord Hopâ—on Nothampton Cleveland Thomas Blagge Joseph Bamfield Anthony Thelwel John Owen Thomas Stradling Robert Howard John Stocker Edward Porter Gilbert Armstrong Richard Nevil Thomas Pigot John Brown Ad. Scroop Amy Polard James Hamilton Richard Thornhill John Toping James Dundasse Giles Strangways R. Smith Ja. Cary Brainford Piercy Jacob Ashley Richard Cave Bernard Stuart Bernard Astley Theophilus Gilby William Leighton William Murrey Thomas Blackwell Thomas Bellingham Richard Page Bar. Jenkins Henry Miller Richard Fielding Thomas Weston Paul Smith G. Mouldsworth Phil. Honywood Thomas Culpeper William Leak Jo. Lunther Jo. Monk Cha. Fawlk Richard Samuel Arthur Slingsby George Goring Joseph Wagstaff Thomas Basset Charls Lloyd George Lisley William St. Leager Henry Lundsford Barth Pell Henry Shelley Thomas Paulet Thomas Kirton Anthony Brocher Devery Leigh David Stringer Ja. Mowbray Charls Compton Edward Not Alexander Standish Jo. Rideck Jo. Stuart Jo. Gambling Jo. Greenvile Arthur Henningham Ja. Haswith W. Maxwel And after his defeating Essex in Cornwall he writes from Tavestock To the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament C. R. It having pleased God in so eminent a manner lately to bless our Armies in these parts with success we do not so much joy in that blessing for any other consideration as for the hopes we have it may be a means to make others lay to heart as we do the miseries brought and continued upon our Kingdoms by this unnatural VVar and that it may open your ears and dispose your minde to imbrace those Offers of Peace and Reconciliation which have been so often and earnestly made unto you by us and from the constant and firm endeavours of which we are resolved never to desist in pursuance whereof we do upon this occasion conjure you to take into consideration our too long neglected Message of the fourth of July from Evesham which we again renew unto you and that you will speedily send such an Answer thereunto as may shew unto our poor Subjects some light of Deliverance from their present calamities by a happie Accommodation toward which we do here engage the word of a King to make good all these things which we have therein promised and really to endeavour a happie conclusion of this Treatie And so God direct you in the waies of Peace Given at our Court at Tavestock Sept. 8. 1644. These Messages were in his Marches the like he continues at his Return and setling at Oxford often times ere he could procure a Treaty as in dâ—e place here after in Ianuarie But as yet no endeavours of his could prevail and it hath been urged the jealousie of mutual confidence in eithers performance certainly the mystery was whether the King should trust to Essex and his Army or Essex to his and the difficulty might be how to advise in either It was said that Essex made some Overtures fair enough but how secure I shall not conclude Essex had it expresse in his Commission To take the King from his evil Counsel he urged therefore to be voluntarily trusted with the Kings person and the Kings Army to disband upon this assurance that then his Army being on foot he would not disband untill all things were performed to the general content and peace of the Kingdom So then the difficulty how to do what each party desired to be done kept on the War to the destruction of all Besides there was a providence or fate as we say therein which the Lord Digbie in a Letter calls His superstitious Observation concerning the hand of God in the cause of the Earl of Strafford 's death And the King from thence inferres in a Letter to the Queen That nothing can be more evident than that Strafford 's innocent bloud hath been one of the greatest causes of Gods just Iudgments upon this Nation by a furious Civil War Both sides hitherto being almost equally punished as being in a manner equally guilty but now this last crying blâ—ud being totally theirs I believe it is no presumption hereafter to hope that his hand of Justice must be heavier upon them and lighter upon us looking now upon our Cause having passed by our Fault The Estates of the Netherlands had sent their Ambassadours to the Parliament but not well instructed how to make their Address it took up some time for them to have new Instructions both for the Title of their Letters and Commissions from their Masters And so after these circumstances were setled they had Audience and being the first Address of note the Parliament referred it to a Committees direction which was upon the twelfth of Iulie the Master of the Ceremonies conducted them to both Houses apart and Chairs of State were set up for their repose one in the withdrawing Room by the House of Lords the other in the inner Chamber of the Court of VVards by the Commons where reposing a while they were brought to each House delivering their Embassie first in French and after in English in effect That the high and mightie States of the United Provinces had sent them to declare their earnest desire they had to interpose and mediate a Reconciliation of the Difference between the King and Parliament of England for which purpose they had already addressed themselves to his Majestie and were now come to declare it to the Parliament They further insisting upon the great effusion of Protestant bloud both in England and Ireland as a presaging inducement of their Desires to have a Peace accorded between the King and Parliament that so they might concur together for the Extirpation of Poperie and setling of the Protestant Religion in all the three Kingdoms and with the assistance of the States to defend it against all foreign powers The Ambassadours had received Letters from the Kings Court at Oxford intimating the Kings Successes in the North which the Parliament desired to correct and to evidence their Victories eight and fourty Colours of Horse and Foot were received from their Northern Commanders the Scots General the Lord Fairfax and his Son Sir Thomas and lay in their view in the House of Commons which was no otherwise resented than that they might as well have made the number
A Compleat HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND RAIGNE OF King CHARLES FROM His Cradle to his Grave Collected and Written BY WILLIAM SANDERSON Esq. LONDON Printed for Humphrey Moseley Richard Tomlins and George Sawbridge 1658. To the very Worthy and well-weighed Author of this Modern History WILLIAM SANDERSON Esq. SIR HISTORY may be well call'd the great Arbitress of Time and Truth a Tribunal that summons the Dead to judgement and a Court of Record to the Living Therefore among those industrious Spirits who by their Speculations and publique Writings do deserve well of their Countrey an Historian may march with the foremost I mean a knowing and faithfull Veridical Historian whereas an ignorant and false erroneous Chronicler is one of the worst Members that can be in a Common-wealth and indeed of Mankind in general for he wrongs the time passed the time present and the time to come But you Sir may be deservedly rank'd with the first for when you favour'd me with the perusal of this Modern History I finde that you have proceeded with that knowledge and Probity a prime vertue required in an Historiographer as also with that exactness and punctuality that you have confuted a late Paradox commonly repeated that it was impossible to compile the Story of these confus'd and entangled vertiginous Times without writing so many Volumes as would fill a Library I say that you have refelled this vulgar Error and while you bring our Royal Master to his grave you may be said to give him a Burial a Monument and a Resurrection Nor indeed was there any man more capable to pen this Story then your self being from your youth bâ—ed up at Court not only an Eye and Ear witnesse of most of those Transactions and Traverses of State you trasmit to Posterity but you were an Actor in divers of them having been imployed in so many Negotiations of good consequence both at home and abroad whereby you were par negotio But truly I mused much with my self when I observed the great discretion and cautionary prudence you use in your Comportment all along For though a great part of the Times you speak of were full of Tempests and Whirlewinds and that you were like one passing through a boysterous working Frete having on the Star-board side dangerous Rocks and Craggs and on the Larboard ill-favour'd Shelfs of Quicksands yet you skew the wind dexterously and steer your course so streight and steddy that you avoid splitting on either Lasty I finde that this elaborate work of yours which smells so much of the Lamp hath been cast into so good a mould and is so strongly limm'd the ingredients that went to the composition of it being so material and so necessary for our late Nephewes and all future Ages to know that by giving this Historical life to King Charls you may well promise to your self an Eternity For of all Sublunary things Chronology is of the longest extent having not only an affinity and commensuration with Time it self but makes the neerest approach to Immortality IAMES HOWELL The Introduction THUS far we are forward in our Compleat History successively continued from that exquisite Compendium set out by William Drummond Esq. of the Lives and Reigns of five the preceding Kings of Scotland James the 1. the 2. the 3. the 4. the 5. from the year 1423. unto 1542. At the end of which we have heretofore taken our Rise and Entrance having lately published the First and Second part from the birth of Mary Queen of Scotland to the death of her Son and Successour King James the sixth and after Queen Elizabeth of great Britain France and Ireland the first of that Name And now we proceed to the third part the Reign and Death of his Son and Successor King Charls the first But before we enter into his sad Story it may not be amiss to enlighten the Reader with the State and condition of these his three Kingdoms England Scotland and Ireland Of England King Iames having been imbarqued by consent of Parliament in a War against the House of Austria left this life and the Palsgraves hopes at a very low Ebb if not dispair while the Emperour and the Duke of Bavare shuffled the Cards and plaid the Game to others loss The Germane Army suppressing all the reformed Princes bandited the Palatine and forced the other Electors to make Bavaria one among them The wonder was why the Austrians should stand so stifly upon such an inconsiderable piece of that great Empire but through that Spot the Spaniard had free passage with his 〈◊〉 of Italy and other Parts to pass into the Netherlands to reduce them to obedience And this occasioned the Commotion and Combination of the Duke of Brunswick bringing in the King of Denmark and afterwards the King of Swede all which conversions were advanced partly by the assistance of King Charls with his monies returned to Hamborough and with other such meanes of vast expence even to his last ability and enforced his Councellors to invent and strain the waies of supply which advanced them but undid the King It was high time to endeavour the abating of the Austrian power which too long had disquieted the repose of Christendom and forced France at first and all Protestant Princes after with some Papists underhand to joyn in the Confederacy But mostly concerning the united Provinces who having long before through their just fears plotted the Bohemian Hubbub and invited the Palsgrave to the unhappy acceptance of that Crown bending all their wits to bring in the Swede assisted from England to patch up a peace for him with Poland These were the Foreign Engagements cast upon England which King Charls was enforced to espouse especially to oppose the Emperors inflexibility for the restauration of the Palatine And thus imbroyled the Parliament left him to shift for himself which his Privy Councellors undertake and therein possibly might wrest some Prerogatives for raising monies The Factious Clergy were at hand to make things worse not but that those times producing Learned and most Renowned able men at the Altar as ever any Age could parallel I mention those other young Wolves in Lambs cloathing who by their Lectures late Excrescencies led about the Vulgar under colour of depressing Popery to the destruction at last of the whole Church Between Papist and Puritan the honest Protestant was neglected for the Lords and Council not being byassed with one of these were so unhappily ignorant as to know little more then their own pleasure patching up their poor fortunes by unhandsome courses Others of them wrought their ends rather by the Bow then the string basely bending to private Advantage by dishonourable shiftings became odious to honest men forfeiting their honours by falsifying their words and lastly failing in their Duty Allegeance and all The Duke of Buckingham had been his Fathers Favourite and now became his by former engraffing and his late Loyal service to him in Spain A person he was most
of his own with pretence of greater advantage and alwaies of less expence then any other Undertakers And to mate it the more the Lord Chichester an Irish Commander approved thereof to the Council of War But it was soon replyed by the Solicitor General that the Duke Lord Admiral had been consulted who though of abilities to judge yet his Modesty and Wisdom had communicated Mansels Project to the Council who utterly disliked thereof and had approved of the Design in hand Being convinced in this yet the vote of the House was not to Supply but rather to Remonstrate their Reasons wherein they ranted so high and desperate upon the Duke that it was apparent they meant to divest him of his Offices Admiralty and all Nay they left not there but were canvasing his Comings in his great Revenues of Crown-demeans which they would revoke and resume back to the Kings wants And in fine to bring him an Accomptant for his Receipts and Expences of publique Revenue intrusted unto him for the State It is handsomely observed the Commons Inconstancie herein Breves Amores Populi who but lately the very last Parliament cired up the Duke for the ornament and honour of the whole Nation that it was then almost put to the question What shall be done to Him whom the Houses will honour Now to be popular hatred Their design was saies he to take the Great Seal from the Bishop of Lincoln who cunningly to divert the Judgement proposed Buckingham as the properer person to furnish them with matter as the fitter game of which the Duke had inckling which lost the other the favour for ever And yet in Ianuary next we find the Bishop his Letter to the Duke boldly and if not with impudence so soon to caress him for a Courtesie To Crown the King for thus he writes Being come hither in the duty of my place to do my best Service for the preparation to the Coronation and to wait upon his Majesty for his Royal pleasure and direction herein I do most humbly beseech your grace c. 7. Ianuary 1625. Which the Duke denied for another did it But this was too high for the Duke to hold out The Remonstrance penned so bitter with aspersions on the Kings Judgement in his choice and to grace him more then all others as that to prevent the Dukes ruine and not to retard the publique affairs of his Naval Design the King in much regret resolved to give end to their Sitting And of this Arrand comes the Usher of the Black Rod from the Upper house who finds the Commoâ—s resolved into a Grand Committee and the Solicitor in the Chair whom they forced there until a Protestation was framed which Mr. Glanvile declared viz. First To give his Majesty thanks for his Gracious Answer to their Petition for Religion For his care of their healths in giving them leave to depart this dangerous sickness With a dutiful Declaration of their affection and loyalty and their purpose to supply his Majesty in a Parliamentary way in fitting and convenient time After this the Speaker re-assumes the Chair and admits the Usher and his Message for Dissolution of the Parliament And now the King must do his work himselâ— and minding that he first dismist the train and burthen of the French Madams and other that waited on the Queen hither These were shipped away from Dover who carried the tidings of the Kings evil success with his Parliament and subjects to his great regret and grief And therefore we may spare him from the censure of an otium for summer pastime for he was very sad But the danger of infection spread to Oxford forced his Progress and this speedy resolution of his affairs For the Fleet to put to Sea and to conserve strickt Amity with our Neighbours France Denmark and the United Provinces The last having been here by their Ambassadours in September To supplicate a League offensive and defensive against the Common Enemy the House of Austria and to pray his Majesties assistance in soliciting other States in this general Confederation of equal expence to all and for the present the States should bear a fourth part of the Fleets charge To see these performed and to put it to present issue with the best grace and honour to so high a Design Ambassadours were resolved upon to confirm the Association beyond Seas and presently the Fleet went forth The Duke and the Earl of Holland in Commission for the Embassie lay a long time at Harwich for a Wind to waft them over in two Men of War which met with ill weather upon the very Coast of Holland a furious storm off from Sea forced them upon the Shore â—t a foot sounding to sinck all when no other hope was left to help but splicing two main long Cables at a Ketch Anchor and so Veer out the storm which had the Anchor not held but come home They had all been lost but landed safe at Brill and so to the Hague where Ambassadours of other Princes were to meet impowred for so great a Compliance as the necessities of the Design required But there they found them all to flag The Dane not able the French not willing stopt the Carreer of a further Journey into France where preparations were gone before to entertain our Ambassadours there But the French were cunning not to engage expences with the English Fleet which was now at sea upon the Design for Cadiz and all that was done by this meeting they concluded in a League For restoring the Liberties of Germany wherein was included the particular reflection the Cause of the Palatinate and restitution of the Kings Sister the Queen of Bohemia and no sooner were they returned home but were received with unwelcome report of the Fleets Miscarriage under their General Edward Cecil Viscount Wimbleton This Gentleman was second Son to Thomas Cecil Earl of Exeter of a comely person and long experienced in Martial affairs in the School of the United Provinces where he waited long for little preferment alwaies kept under by the Eminencie and merit of the family and Honour of Veres untill King Iames gave him his great rise from a Colonel to be General of the English in the Mis-effects of the Palatinate war wherein he was suspected by that ill successe his own complaint He suffered disgrace by his Enemies about the imployment of the Palatinate from which time twenty seven years since he was importunate to be called home for imployment here His indulgent caressing the Duke with letters from the Low-Countreys who truly before wisht him not much kindnesse yet in the end gave him warning to this Expedition and Commission to waft hither such Officers and Souldiers English as he should elect out of Companies ten Captains and thirty officers but he got none at all for he was much offended that Sr. Horace Vere was made a Baron before him and then to please him he got Precedency with a Vice-Count
Ships richly laden in their usual course of Trade the Duke moved the Lords then assembled in Parliament to know whether he should make stay of those Ships for the Service of the State which motion being approved by the Lords the Duke accordingly did stay those ships and after procured a joynt Action to be entred in the Court of Admiralty in the name of the late King and himself as Lord Admirall against 15000 lib. pretended to be Pyratically taken by some Captains of the said Merchants ships and in the hands of the said Captains and accordingly an Attachment was served upon the said Merchants Whereupon the said Merchants being urged to bring in the 15000 lib. or to go to Prison made new suit to the Duke for the release of their ships who pretending that the Parliament must be moved therein the Merchants much perplexed and considering that they should lose much by unlading their ships and the losse of their voyage resolved to tender to the said Duke ten thousand pounds for his unjust demand who by colour of his Office extorted and exacted from them the said ten thousand pounds and upon receipt thereof and not before released the said ships That the motion in Parliament about the stay of the East-India ships was onely upon apprehension that they might be serviceable for the defence of the Realm That the Action entred in the Court of Admiralty against the East-India Company was not after as is suggested but divers moneths before that motion in Parliament yea before the Parliament began That the composition mentioned in this Article was not moved by the Duke but made by the late King and that the Company without any menaces or compulsion agreed to the Composition as willing to give so much rather then to abide the hazzard of the suit That of the said sum all but two hundred pounds was imployed by his late Majesties Officers for the benefit of the Navie And lastly that those ships were not discharged upon payment of the said sum of ten thousand pounds but upon an accommodation allowed that they should prepare other ships for his Majesties service whilest they went on their Voyage which accordingly they did VII Reply 7. That the Duke being great Admirall of England did by colour of the said Office procure one of the principall ships of the Navy-Royal called the Vant-guard and six other Merchants ships of great burthen to be conveyed over with all their Ordnance Ammunition and apparel into the Kingdom of France and did compell the said Masters and Owners of the said ships to deliver the said ships into the possession and command of the French King and his Ministers without either sufficient security for their redelivery or necessary caution in that behalf contrary to the duty of his Office and to the apparent weakening of the Navall strength of this Kingdom That those Ships were lent to the French King without his privity that when he knew thereof he did what appertained to his Office That he did not by menace nor any undue practice by himself or any other deliver those ships into the hands of the French that what errour hath since happened was not in the intention any way injurious to the State nor prejudicial to the interest of any private man VIII Reply 8. That the Duke knowing the said ships were intended to be imployed against the Rochellers and the Protestants else-where did compel them as aforesaid to be delivered unto the said French King and his Ministers to the end that they might be imployed against those of the Reformed Religion as accordingly they were to the prejudice of the said Religion contrary to the intention of our Soveraigne Lord the King and to his former promise at Oxford and to the great scandal of our Nation That understanding a discovery that those ships should be imployed against Rochel he endevoured to divert the course of such imployment and whereas it is alledged that he promised at Oxford that those ships should not be so imployed he under favour saith he was mis-understood for he onely said that the event would shew it being confident in the promises of the French King and that he would have really performed what was agreed upon IX Reply 9. That he hath enforced some who were rich though unwilling to purchase honours as the Lord Roberts Baron of Trure who was by menaces wrought to pay the summe of Ten thousand pounds to the said Duke and to his use for his said Barony He denyeth any such compulsion of the Lord Roberts to buy his honour and that he can prove that as the said Lord did then obtain it by the solicitations of others so was he willing formerly to have given a great sum for it X. Reply 10. That in the 18. year of the late King he did procure of the late King the Office of High Treasurer of England to the Viscount Mandevil now Earl of Manchester for which Office he received of the said Viâ—count to his own use the sum of 20000 l. of money and also did procure in the 20. year of the late King the Office of Master of the Wards and Liveries for Sir Lionel Cranfield afterward Earl of Middlesex and as a reward for the said procurement he had to his own use of the said Sir Lionel Cranfield the sum of 6000 l. contrary to the dignity of his late Majesty That he had not nor did receive any penny of the said sums to his own use that the Lord Mandevil was made Lord Treasurer by his late Majesty without any Contract for it and though his Majesty did after borrow of the said Lord 20000. pounds yet was it upon proviso of repayment for which the Duke at first past his word and after entred him security by Land which stood ingaged untill his late Majesty during the Dukes being in Spain gave the Lord satisfaction by Land in Fee-farm of a considerable value whereupon the Dukes security was returned back And that the 6000 l. disbursed by the Earl of Middlesex was bestowed upon Sir Henry Mildmay by his late Majesty without the Dukes privity who had and enjoyed it all entire XI Reply 11. That he hath procured divers Honours for his kindred and Allies to the prejudice of the antient Nobility and disabling the Crown from rewarding extraordinary virtues in future times That he believeth he were rather worthily to be condemned in the opinion of all generous minds if being in such favour with his Majesty he had minded only his own advancement and had neglected those whom the Law of Nature had obliged him to hold most dear XII Reply 12. That he procured and obtained of the late King divers Mannors parcels of the Revenues of the Crown to an exceeding greâ—â— value and hath received and â—o his own use disbursed great sums of money that did properly belong unto the late King and the better to colour his doings hath obtained severall privie Seals from
his late Majesty and his Majesty that now is warranting the payment of great sums of money by him as if such summes were directed for secret service of the State when as they were disposed of to his own use and hath gotten into his hands great sums which were intended by the late King for the furnishing and victualling of the Navy-Royall to the exceeding diminution of the revenues of the Crown to the deceiving and abusing of his late and now Majesty and detriment of the whole Kingdom That he doth humbly and with all thankfulness acknowledge his late Majesties bountifull hand to him and shall be ready to render back into the hands of his now Majesty whatsoever he hath received together with his life to do him service But for the value suggested in the charge he saith there is a great mistake in the calculation as he shall make evident in a Schedule annexed to which he referreth himself Nor did he obtain the same by any undue solicitation or practice nor yet a Release for any sums so received But having severall times and upon severall occasions disposed divers sums of his late and now Majesty by their private directions he hath Releases thereof for his discharge which was honourable in them to grant and not unfit for him to desire and accept for his future indemnity XIII Reply 13. Lastly That he being a sworn servant of the late King did cause and provide certain Plaisters and Potions for his late Majesty in his last sicknesse without the privity of his Majesties Physicians and that although those Plaisters and Potions formerly applied produced such ill effects as many of his sworn Physicians did dis-allow as prejudiciall to his Majesties health yet neverthelesse did the Duke apply them again to his Majesty Whereupon great distempers and dangerous symptomes appeared inhim which the Physicians imputed to those administrations of the Duke whereof his late Majesty also complained which was an offence and misdemeanour of so high a nature as may be called an act of transcendent presumption And the said Commons by Protestation saving to themselves the liberties of exhibiting hereafter any other accusation or impeachment against the Duke and also of replying unto what the Duke shall answer unto the said Article do pray that the said Duke may be put to answer all and every the premises and that such Proceedings Examinations Tryals and Judgements may be upon every of them had as is agreeable to Law and Justice That his late Majesty being sick of an Ague a disease out of which the Duke recovered not long before asked the Duke what he found most advantagious to his health the Duke replied a Plaister and Posset-drink administred to him by the Earl of Warwick's Physician whereupon the King much desired the Plaister and Posset-drink to be sent for And the Duke delaying it he commanded a servant of the Dukes to go for it against the Dearnest request he humbly craving his Majesty not to make use of it without the advice of his own Physicians and experiment upon others which the King said he would do and in confidence thereof the Duke left him and went to London And in the mean time he being absent the said Plaister and Posset drink were brought and at the Dukes return his Majesty commanded the Duke to give him the Posset-drink which he did the Physicians then present not seeming to mislike it Afterward the Kings health declining and the Duke hearing a rumour as if his Physick had done his Majesty hurt and that he had administred Physick without advice the Duke acquainted the King therewith who in much discontent replied They are worse then Devils that say so This being the plain clear and evident truth of all those things which are contained in that Charge He humbly referreth it to the judgements of your Lordships how full of danger and prejudice it is to give too ready an ear and too easie a beleef unto a Report or Testimony without Oath which are not of weight enough to condemn any Also he humbly acknowledgeth how easie it was for him in his young years and unexperienced to fall into thousands of errours in those ten years wherein he had the honour to serve so great and so open-hearted a Soveraign Master But the fear of Almighty God his sincerity in the true Religion established in the Church of England though accompaninied with many weaknesses and imperfections which he is not ashamed humbly and heartily to confesse his awfulnesse not willing to offend so good and gracious a Master and his love and duty to his Countrey have restrained and preserved him he hopeth from running into any hainous misdemeanours and crimes But whatsoever upon examination and mature deliberation they shall appear to be least in any thing unwittingly within the compasse of so many years he shall have offended He humbly prayeth your Lordships not onely in those but to all the said misdemeanours misprisions offences and crimes wherewith he standeth charged before your Lordships to allow unto him the benefit of the free and general Pardon granted by his late Majesty in Parliament in the one and twentieth year of his Reign out of which he is not excepted And also of the gracious Pardon of his now Majesty to the said Duke and vouchsafed in like manner to all his Subjects at the time of his most happy Inauguration and Coronation which said Pardon under the Great Seal of England and granted to the said Duke beareth date the tenth day of February now last past and so here shewed forth unto your Lordships on which he doth humbly relie And yet he hopeth that your Lordships in your Justice and Honour upon which confidence he putteth himself will acquite him of and from those misdemeanours offences misprisions and crimes wherewith he hath been charged And he hopeth and will daily pray that for the future he shall by Gods grace so watch all his actions both publick and private that he shall not give any just offence to any However that that an Authour hath descanted on this defence It doth really appear prudential modest and humble and no doubt a Reply might be intended In the interim the Kings affaires requiring a quicker supply for the publique than these lingring proceedings could admit he demands the speedy producing their Bill of Subsidy to be passed to which they were forced suddenly to conform not unlikely to prevent their present dissolution which otherwise they suspected And resolving to make work they were hammering a tedious Declaration of Grievances which was allowed by the House before the Bill of Subsidy Whereupon with huge indignation the King the very next day Iune 15. dissolves them with this positive answer to some Lords that were sent to intercede for longer sitting not a minute And the same day Bristow was committed to the Tower and Arundell confined to his House with a Proclamation for burning all Copies of the Commons Declaration which was
semblance of hardship or Invasion upon the Subjects Liberties which the very Papists in this the better Partners seemed more really to resent and offered in lieu of some favour to them in the penal Lawes not Toleration to contribute very largely to the safeguard of the Narrow Seas which put the State into present condition rather to collect their Arrears of Thirds due to the King by Law It appeared not for private gain but extream necessity of State which involved all and therefore with possible endevours the Naval Forces were to be compleated for the summer But let us passe over to Ireland to see what they do there It was Michaelmas Term in Ireland when the Papists there offered Propositions to maintain five hundred Foot for a more Toleration of Religion but the Protestants to pertake in some measure of the charge To that end a great concourse of the Nation of both professions appeared before the Lord Deputy Fawkland in the Castle of Dublin but the Primate and Bishops in their Assembly prevented their further proceedings subscribing to a Protestation as their judgement concerning Toleration of Popery That the Religion of the Papists is Superstitious and Idolatrous their Faith and Doctrine erronious and hereticall their Church in respect of both Apostaticall To give them therefore a Toleration or to consent that they may freely exercise their Religion and professe their Faitb and Doctrine is a grievoâ—s sin and that in two respects For first It is to make our selves accessary not only to their superstitious Idolatries Heresies and in a word to all the abominates of Poperty but also which is a consequent of the former to the perdition of the seduced people which perish in the Deluge of the Catholique Apostacy 2. To grant them Toleration in respect of any money to be given or Contribution to be made by them is to set Religion to sale and with it the souls of people whom Christ our Saviour hath redeemed with his most precious blood And as it is a great sinne so also a matter of most dangerous consequence the consideration whereof we commend to the wise and judicious Beseeching the zealous God of Truth to make them who are in Authority zealous of Gods Glory and of the advancement of true Religion zealous resolute and couragious against all Popery Superstition and Idolatry Amen Ja Armachanus Auth Medensis Ro Dunensis c. Richard Cork Cloyne Rosses Tho Kilmore Ardagh Mich. Waterford Lismore Mal Casohellen Tho Hernes Laughlin Geo Deceus Andr Alachadeus Theo Dromore Franc Lymrick Conferred and agreed upon 6 Nov. 1626. And this their judgement in April 23 after 1627. Dr. Downham Bishop of Derry at the next Assembly and before the Lord Deputy Falkland and his Council took occasion to publish in the midst of his Sermon His preamble herein was That many amongst us for gain and outward respects are ready to consent to a Toleration of false Religion and are guilty of putting to sale their own and others souls and so unwilling to deliver his own private opinion onely but the judgements of the Arch-Bishop and Bishops which he thinks good to publish to them to cleer themselves from consenting To which the people gave their vote Amen But then he went on Not hereby said he to hinder the Kings service for we desire that not onely the sole Army of 5500 may be maintained but also a far greater Army besides the trained Souldiers onely he wished that the King would reserve to himself the most of those peculiar Graces of late offered and granted to the dishonour of God and the King the prejudice and Impeachment of true Religion and what is wanting might be supplied by the County to which he exhorted all good Christians and faithfull subjects The Text the Bishop took was Luke 1. 25. 23 24 25. verses speaking against mens subordinating Religion and the keeping a good Conscience for worldly respects and to set their souls to sale for gain of earthly things The L. Primate preached the next day before the same Auditory and took his Text 1 Ioh. 5. 15. Love not the World nor the things that are in the World when he made the like application as the Bishop did rebuking such who for ready gain like Iudas sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver or as Balaam following the wages of unrighteousnesse c. foretelling as he had often the judgement for these our Inclinations to such permissions and Tolerations and spake as Ieremiah did to Baruch of Gods being about to pluck up what he had planted and to break down what he had built and his bidding him not to seek great things for himself he applied to these times Indeed the judgement of the Bishops prevailed much with the Protestants that the Proposals sank by degrees and therefore induced the Lord Deputy to desire the Primate as the fittest person of the Assembly and a Privy Councellor and so concerned to promote the Kings affairs to summe up the state of the Business and to move them to an Absolute Grant of some competency to the Kings Necessities without any such former Conditions which was so done with much prudence and to this effect his Speech followeth My Lords THe refusal of those Gentlemen to contribute supply to the Army for defence of this Nation minds me of the Philosophers observation That such as have respect to a few things are easily misled Their minds so intent to ease themselves of a petit burthen without regard to the desolation of a heavy war which an Army may prevent forgetting the lamentable effects of our late Civil War by famine rapine and what not and now again the storm is foreseen which if not prevented our state may prove irrecoverable The Dangers are from abroad and from home Abroad we being now at odds with two potent Princes France and Spain to whom heretofore our dis-affected persons have offered this Kingdom to their Conquest In the daies of Henry the eight the Earl of Desmond did it to the French King the Instrument in the Court of Paris yet extant expresses so much and the Pope afterwards transferred the Title of Ireland to Charles 5. and so afresh confirmed to his Son Philip in the time of Queen Elizabeth with a resolution to settle this Crown upon the Spanish Infanta These Donatives though of no value yet they serve for a colour to a potent Pretender powerfully to supply what is defective And of late even when our Match was on foot with Spain a Book was countenanced there the Author a Spaniard Philip O Sullevan wherein he concludes the only way to establish that Monarchy first to set upon Ireland the Conquest of Scotland then of England and after of the Low Countries will easily follow Nor is the fear more from abroad then the like danger at Home Domestick Rebellion but lest I be mistaken now as your Lordships have been lately I must distinguish the Inhabitants Some
the States preferred to the Throne and a fair occasion was offered to signalize his Inauguration and to be the terrour of his enemy the Muscovite who having done much spoyl in Lituania besieged the Polish Town of Smolensko The War was high and either party endeavour their succour Both of them in this quarrel indifferent to Great Brittanes Interest unlesse the Scots will afford the Pole their favour for countenancing their pedling trade of Land Merchandizing from Fair to Fairs And indeed they have reception there also for such of them as have been souldiers of fortune But the English upon a double account have increased their Naval trade to the Muscovite and our Merchants thereby inriched into an Incorporate Company setled in the time of Queen Elizabeth and so that great Duke or Emperour solicits King Charles for Assistance in his intended War and siege of Smolensko where because the English and Scots both had entertainment on either side they shall not want a Remembrancer The King of Swede at his first descending into Germany fomented this quarrel willing he was to engage Poland and all our neighbour Princes and States in any War the better to prevent their assistance to the Emperour countenancing and enâ—â—uraging divers of his own Officers strangers to take pay on either side The Muscovite sends abroad his Ambassadours for aid with particular Letters to King Charles for Men and Officers who recommended Colonel Thomas Sanderson which for a compleat double Regiment of two thousand English by the North Cape the first that ever transported Military men to that Nation by sea to the Town of Arch Angel the North part and Port to the Musco and the place where all Merchants strangers keep their Staâ—le There they land the sixth of August 1632 Commissioners are appointed to receive them upon such conditions as never were more noble for Souldiers the Colonels own single pay near 200 l. sterling a Moneth And being received and Carressed at Musco the whole Army march to Smolensko a strong Town in the borders of Poland formerly taken by Sigismund from the Muscovite with a two years siege like that of Ostend in Flanders if we consider the length of the siege and the number of the slain which amounted as Authours reckon to more than twenty thousand men and now was the Muscovite resolved to bid fair for the Game with an Hoast of fifteen hundred thousand Souldiers And being come after some Skirmishes the King of Poland in person draws down his whole Army thither to besiege the Besiegers Entrenching himself which was all he could do for the present against such a powerful Army of 120 thousand and so by degrees he cuts off all provisions which put the Musco General to quicken the siege and to make several attempts upon the strong Town And at last having summoned his Councel of War And amongst them of several Nations Colonel Sanderson Colonel Alexander Lesly a Scot differing in opinions fell to quarrel which the General opposed saying These that will not fight the Enemy let them keep their own quarters But gave command to countenance Colonel Sanderson with 3000 Foot to fall upon the Polish quarters weakened by drawing off their choisest Horse and Foot to Dorogobuse to prevent their Muscovite provision of relief and the General privately took Sanderson crosse the River to get a secret view for the best advantage of the designe When suddenly an Alarm came to the General who commanded Sanderson with speed to his quarters who passing by the brow of an Hill where Lesly drew out into Order and seeing Sanderson without any guard with a dozen of Horse followed him that took no heed of any Treason but minding his enemy before his face Lesly came close behinde him and with a brace of bullets shot him by the nape of the neck into the head stark dead the second day of December 1633. Upon which Murther the English drew into a Body with resolution of revenge upon Lesly and his Scots but for the instant were both commanded into a truce with great protestation that the Murtherer should be subject to severe punishment and so submitted him to a Guard of which the enemy having knowledge takes the advantage falls upon the Muscovite and in this disorder put them to a great losse and kills six thousand enforcing them to a Parly and to these base unheard-of conditions That an Army of an hundred and twenty thousand should cast their Arms and Colours at the feet of this King a Monster of Victory He pardons them all the strangers near fourteen thousand are never to bear Arms against the Crown of Poland and all Arms and Ammunition submitted to the Conquerour And not long after the general peace was ratified between them That the King of Poland should relinquish his Title and pretensions upon the great Duchy of Musco and the grand Duke his upon Smolensko and other such places formerly depending on the Muscovite These dishonourable conditions fell heavily upon the General who was at his return home soon-beheaded His Son the Lievetenant General whipt to death about the streets and his family banished for ever into the Countrey of Ibera there to catch Sables for the Emperours profit a customary punishment of such as have relation and dependance upon Traitours Nay the King of Swede had called in the Turk who to besiege Poland was entred into the Countrey but the King had timely gotten this Victory to put fire in the Turks tails beating them out again and forcing them also to beg a peace upon most honourable terms for the King at that same time when the third part of Constantinople was burnt to the ground with incredible losse a Prodigie threatning the Turk with that misfortune which afterward befel him The Murtherer Lesly after some time of imprisonment with great summes of money wrought his release there and to be sent Prisoner to the justice of King Charles whose subject he was Here he was cast into prison and suffered under the trial onely of the High Court of Honour where being arraigned he produced the Kings pardon who was pleased thus to excuse and that truly That being the Murther was committed in a foreign Nation the Laws of England could not reach to punish with death which said the King having passed a formal Tryal may give caution to his Subjects not to execute the like The pardon being onely to shadow from publick knowledge the weakness of our Laws against such foreign Offenders But the Hand of Heaven prosecuted this Murther for He wandring in foreign Wars came over hither again with some command in the Queens forces which She brought over from Holland for assistance of the King in the late Civil War where upon his first service he was 〈◊〉 and maimed in his Murtherous hand Then he returns into Muscovia where but for suspicion of Treachery he was imprisoned in a Tower and from the top was flung 〈◊〉 sharp stakes and lingred out a reasonable time of
executâ—â—◠〈◊〉 he wretchedly died IRELAND The State of England must be cleared of an Imputation That the not reducing Ireland to Civility since the Martial design 17 H. 2. above four hundred years was so continued in policy But if otherwise intended why not the Conquest perfected till their subjection to K. Charls In truth their former defects have been the faint prosecution of the War and loosness of Civil Governments The Souldiers ill paid and worse commanded the more barbarous the greater difficulty witness Caesars to reduce Brittains and their petty Princes a longer War then with all Asia and under one Monarch The King of Spain hath felt that by the States of the Netherlands not as yet but the whole Kingdom of Portugal he got in a trice Tributaries they were the first degree of subjection but more properly Soveraigns than Subjects And H. 3. grants run thus Rex Regi Tosmond salutem c And the Record says Onale Rex 100 l. de auxilio domini Regis Henrici c. and in truth the English Kings might rather deserve their Title Rex Regum for each Rebel is a King and vi armis Regnum suum obtinuit and the Armies sent over at several times were ill paid more unruly worst commanded till 36. Edw. 3. Extorting Coin and Livery Free-quarter and Money the general fault of all Commanders there which the Irish call damnable Custom and so did nothing but undo one another the English Colonies as hardly used as the Irish Until 9 Eliz. who sent over more men and spent more money there than all her Progenitors since the first onset on that Nation for she had three Rebellions Oneal anno 1566. was soon defeated with a thousand men or rather he was slain by accident of the Scots not the English Army Desmond more deep six thousand English quite defeated him But Tyrones Rebellion universally spread enforced the Queen to send Essex with forces indeed twenty thousand by Poll yet did nothing till Mountjoy made an end of that war under King Iames and so submitted to English Government Laws Magistrates the Kings pardon and Peace in all parts an intire and perfect Conquest as Merline prophesied At Sextus maenia Hiberniae subverteâ— Regiones in Regnum redigentur But concerning the Civil Affairs they were never brought to any degree of Reformation till the Governour Earl of Sussex laid the platform and proceeded in the way which Sr. H. Sidney pursued reducing the Countries into â—hires placing 〈◊〉 and Ministers of Laws but yet rather in a course of 〈◊〉 than by Civil Courts for though the greatest part of 〈◊〉 were vested in the Crown by Act of Parliament yet no seizure nor brought in charge the Irish having all and though the Name O-Neal were damn'd as High Treason yet Tirlagh Leynnagh was suffered to leave that Title and to intrude upon the possessions of the Crown and that with favour of the State and the Abbaries and Religious Houses in Tyrone Tirconnel and Ferminagh dissolved in 33 Hen. 8. were never reduced into charge but were continually possest by the Religious Persons until King Iames came to the Crown Nay more strange the Donations of Bishopricks being a flower of the Crown which the Kings of England did ever retain when Papacy was at the highest There were three of them in Ulster namely Derry Rapho and Clogher which were never bestowed by any former Soveraigns though they were undoubted Patrons until King Iames the first King that ever supplied these Sees with Bishops Indeed after the Government of Henry Sidney followed Sir Iohn Perrolt who advanced the Reformation in three principal points In establishing the Composition of Conaught in reducing Ulster into seven Shires though in his time the Law never executed in those new Counties by Sheriffs or Justices of Assize but the people left to be ruled by their own barbarous Lords Laws Lastly by vesting in the Crown the Laws of Desmond in Munster and planting English there After Perrot comes Sir William Fitzers He raised a Composstion in Munster and setled the possessions of the Lords and Tenants in Monahan one of the last Acts of State tending to Reformation in Queen Elizabeths days Thus former Soveraigns endeavoured since Edward 3. to reduce this Nation and before the Civil Wars of York and Lancaster the chief aim was to order the degenerate English Colonies not respecting the meeâ— Irish. But after Hen. 7. who united the Roses they laboured to bring both English and Irish to Alleageance but never perfected till King Iames. The former 〈…〉 〈…〉 And for the Civil part to settle peace after Tyrone that Act of State or Act of oblivion by Proclamation pardoned all offences against the Crown and particular Trespasses don before King Iames his time and the inslaved Irish under their tyrant Lords were received into his Majesties immediate Protection As publick Peace so publick Iustice the first Sheriffs in Tyrone and Tyrâ—onnel in Ulster and Pelham and the first Justices in those Counties and afterwards in the first years Government of Sir Arthur Chichester he established two other new Circuits of Assize in Connaught and Munster where for two hundred years before had not been executed and publick Iustiâ—e grew so great as that there was Magna messis sed operarii pauci round about the whole Kingdom twice a year which heretofore was but about the Pale like the Circuit of Cynosur a about the Pole Quae cursu interiore brevi convertitur orbe By the Circuits of Assize the Commons were taught to be free Subjects to the King not Slaves to their Lords that their Cuttings Cosheries Sessings and such Extortions were unlawfull so that these tyrant Lords wanting means humbly petitioned for licence to take some competent contribution for their support which being denied them they were fain to fly into foreign parts and as Extortion banished them who could not live but under the Law so the Law banished the Irish Lord who could not live but by extortion that in five years not so many Malefactours of Death in the six Circuits or two and thirty Shires as in one Circuit of the West of England the Irish in peace fearfull to offend the Law and thereby â—ull knowledge of the Irish their Countries Persons and Actions and so their ancient Allowances in their Pipe Rolls pro Guidagio Spiagio was well spared Under Officers doing that Aâ—rand the neglect of the Law made the very English 〈◊〉 Irish which now counts them to be civil English The â—est was the setling of the Irish Estates as well as English for though a Law of Queen Elizabeth enabled the Governours to take Surrenders and regrant Estates unto the Irish yet but few Irish Lords in her time offered to make any if they did it was regranted to them again and to no other and the poor Septes paid their Duties as before so 〈◊〉 such a Surrender there was but one Freeholder made in a whole County which was
restrictions and bounded the writ at the first but to Maritime Counties as mostly receiving the present benefit of security from Pyrates but that not sufficient for the common necessity the wits became afterwards Generall to all Counties and so did the quarrel The whole amounting unto two hundred thirty six thousand pounds in lieu of all payments came but to twenty thousand pounds per mensem The Clergy never pleaded but indeed they muttered their case to be free from all secular and civil charges And to prevent the boldness of any pretence the Laws made disputes of the three fold necessity binding all Clergy and Laity viz. aid in war building of Bridges and raising of Forts Nor had they any Execution that which the Arch-bishop did for them was upon their just Complaint of their unequal Tax by their Neighbour therefore the Sheriffs were required not to tax the Clergy of Parsonages above a tenth part of their Land-rate of their several Parishes and no doubt we may easily believe the Inlanders might mutter as conceiving it strange to be concerned in the Sea But in truth the main Exception was to be taxed out of Parliament against the late Petition of Right and indured long debate in Courts of Iustice thereafter whilest the first Mover Noy the Attorney having set the Wheel a going took his last leave in August to rest for ever from the toil of an Attorney General And now was the great Design of the Swedes quarrel in Germany prosecuted and Ambassadours abroad to all the Neighbour Allies for assistance and Axel Oxenstiern the great Chancellour and Guider of those affairs of State sent hither his Son in Ambassy impowred with Credential Letters no doubt from his Sovereign Queen or from interest of the Chancellour of which our King could not pretend ignorance for in all outward reception he appeared so I was present in the Banquetting-house at White-hall when he had Audience of his tedious peremptory Oration But indeed whether because his Address had been before to the French King from whom he had large promises and a great Present or whether because our Reasons of State gave slender hopes to engage against the Emperour with whom we were in Treaty concerning the Palatinate he refused our Kings Present of equal value with that of France and returned not well pleased The state of Ireland in some disquiet dangerously now divident between Papist and Protestant the wise Lord Deputy Wentworth being necessitated to summon a Parliament for the supply of a fresh Contribution for the Army the former of twenty thousand pounds per annum determining the next year and provision must be assured before hand to discharge the Kings Debt of eighty thousand pounds besides It is most true that there was no ill Husbandry of former Governours that caused a contraction of this Debt but the wisdom of the Sovereign not to charge the Nation with Levies for they had granted but one Subsidy since primo Iacobi the Kingdom in good condition since the Wars and their Estates being by the King so lately setled they could do no less than raise their Purses with their plenty and give the King Subsidies which they did The Civil affairs well forwarded the care was to setle the Ecclesiastick by Assembly of a Synod The Design was not more politick as pious to repeal the Body of Articles formed Anno 1615. and to substitute those nine and thirty Articles of the Church of England in their room and the rather because the nine Articles of Lambeth were included with the Irish which in truth had been purposely inserted by King Iames to ballance against the Tenets of Arminians and were evermore started by the contrary Opinions where the Points of Predestination and the Lords Day Sabbath had found free acception to these indeed the Alteration seemed strange some referring it to power others to piety and reason also the reason might be in relation to the Papists who made a wonder that the Churches of three Kingdoms united being under one chief Head and Governour there should be three several and distinct Confessions of Faith and yet all pretending to one Religion and the conclusion and concession not huddled but canvased and with some advantage in Vote for the Church of England although as some say the Primate of Ireland interposed his Negative The Scots are busie fomenting sundry pretended Designs of State against their Liberties they became very bold endeavouring to blast the Kings Proceedings in their last Parliament as indirect charging him with corrupting and suborning the then Votes and evermore of some tendency in favour of Papists and to publish it in print they framed a Libel which passing through malignant hands and so vented but the Lords of the Council there searching narrowly for the Authour it fell upon one William Hagge and he escaping his Abetter was brought to the Board being the Lord Balmerino the Son of a Father of small Conscience and less Religion but Secretary he had been to King Iames who shuffled a Letter of his own contriving amongst others for the Kings signature too much complementing with the Pope Clement in favour of the Catholicks which Letter being so sent and some years after mentioned by Cardinal Bellarmine to the Kingâ—s prejudice and Balmerino questioned for it did ingeniously confess the same and after some outward sufferings had his pardon and preferment but time discovering the Policies of State another way it is now averred that the Letter was then devised by the Kings command in some reason to gain upon the Romish party in reference to his interest in England where the Papists were prevalent and more powerfull abroad but now this Lord the Son whether by nature perfidious or made so by Revenge elapsed into the like crime indeed and suffered the same Trial and Eviction and found the same mercy the Kings pardon and preferment for the present but fell more foul in offending some years after But the Kings Pardon to him gave great encouragement to the discontented Party in Scotland having now found by experience the Kings inclination either by fear or affection to be wrought upon if not mastered and having continual intelligence from his Majesties Bed-chamber the bane of the King by persons near about him Scots of all passages in England concerning the interruption of three Parliaments imprisoning the Members and other civil Distractions sufficient to discover a discontented condition in England also but it appears not who gave the first invitation for assistance to each other of a War Either party Scots and English so forward as that it seems they met joyn'd at last in an unnatural War with their dread Sovereign And yet untill 1637. that the Service-book was imposed on the Scots both parties lay dormant without any perfect correspondence that I can meet with till that time or a little after And then also Cardinal Richelieu sent over his Chaplain Chambers a Scotishman to stir up the
habit and with a great Train wherewith they are disguised from notice yet are Jesuits and Members of the Conspiracy All the Papists of England contribute to this Assembly lest any thing should be wanting to promote the Enterprise upon whose Treasury a Widow Owner of the Houses where now Secretary Windebank dwelleth and dead above three years since conferred forty thousand pounds and for the driving on of the business others contribute as they are able Besides the foresaid Houses there are also other close Conventicles kept but very distrustfull of themselves lest they should be discovered First every of them one not knowing of the other are directed to certain Inns and thence led by Spies to the place of meeting being otherwise ignorant of the place for fear of surprise The Countess of Arundel a strenuous she-champion of the Romish Faith bends all her powers for this Universal Reformation nothing is done secretly or openly at Court but she imparts it to the Legate with whom she meets thrice a day sometimes at Arundel's house now at Court or at Tart-Hall The Earl himself being called about three years since this year must go to Rome without doubt to consult there of matters pertinent to the Design At Greenwich at the Earls cost a feminine School is erected which is but a Monastery of Nuns for the young Girls therein are sent forth hither and thither into foreign Monasteries beyond the Seas Master Porter of the Kings Bed-chamber most addicted to the Popish Religion is an utter Enemy of the Kings revealing all his Secrets to the Legate by his Wife for he rarely meets with him himself In all his actions he is nothing inferiour to Toby Matthew it is unexpressible how diligently he intends this business His Sons are secretly principled in the Romish Belief but open Professours of the Reformed the Eldest is now to receive his Fathers Place under the future King A Cardinals Hat is provided for the other if the Plot takes Three years since Master Porter was to be sent away by the King to Morocco but was prohibited by the Society lest the business should suffer delay He is a Patron of the Jesuits providing Chappels for them to exercise their Religion in both at home and abroad Secretary Windebank a fierce Papist is the greatest Traitour to the King of all He not onely revealeth the Kings greatest Secrets but also communicates Counsels by which the Design may be best advanced He at least thrice every Week converseth with the Legate in the Nocturnal Conventicles and revealeth what is â—it to be known to which end he hireth an House near to the Popes Legate to whom he often resorts through the Garden-door for by this vicinity the Meeting is facilitated He is bribed with Gifts to be a Partner in the Conspiracy by whom he is sustained that he may more sedulously attend his Charge His son is sent expresly to Rome on purpose to insinuate himself into his holinesse Digby and Winter Knights Mr. Mountague who hath been at Rome the Lord Sterlin a Kinsman of the Earl of Arundel a Knight the Countesse of New-port the Dutchesse of Buckingham and many others who hath sworn to this Conspiracy are all most vigilant in the plot Some are enticed with hope of Court others of Political Offices others attended to the sixteen Cardinals caps vacant which are detained so to feed with vain hopes those who expect them The president of the said Society was the Lord Gage a Jesuited Priest dead some three years since He had a palace adorned with wanton pictures as pretending to profaneness but palliating thereby a Monastery wherein fourty Nunns were maintained concealed in so spacious a Palace It is situated in Queens street The Jesuits have bought all this street and have reduced it to a quadrangle where a Jesuiticall Colledge is tacitely built with this hope that it might be openly finisht assoon as the General Reformation was accomplisht The Popes Legate useth a threefold Character one common to all Nuncio's Another peculiar to himself and Cardinal Barbarino A third wherewith he covers some greater secrets to be imparted Whatsoever things he receiveth from the Society or spies he packeth up in one bundle with this addresse To Monsieur Stravio Archdeacon of Cambrai from whom they are sent to Rome These particulars considered it will be evident to all 1. That the Conspiracy against the King and Lord Archbishop is detected and the means threatning ruin to them both is demonstrated 2. The imminent Dangers to both Kingdoms is declared 3. The Rise and Progress of the Scotish Fire is related 4. Means are suggested whereby their Troubles may be appeased for after the Scots shall see by whom and to what intents their Spirits are provoked they will speedily look to themselves neither will they suffer the Forces of both Kingdoms to be subdued lest a middle party interpose which seek the ruine of both 5. With what Sword the Kings Throat is assaulted even when these Stirs shall be ended Con's Confession and visible Demonstration sheweth 6. The place of Assembly in Captain Read's House is named 7. The eight Days Dispatch by Read and the Legate is described 8. How the names of the Conspiratours may be known 9. Where this whole Congregation may be circumvented 10. Some of the principal unfaithfull ones of the Kings party are notified by name and many whose Names occur not yet their Habitations being known their Names may be easily extorted from Read If these things be warily proceeded in the strength of the whole business will be brought to light so the Arrow being foreseen the Danger shall be avoided which that it may prosperously succeed the Almighty Creatour grant The matter of this Information is conform to their old practices in all former Times and in some respects to be likely enough but truly far from any wise mans faith to give it too much credit in the particulars which is so notoriously mistaken as it marrs the story And for that Objection and Result thereon that the Arch-bishop of Canterbury had too much favoured the Romish Faction not their Faith is his own opinion the Information says quite contrary But his Observatour and others have shewed how and upon what account King Iames and King Charls too had Reasons and in what manner to connive at the Popish Faction in reference to the favours afforded the foreign Reformed Churches And so the great Ministers and Officers in State doing but their duty therein might be thought to favour their Faith See History complete Mary Queen of Scots and King Iames. And to ballance the Puritan Non-conformist the ancient usefull Ceremonies of the Primitive Church were fuller restored in this Arch-bishops Time than of late before but not so thereby for the Arch-bishop to be forthwith cried up by the Romanists for their Proselyte for they know that this Reformation did in Ceremonies rather undo them No Sir it was the Scots first and Presbytery
here and my eternal happiness hereafter through Jesus Christ our Lord in whose Name and words I conclude Our Father which art in Heaven c. The Petition of the Earl of Strafford unto the Lords before he died To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in this present Parliament assembled The humble Petition of Thomas late Earl of Strafford sheweth That seeing it is the good will and pleasure of God that your Petitioner is now shortly to pay that dutie which we all ow to our frail nature he shall in all Christian patience and charitie conform and submit himself to your justice in a comfortable assurance of the great hope laid up for us in the mercie and merits of our Saviour blessed for ever Onely he humbly craves to return your Lordships most humble thanks for your noble compassion towards those innocent children whom now with his last blessing he must commit to the protection of Almightie God beseeching your Lordships to finish your pious intentions towards them and desiring that the reward thereof may be fulfill'd in you by him that is able to give above all we are able either to ask or think Wherein I trust the Honourable House of Commons will afford their Christian assistance And so beseeching your Lordships charitably to forgive all his omissions and infirmities he doth very heartily and truly recommend your Lordships to the mercies of our heavenly Father and that for his goodness he may perfect you in every good work Amen Tho Wentworth Some design there was no doubt of delivering the Earl of Strafford by escape as appears by examination of Sir Will. Balfore Lieutenant of the Tower who says he was commanded to receive Captain Billingsley into the Tower with an hundred men for securing of the place and to be under his command but coming thither Balfore opposeth his entrance and therefore the Earl expostulates with him by way of advice of the danger to deny the Kings commands to whom the Lieutenant said that there was a certain discovery of his intended escape by examination of three Women Goodwives of Tower-street that peeping in at his Gallery-doorkey-hole where he was walking with Billingsley they heard him advise therein by ascertaining his Brothers ship to be in readiness which was fallen down on purpose below in the River that they three might be there in twelve hours that if the Fort were but secured for three or four months there would come aid enough and that there was nothing to be thought upon but an escape and much more broken speech to that purpose To which the Earl answered that he had discourse with Billingsley thereabout but meant it as by the Kings authority to be removed to some other Castle and confessed the most of the Womens relation Besides the Lieutenant's examination that the Earl of Strafford sent for him four days before his suffering perswading him to assent to his escape for twenty thousand pounds to be paid and a Mariage of his Daughtâ—r to Balfore's Son And because the memory of this brave man may live for ever read his Character from the King his Master whose distinction concluded his death to be more safe then just I looked says the King upon my Lord of Strafford as a Gentleman whose great abilities might make a Prince rather afraid than ashamed to imploy him in the greatest affairs of State For those were prone to create in him great confidence of undertakings and this was like enough to betray him to great errours and many enemies whereof he could not but contract good store while moving in so high a sphere and with so vigorous a lustre he must needs as the Sun raise many envious exhalations which condensed by a popular odium were capable to cast a cloud upon the brightest merit and integrity Though I cannot in my judgement approve all he did driven it may be by the necessities of times and the temper of that people more than led by his own disposition to any height and rigour of actions Yet I could never be convinced of any such criminousness in him as willingly to expose his life to the stroke of justice and malice of his enemies I never met with a more unhappy conjuncture of affairs than in the business of that unfortunate Earl when between mine own unsatisfiedness in conscience and a necessity as some told me of satisfying the importunities of some people I was perswaded by those that I think wished me well to chuse rather what was safe then what seemed just preferring the outward peace of my Kingdoms with men before that inward exactness of conscience with God And indeed I am so far from excusing or denying that compliance on my part for plenary consent it was not to his destruction whom in my judgement I thought not by any clear Law guilty of death That I never bare any touch of conscience with greater regret which as a sign of my repentance I have often with sorrow confessed both to God and men as an act of so sinfull frailtie that it discovered more a fear of man than of God whose name and place on earth no man is worthie to bear who will avoid inconveniences of State by acts of so high injustice as no publick convenience can expiate or compensate I see it a bad exchange to wound a mans own conscience thereby to salve State-sores to calm the storms of popular discontents by stirring up a tempest in a man 's own bosom Nor hath Gods justice failed in the event and sad consequences to shew the world the fallacie of that Maxim Better one man perish though unjustly than the people be displeased or destroyed In all likelihood I could never have suffered with my people greater calamities yet with greater comfort had I vindicated Strafford's innocencie at least by denying to sign that destructive Bill according to that justice which my conscience suggested to me than I have done since I gratified some mens unthankfull importunities with so cruel a favour And I have observed that those who counselled me to sign that Bill have been so far from receiving the rewards of such ingratiatings with the people that no men have been harassed and crushed more than they He onely hath been least vexed by them who counselled me not to consent against the Vote of mine own conscience I hope God hath forgiven me and them the sinfull rashness of that business To which being in my soul so fully conscious those judgments God hath pleased to send upon me are so much the more welcom as a means I hope which his mercie hath sanctified so to me as to make me repent of that unjust act for so it was to me and for the future to teach me that the best Rule of Policie is to prefer the doing of justice before all enjoiments and the peace of my conscience before the preservation of my Kingdoms Nor hath any thing more fortified my resolution against all those violent importunities which since
and Figures within the Churches and afterwards from without suppressing the very Signs and Sign-posts and this curiosity of Imployment was conferred upon such as had least to do and could intend to be busied abroad Sir Robert Harloe was found out to be the fittest person which makes me remember Chaucer's Character of such another A busier man there never was Yet seemed busier than he was The King had given knowledg of his Resolution to journey to Scotland and to set out the tenth of August to which the Houses had agreed but now thus near they desire the King to put it off a Fortnight longer the great affairs of State necessarily requiring his presence and instanced in some Bills yet to be passed and some settlement for the Government of the Kingdom in his absence he told them the warning was so long since as that they might have hastened their business to that purpose And so the same day passed some Bills for Knighthood free making of Gun-pouder and Saltpeter and signed a Commission for passing Bills in his absence unto the Lord Keeper the Lord Privy-Seal the Earl of Lindsey Earl of Essex Marquess Hartford the Earl of Bath and the Earl of Dorset And signed to another Bill for the Earl of Essex General of all his Forces on this side Trent by which he had power to raise Forces in case of necessity but to that request that the Earl of Pembroke should be made Lord high Steward in the place of the Earl of Arundel now absent and the Earl of Salisbury to be Lord Treasurer he had no minde to either of them But the day before the King's Journey into Scotland and the Parliament serious in some sudden affairs of importance they were forced to lay aside the solemnity of this Day being Sunday and to sit from Morning till Night but not to bring it into President they publish in Print That for many urgent occasions they thought it necessary to sit and do declare so much that no inferiour Court or Council or any person may draw this into Example for their encouragement in neglecting the due observation of the Sabbath Sunday August 8. And then they adjourned untill the twentieth of October and a standing Committee of the House of Commons consisting of fifty Members appointed during the Recess But the King gone to Scotland the Parliament at leisure to frame business against his return such a Freedom and Liberty was taken up of the People and such connivance from the Parliament as somewhat like the late Comedy The World turn'd up side down Many Jealousies in the hearts of the People many Divisions and Differences in Opinion which little favour the Parliaments proceedings The Prelatical party utterly discountenanced and Learning discouraged the Universities neglected Orthodox men slighted A wonderfull liberty and licence afforded to the Communalty of a long time had now taken root and Riots too Every one as his fancy increased took upon him by connivance of several Members of several Opinions to countenance such who without other authority order or decency rudely and riotously disturbing Church-service in time of Prayers tearing the Book of Liturgy the Surplices and such things which the Parliament onely connived at being to use such a considerable party in time of need Ridiculous Conventicles and Preachings in Conventicles nay openly in corners of the Streets by Trades-men Tub-preachers to the general scandal of all good men In earnest to wise men and religious these courses were offensive and thereby grew disaffected to Parliaments but there were ways invented some were taken off by Preferments others deterred and most men distracted with these varieties exprest a Mutation and change of Church and State which after followed Insolencies and Disorders in the Populacy uncorrected or connived at grow up to Insurrections and Rebellions as with the late Actions of the Scots after whose Example the Irish Nation resolve of the like Freedom the one of Reformation the other of old ancient Popery National pretence either had but the effects of the former were soon smothered and pacified for the present but this other taking fire in time of our English Distractions which afforded them means and boldness to contrive the most horrid Rebellion in Ireland that after-ages will not easily believe It fell out in the Kings absence at Scotland and so we shall take up that time to enter the Reader in the former part of that miserable story and first of all to give some account of the Grounds and their rebellious pretences Somewhat we have said concerning the State of Ireland from the first Conquest of the English to these times of King Charls who highly indulged his Subjects there in this last Year 1640. upon their late Complaints and their general Remonstrance to him from the Parliament sitting at Dublin by a Committee of four Temporal Lords of the Upper House and twelve Members of the House of Commons instructed to represent the heavy pressures which they pretended to have suffered under the Government of the Earl of Strafford The King took their Grievances into his royal consideration heard them himself and presently provided for their redress And upon the decease of Master Wansford Master of the Rolls in Ireland and then Lord Deputy under the Earl of Strafford who still continued Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom though then accused of high Treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London the King sent a Commission of Government to the Lord Dillon of Kilkenny West and Sir William Parsons Knight and Baronet Master of the Wards there but finding his choice of Dillon to be much disgusted by the Irish Committee that Commission was forthwith cancelled with their approbation he placed the Government upon Sir William Parsons and Sir John Burlace Knight Master of the Ordnance both of them persons of great integrity who took the Sword the ninth of February 1640. who applied them selves with all possible content to the People In abating the Subsidies there being given in the time of the Earl of Strafford from fourty thousand pounds each Subsidy to twelve thousand pounds a piece so low were they reduced and drew up two Acts in Parliament most impetuously desired by the Natives The one was the Act of Limitations which settled all Estates of Land there for sixty years preceding The other Act for the relinquishment of the Kings Right and Title to the four Counties in Conaught legally found for him by several Inquisitions and ready to be disposed of to Brittish Undertakers as also to some Territories in Munster and Clare upon the same Title And that the King might testifie his own settled resolution for his future grace and favours to them he did about the end of May 1641. declare the Earl of Leicester Lord Lieutenant General of Ireland perhaps upon the former score as Heir to his Uncle Sir Philip Sidney as to Sir Henry Sidney his Grand-father who had been Governour of Ireland in time
Foot coming together by the Kings Commission or Warrant and all people of what rank soever are to be aiding to their suppression and these to be published in all Market Towns and Churches May 28. The King proclames as much against the Parliament Forbidding all his people belonging to the Trained Bands or Militia of the Kingdom to obey any Order or Ordinance of any of the Houses according to a Statute 7 Ed. 1. And the same day requires all the Ministers Free-holders Farmers and substantial Copy-holders of the Countie of York to meet at Heyworth Moor near York upon Friday Whitsun week by nine in the morning To the Sheriff of the Countie of York May 28. Which the Parliament declare to be against Law and of none effect and command all people to disobey it for so doing the Parliament will protect them And because divers Members of the Commons were ouâ— of sight and drooping after the King the House commands their personal appearance by the sixteenth day of this instant June upon pain of an hundred pounds to be disposed of to the Wars of Ireland excepting such Members in imploiments for the Parliament June 2. To prevent him of the sinews of War Money for which the Crownâ—jewels with the Queen in Holland are pawned at Amsterdam and other places beyond Seas The Parliament therefore mentioning the intent to make War against them do order That whosoever hath or shall pay leâ—d send or bring any money in specie into this Kingdom for or upon those Iewels or accept of any Bill thereafter shall be an Enemie to the State And the same day they vote their Frame of nineteen Propositions which are forwith sent to the King and truly of the first magnitude that ever any Subjects demanded and yet they must be accompanied with an humble Petition of his faithfull Subjects having nothing they say in their thoughts and desires more precious and of higher esteem next to their immediate service of God than their just and faithfull performance of their dutie to his Majestie and the Kingdom with honour peace and happiness The Propositions 1. That all the Kings privie Council great Officers and ministers of State may be put out excepting such as the Parliament shall approve and to assign them an Oath 2. That all affairs of State be managed by the Parliament except such matters as are transferred by them to the privie Council and to be concluded by the major part of the Nobilitie under their hands the full number not to exceed five and twentie nor under fifteen and if any place fall void in the intervall of Parliament then the major part of the Council to chuse one to be confirmed at the next Session of Parliament 3. That all the great Officers of the Kingdom shall be chosen with approbation of Parliament and in the intervall c. before said 4. The Government and Education of the Kings Children by Parliament c. ut supra 5. Their Mariages to be treated and concluded by Parliament c. 6. The Laws against Papists Priests and others be executed without Toleration or Dispensation except by Parliament 7. No popish Lord or Peer to have Vote in Parliament their Children to be educated in the Protestant Faith 8. To reform Church-government as the Parliament shall advise 9. To setle the Militia as the Parliament have ordered and for the King to recall all his Declarations published against their Ordinances therein 10. All privie Counsellours and Iudges to take Oath for maintenance of the Petition of Right and other Statutes which shall be made this Parliament c. 11. All Officers placed by Parliament to hold their places quam diu bene se gesserint 12. All Members of Parliament put out during this time be restored again 13. The Iustice of Parliament to pass upon all Delinquents and they to appear or abide their Censure 14. The general Pardon to pass with Exceptions as the Parliament shall advise 15. All Forts and Castles of the Kingdom to be disposed of by Parliament ut supra 16. The King to discharge all his Guard and Forces now in being and not to raise any other but in case of actual Rebellion 17. The King to enter strict Alliance with all reformed States for their Assistance to recover the Rights of his royal Sister and her princely Issue to those Dignities and Dominions which belong unto them 18. To clear the Lord Kimbolton and the five Members by Act of Parliament 19. No Peer hereafter to be made shall sit in Parliament without their consent And these Articles being confirmed the Parliament engage to make him a happie Prince June 2. These were the Propositions and how unreasonable may be seen by the Kings resentment of them and others such like after which drew from him the consideration expressed by himself in these words Although says the King there be manie things they demand yet if these be all I am glad to see at what price they set mine own safetie and my peoples peace which I cannot think I buy at too dear a rate save onely the parting with my Conscience and Honour If nothing else will satisfie I must chuse rather to be as miserable and inglorious as mine Enemies can make or wish me Some things here propounded to me have been offered by me others are easily granted the rest I think ought not to be obtruded upon me with the point of the Sword nor urged with the injuries of a War when I have already declared that I cannot yield to them without violaâ—ing my Conscience â—t is strange there can be no method of peace but by making War upon my Soul Here are many things required of me but I see nothing offered to me by the way of gratefull exchange of Honour or any requital for those favours I have or can yet grant them This Honour they do me to put me on the giving part which is more princely and divine They cannot ask more than I can give may I but reserve to my self the incommunicable Iewel of my Conscience and not be forced to part with that whose loss nothing can repair or requite Some things which they are pleased to propound seem unreasonable to me and while I have any masterie of my Reason how can they think I can consent to them Who know they are such as are inconsistent with being either a King or a good Christian. My yielding so much as I have already makes some men confident I will denie nothing The love I have of my peoples peace hath indeed geat influence upon me but the love of Truth and inward peace hath more Should I grant some things they require I should not so much weaken my outward state of a King as wound that inward quiet of my Conscience which ought to be is and ever shall be by God's grace dearer to me than my Kingdoms Some things which a King might approve yet in honour and policie are at some time to be
favour and grace by many Acts they would devise their Reasons of fear That he meant never to observe them To others that were deterred to consider the effects of abusing so gracious a Sovereign they would perswade them That those about the King could work him to their wills Then they get all the Militia and power of the Kingdom into their hands garison Hull and Hotham their Governour there and the Tower of London brought under subjection of one of their own and so with continual vexations caused the King to withdraw his person and to secure the Queen to pass beyond the Seas and himself to retire towards the North. What hath happened since his coming to York is so notorious as with amazement to all parts of Christendom to see the wisdom courage affection and loyalty of the English Nation so far shrunk and confounded by malice cunning industry of persons contemptible in number inconsiderable in fortune and reputation united onely by guilt and conspiracy against the King Treason licensed in Pulpits persons ignorant in learning seditious in disposition scandalous in life unconformable to Laws are the onely men recommended to authority and poweâ— to impoison the mindes of the multitude The Kings goods money and what not seized from him and to make the scorn compleat he must be perswaded That all is done for his good Opinions and Resolutions imposed upon him by Votes and Declarations That the King intends to levie war and then Arms are taken up to destroy him All Actions of his for his advantage are straightway voted illegal All the great Officers of State coming to the King are pursued with Warrants to all Mayors Justices Sheriffs and others to apprehend them compelling the Countries to take Arms against the King His Ships are taken from him and the Earl of Warwick made Admiral in despite of the King And after all this Mr. Martin should say That the Kings Office is forfeitable and the happiness of the Kingdom does not depend on him or any of the regal Branches of that stock And Sir Henry Ludlow should say That the King was not worthy to be King of England and that he hath no Negative Voice that he is fairly dealt with that he is not deposed that if they did that there would be neither want of modestie or dutie in them They publish scandalous Declarations commit his great Officers for doing their duties Raise an Army and chuse the Earl of Essex General with power to kill and slay whom he list They convert the Money given by Act of Parliament for the Discharge of the Kingdoms Debts and for Relief of Ireland and all to serve their turn to war against the King Commit those Lords that are loyal degrade nine Lords at a clap for coming to the King Take Tunnage and Poundage without the Kings consent But can the Nobility Gentry Clergy and Commonalty of England sacrifice their Honour Interest Religion Liberty to the meer sound of a Parliament and Privilege Can their experience Reason and Understanding be captivated by words And then he sums up many of his graces favours freedoms to them and the people And yet into what a Sea of Bloud is the Rage and Fury of these men lanching out to wâ—est that from him which he is bound to defend How have the Laws of Hospitality civility been violated discourses whispers in conversation been examined and persons committed and so kept during pleasure His and the Queens Letters broken open read publickly and commented upon that Christendom abhors to correspond with us Crimes are pretended against some men and they removed for others to be preferred If Monopolies have been granted to the prejudice of the people the calamity will not be less if it be exercised by a good Lord by a Bill now then it was before by a Patent And yet the Earl of Warwick thinks fit to require the Letter Office to be confirmed to him for three Lives at the same time that it is complained of as a Monopoly and without the alteration of any circumstance for the ease of the Subject and this with so much greediness and authority that whilest it was complained of as a Monopoly he procured an Assignment to be made of it to him from the person complained of after he had by his interest stopped the proceedings of the Committee for five Moneths before the Assignment made to him upon pretence that he was concerned in it and desired to be heard And the King concludes all with this Protestation That his quarrel is not against the Parliament but against particular men who first made the wounds and will not suffer them to be cured whom he names and will be ready to prove them guiltie of high Treason And desires that the Lord Kimbolton Mr. Hollis Mr. Pym Mr. Hambden Sir Arthur Haselrig Mr. Strode Mr. Martin Sir Henry Ludlow Ald. Pennington and Capt. Ven may be delivered up to the hands of justice to be tried according to the Laws of the Land Against the Earl of Warwick the Earl of Essex Earl of Stamford Lord Brook Sir John Hotham Major General Skippon and those who shall henceforth exercise the Militia by virtue of the Ordinance he shall cause Indictments of high Treason upon the Statute of 25 Edw. 3. Let them submit to their Trial appointed by Law and plead their Ordinances if they shall be acquitted he hath done And that all his loving Subjects may know that nothing but the preservation of the true Protestant Religion invaded by Brownism Anabaptism and Libertinism the safetie of our person threatned and conspired against by Rebellion and Treason the Law of the Land and Libertie of the Subject oppressed and almost destroyed by an usurped unlimited arbitrarie power and the freedom privilege and dignitie of Parliament awed and insulted upon by force and Tumults could make us put off our long-loved Robe of peace and take up defensive Arms. He once more offers pardon to all those that will desire the same except the persons before named if not he must look upon these Actions as a Rebellion against him and the Law who endeavour to destroy him and his people August 12. 1642. The Parliament had passed an Act for raising of four hundred thousand pounds by Overtures of Adventurers and Contributions and Loans for Relief of Irelaâ—d and Money and Plate was thereafter very heartily brought in to the Parliament when upon the thirtieth of Iuly the vote That the Treasurers appointed to receive the money already come in upon Subscriptions for Ireland do forthwith furnish by way of Loan unto the Committee for defence of the Kingdom one hundred thousand pounds for the supplie of the publick necessitie and defence of this Kingdom upon the Publick Faith Of which the King remembers them and of the Act of Parliament That no part of that money shall be imployed to any other purpose than the reducing of those Rebells And therefore charges the House of Commons as they will answer the
on to Warwick and there refreshed fell upon Strafford Avon commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Wagstaff Colonel Croker and Trist a Dutchman and some Companies of Foot with these they made good the Bridg faced the Enemy but not able to endure the Ordnance made a safe Retreat and left the Town to the Enemy who in fear of some stratagem made a hasty plunder and retreated to Warwick and so to Staffordshire where his Lordship by his Reputation and presence sought to dissolve the Association of the Gentry there and reduce the County to the Parliament Being come to Lichfield he gets into the Town indefencible and unarmed but those Forces that were there under the Earl of Chesterfield retired to the precincts of the Cathedral called A Close a place more tenable Brook being Master of the Town gave on upon the Enemy and whilest they fought he was got up into a chamber-window and peeping at a loop-hole of the Window received a fatal Shot upon the Ey-ball of which he instantly sunk down and died The remarkable passage is that the Lord Brook was shot in the eye on Saint Chad's day the first Bishop of the Mercians of that Church and that by the Son of a Clergy man the Enemy of the Church was killed The Assailants having lost their Leader retired for a while but came on again and took the Church together with the Earl of Chesterfield and all his Souldiers being many and some good Ordnance The Report was constant that the Lord Brook had ordered his Chaplain at his setting forth to this Encounter to preach upon this Text If I perish I perish Hest. c. 4. And himself prayed and used this Execration upon himself and Souldiers That if the cause he followed were not right and just he might be presently cut off and that he hoped to live to see the day when one stone of Saint Paul 's Church in London should not be left upon another Should be killed in the Eye and not the Lid touched He that disliked the Letany for the Prayer against sudden Death should die stone-dead But on Sunday afterwards March 22. the Commanders of the Kings Forces besiege Lichfield received intelligence that Sir Iohn Gell and Sir William Brereton for the Parliament with a Body of three thousand were coming to the Relief of the Besieged they drew out eight hundred Horse and three hundred Dragoons and came upon them unexpected and the Parliaments Horse not able to endure the Charge were put to flight and the Foot seeing themselves deserted forsook the Field leaving the Victory intire to the Kings party many killed and Prisoners taken with Ammunition and Baggage some Ordnance and four Drakes but all these were full dearly bought for though the King lost but few men he had it at no less price than the Earl of Northampton's life a gallant faithfull Lord who charging in the Head of his Troop was so-ingaged that his own Saddle-horse being shot and failing he was unfortunately slain and though he lost his life yet Victory attended him to his grave vanquishing those by whom he suffered and died a Protestant professour contrary to the feigned Report devised on him But afterwards Lichfield Close was gotten for the King by Prince Rupert the one and twentieth of April who having sprung his Mine made a reasonable Breach which assailing and at the same time others scaled the Walls both which failing and he sent for to Court gave them a fresh Attempt as a Farewell at which they yielded Lieutenant Colonel Russel commanding in chief to depart with fourscore Horse Men and Arms as many Musquetiers with Colours flying a free Pass and eleven Carts for their Baggage to Coventry and all Prisoners taken on either side since the Lord Brook came into the Countrey should be released It was on Saturday April 17. that the General Essex sate down before Reading and the next day made an Attempt thereon but was beaten off by Sir Arthur Aston the Governour an old Souldier bred up in the Wars of Germany from his youth A second Onset followed and entered upon one of the Out-works and repulsed with loss and for that good service the King sent them thanks with a Supply of seven hundred Musquetiers and sufficient Ammunition which was conveyed to Dorchester and so by a considerable strength of Horse to the water-side just against the Town by break of day and by Boats got in the Besiegers seeing it done but far off to hinder it But the place not able to indure the several Attempts of so great an Army daily supplied with fresh men the City of London Trained Bands and plenty of all provisions the last Encounter of the Besiegers with their great Ordnance shooting into the Town the Governour got a dangerous Bruise on the Head by the fall of some Brick-bats and in much danger the command devolved on Colonel Fielding and by him the Town was delivered up to their Enemy upon noble Conditions All the Forces to march out in warlike manner with free passage to Oxford with fifty Carts for Carriage the Town not to be plundered and such as will may remove from thence within six weeks and this was done on May day Of which sudden Surrender Fielding was questioned and committed at Oxford and by a Council of War sentenced to lose his head but left to the Kings mercy and by importunity of his Kindred the Villiers he had pardon And Sir Arthur Aston recovered of his Mischance to do the King good service for many years after In May the Overseers for demolishing all Pictures Crosses and what not that were so idolatrous abominable concluded their Reformation in that Monument of Adornment to the City Cheapside the great Cross after the Multitude had defaced the excellent Statues thereon of former Kings and Queens they pulled down the whole Fabrick to the ground in hate to Idolatry as was pretended but more certainly they made good use of the Gold and Lead which the pride of the City formerly had set out with much cost and now as forward to pull it down for the benefit of the State service And the next good Act they voted the Queen a Traitor for taking part with her Husband for now she was ready to march with good Forces towards the King Captain Hotham the Son being imprisoned by the Parliament made his Escape and sent to the Earl of Newcastle that he would cast himself into his arms and that Hull and Lincoln should be rendered to him and is now gone to his Father at Hull and both of them stand upon their guard The Queen now at Newark with some Forces intends to lie at Werton and thence to Ashby and there resolve what to do the Enemies Forces from Nottingham being gone to Leicester and Derby to intercept the Queens passage The Queen before she departed left for the safety of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire two thousand Foot and Arms for five hundred more and twenty
himself from the Ladder without any remorse for his monstrous Crime And now being executed for his Villany it may merit the moving why he was refused his Trial by Peerage The King had a great desire to remove the Siege against Dennington Castle but were beaten off and therefore it was concluded by the Council of State that Essex's Forces should not draw out of Newbury into the Field lest the King should possess it for a Winter Quarter but that they should fight him at his Retreat but he retreated to Marlborough without opposition and the Parliaments Forces quit Newbury which the King possesses and reserves as a covert Quarter for his Army when the other lay in the open Fields and forced from Basing Siege withdrew to Reading Hereabout we finde the first appearance of Exception which the Parliament had against the good management of their Armies Essex being now suspected as careless or discontent and therefore they fall to debate hereabout in the House for Colonel Norton had writ a Letter to them that he had received a Warrant from a chief Commander in the Army to withdraw from Basing which was a thing unexpected he says but accordingly he hath obeyed nay the commands of the Committee of both Kingdoms to the Army were lately much neglected and complained of It grew into a high Debate How chance the Parliaments Forces permitted the Enemie to relieve Dennington Castle when they were two for one and why the Town of Newbury was quitted before the Enemie was marched away as the pretence of not fighting before was because we would not quit Newbury And now the Kings Forces were quartered at Basing Odjam Newburie Blewburie and Marlborough and Essex at Reading Henley Abington and Farnham And whilest they thus lodg in Quarters the Actions of the Parliaments Army are arreigned and committed And the Earl of Manchester makes the Relation concerning the carriage at Dennington Castle of great length in writing wherein his Lordship makes his own Defence and gives a Charge against Lieutenant General Cromwel a Member of the Commons who had deserved much honour for his good Service to the State and who made answer to several particulars therein mentioned and the point of privilege of Parliament upon the transmitting of that business from the Lords before any Charge was brought to the House of Commons but it was committed and they to receive the proofs for making good of the Earls Information concerning Lieutenant General Cromwel and to make protestation of secrecy therein and so silent they were that we never heard more of it General Essex having sped so ill in the West was now returned to Westminster where the Faction was powerfull in the Commons House against him being suspected somewhat more royal than the House would have him to be And after long Debate it was resolved to new model the Army and by degrees and in time to be rid of their old General and to bethink of a new one in quality not more than a Knight with intention not over-long to trust to the Lords at all And begin with an Order That no Member of either House shall during this War enjoy and execute any Office or Command Military or Civil which hath been granted or conferred on any Member of either House or by any Authoritie derived from either House This was subtilly done and but very poor Reasons publick to satisfie the world in this policy That in relation to the Armie all Commissions to Parliament men being void the new molding the Armie may be carried on with less exception when all are concerned alike That all Differences militarie among the great Commanders Parliament men which may retard the work is hereby quieted And those that shall be new made Officers may be elected of the lesser quality and the sooner subject to question and punishment and the Armie maintained at a less charge And after fourty days expiring this Order all their Commands and Offices in the Army shall be null but in order to justice they publish their Resolution to pay off their Arrears which was slenderly performed when their Offices were out of date And to crown this Design they fast and pray and to boot the well-affected City give them thanks and promise to live and die with them for this their new voting And somewhat to sweeten the Earl of Essex's sowreness the Parliament ordered him ten thousand pounds per annum out of Delinquents Estates for his good Service and his great Losses and amongst their Commanders they elect Sir Thomas Fairfax in his room But this great Ordinance of Molding goes on slow and suffered much Debate and Alteration for the Lords House began to foresee the effects and would not assent untill Petitions from the City and several Counties drew them to conclude it with this Title An Ordinance for the raising and maintaining of Forces for the defence of the Kingdom under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax Who is sent for to London out of the North and comes in private and the next day Feb. 19. is conducted to the Commons House by four of their Members a Chair was set and he to sit therein M. Speaker telling him the great trust the Kingdom had put upon him in the command of this Army and the good opinion they had of his valour and fidelity for the defence of Religion Laws and Liberty encouraging him to go on as he hath begun Great Disorders in the modelling this new Army and long time setling hastened an Order to the Scots Army to march Southward with all speed This new Army consisted of twenty one thousand viz. fourteen thousand Foot and six thousand Horse and a thousand Dragoons The House of Commons finding the Peers so pregnant as notwithstanding the great Exceptions and publick discourse of an intention to lessen their Lordships it was thought fitting to caress them by an appointed Committee March 18. to congratulate their happy concurrence and to assure them of the Commons real affections and endeavours to support their Lordships in their Honours and Privileges A language which heretofore the Lords would have disdained to have received from them The List of the Officers thus passed were these besides those of the old which are kept in Sir Thomas Fairfax Commander in chief Major General Skippon who was indeed the City Champion New Officers of Foot Colonels Crayford Berkley Montague Aldridg Holborn Fortescue Ingolsby Pickering Rainsborough New Officers of Horse Colonels Middleton Sidney Graves Sheffield Vermindon Whaley Levisay Fleetwood Rossiter Sir Robert Pie The Kings Army was now under the chief command of the Prince of Wales Prince Maurice and Prince Rupert in the Northern parts and association of the Counties adjoyning the Earl of Derby and Sir Marmaduke Langdon in Byrone and Gerard in VVales Southward and these Counties thereabout Hopton Goring and Greenvile in the West with several small Armies Amongst those of the old Commanders for the Parliament I finde Lieutenant General Cromwel the
rule as King I was alwaies bred to more modest and I think more pious Principles The consciousnesse to my Spiritual defects makes me more prize and desire those pious assistances which holy and good Ministers either Bishops or Presbyters may afford me especially in these extremities to which God hath been pleased to suffer some of my Subjects to reduce me so as to leave them nothing more but my Life to take from me and to leave me nothing to desire which I thought might lesse provoke their jealousie and offence to deny me then this of having some means afforded me for my Souls comfort and support To which end I made choice of men as no way that I know scandalous so every way eminent for their Learning and Piety no lesse then for their Loialty Nor can I imagine any exceptions to be made against them but only this That they may seem too able and too wel-affected toward me and my service But this is not the first service as I count it the best in which they have forced me to serve my self though I must confesse I bear with more grief and impatience the want of my Chaplains then of any other my servants and next if not beyond in some things to the being sequestred from my Wife and Children since from these indeed more of humane and temporary affections but from those more of heavenly and eternal improvements may be expected My comfort is that in the enforced not neglected want of ordinarie means God is wont to afford extraordinary supplies of his gifts and graces If his Spirit will teach me and help my infirmities in praier reading and meditation as I hope he will I shall need no other either Orator or Instructer The general inquirie was whether now we shall have Peace or a new War Most men imagine the old quarrel at an end but another between Presbyters and Independent We will have Uniformity saies the one and all to submit to the Covenant Liberty of Conscience saies the other and that in his sense is agreeable to the Covenant and Gods Word to back is But as the Quarrel grew high Pamphlets were published for either party Another to settle the brains of either of them or any besides offers the Reconciliation in his advice Intituled The Temple measured wherein are discussed the Questions about Constitution and Government of the visible Church the solution of such questions which he propounds and numbers them all the Objections against the Model of Ecclesiastical policie and particularly there is debated the unity of the Church the Members thereof the form of the Church and Church Government the power of the Church the Officers of the Church and their power The powers of Magistrates about the Church some Church Acts as admission of Members c. Tedious enough and all this set out for the final satisfaction of all differences by that Orthodox Divine the Lecturer at Newbery in New-England Mr. Noyes What a pretty pass we were come unto to fetch our Church-government from the West Indies And although Mr. Symson was silenced by Order of Parliament for dissenting from the Assembly of Divines it was now held fit to Null that Order and Symson admitted and why for his zeal it is said to the glory of God and edification of his Church and so upon this general ground he and others of any strain became admitted to the Pulpit We grow near an end of this year now the 19. of Mar. he Parliament Voting the Modeling of the Army into less Many Garisons dismantled some Forces Disbanded rather to be rid of the men than to spare the expences Much muttering there had been by the Officers and Souldiers very high in the esteem of their own power which increased as the Parliament lessened And therefore the Forces at their own dispose draw near together towards the City of London and Westminster which put the Citizens to advise at their Guid-hall and the whole number in Common Councel conclude of a Petition to either House but both alike To settle the Affairs of this long distracted Kingdom That his Majesty being come nearer in person to his Parliament they hope he will come home to their desires in the Propositions National and solemn League and Covenant That Malignants may be removed out of the City And here say they we should have ceased but that the Army which they hoped ere this should have been disbanded is now drawn so suddenly and quartered neer the Parliament and this City Besides that in this same juncture of time a most dangerous and seditious Petition is set on foot to be presented to this Parliament the Copy thereof is annexed which doth exact this addition from the Petitioners And pray That the Parliament would give command that the Army be forthwith removed and after with all speed to be disbanded the annexed Petition suppressed and that the City may make annual Election of the Members of their own Militia Soft and fair the Citizens ride post 'T is true the Petitioners had thanks of both Houses but they reckon without their Host the Army which we shall hear of to another tune The old Prince Henry of Orange died the 14. of March of a Fever sixty three years of age the most approved Commander in the Christian world and answerable in wisdom for State Government of an infirme body with the disease of the Gout the pain whereof increasing he fell into a Fever His only Son succeeded General and Admiral of the Forces of the united Provinces A faithful friend he had been in the assistance of the King contracted in the Mariage of his Son with the Kings Eldest Daughter and great sums of money and Ammunition had been sent to him in these Civil Wars of England and when he sees the King undone he dies deplored of all leaving his Son the hopefull Issue of such a Father And so we end this year 1646. The Scots Army is gone and left us the Bone to gnaw their Ecclesiastical Presbytery to which Reformation we were forward in forming of our selves This Discipline of Government in the Scotish Kirk had been long time a framing in Scotland according to the Tenets of the Church of Geneva and devised and setled there as afterwards in Scotland by treasonable practices against the power of Magistracie and Soveraignty The Prerogative of a King and the liberty of Subjects are consistent and dependent the one from the other Certainly the Kings power is primarily derived from God for the Subject He to establish good Lawes for Church and State they to obey them And it is true too that the chief of the Church Bishop or Presbyter have a power which the Supream Power hath not in Spiritualibus resting only in their persons But the King is in the External Affairs of the Church to call Synods Assemble Divines for ordering of the Church by Canons and Edicts and he hath a power also to punish the Ministers offending
the Army hereabouts the charge thereof shall be laid upon them and their Adherents about the City That the Parliament would consider of their Delinquencie that had a hand in the late Tumult Engagement and Design of a new War that they may be fined according to Iustice. That the Army will dispose themselves for the Levying the money required in case speedy advancement be not made The City seemed hide bound and underhand it was conceived that the Army was too high to be hindered from being their own carvers The Army suspect that they are too well understood And therefore not to drindle any longer And in plain terms Represent their desires to the Parliament with a Letter from the General and his Councel Remembring them that in their former Declaration from St. Albons it was expressed in General for setling and securing the Kingdom In order to which they presented their Proposals and in pursuance thereof having set forth what their desires are as Members of the Common-wealth They now desire those things which concern themselves as Souldiers and of satisfactions in relation thereto to be taken into speedy consideration by the Parliament In brief That a Committee of the Parliament may reside in the Armie to audite their Accounts of the Armies Arrears and to give Debenters as well for the pay respited upon the Publick Faith as otherwise for their service under this General or any other respective Commanders in the Parliaments Service which is to be made an unquestionable debt That Bishops Dean and Chapters and Forrest Lands may be sold for payment of the Armies Arrears That an Ordinance be passed that no person that is or shall be in this Army shall not be impressed to any Foreign service nor any Horseman be ever forced to serve on Foot in any future case An Act to pass for Prentices Freedom that have served the Parliament and provision for their maimed Souldiers Widows and Orphans An Act for Indemnity of Souldiers for any Action Petition or Papers agreed at Waldon in March last or any thing else in relation to the Army This begat serious consideration of the Parliament and present payment of 30000. l. and their gratuity to the Army and the moneths pay and all these from their own Treasurers and for the present they could but leavy the Arrears due from the City which was done with wonderful regret Propositions of Peace were now finished the consent and approbation of the Estates of Scotland returned and so they are speeded to the King at Hampton Court 7. Septemb. by the Commissioners the Earl of Pembroke the Lord Mountague Sir Iames Harrington Sir Io. Cook Sir Io. Holland and Major General Brown for the Parliament and the Earl of Lotherdale and Sir Charls Erskin for the Scots And though the Propositions were long the King told them they should have a speedy Answer which he delivered to them in writing the next day C. R. His Majestie cannot chuse but be passionatelie sensible as he believes all his good Subjects are of the late great distractions â—nd still languishing and unsetled state of this Kingdom and he calls God to witness and is willing to give Testimonie to all the world of his readiness to contribute his utmost endeavours for restoring it to a happy and flourishing condition His Majestie having perused the Propositions now brought to him finds them the same in effect which were offered to him at Newcastle To some of which as he could not then consent without violation of his conscience and honour so neither can he agree to others now conceiving them in many respects more disagreeable to the present condition of affairs than when they were formerly presented unto him as being destructive to the main principal interests of the Army and of all those whose affections concur with them And his Majestie having seen the proposals of the Army to the Commissioners from his two Houses residing with them and with them to be treated on in order to the clearing and securing of the Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom and the setling of a just and lasting Peace To which proposals as the conceives his two Houses not to be strangers So he believes they will think with him that they much more conduce to the satisfaction of all interests and may be a fitter foundation for a lasting peace than the propositions which at this time are tendred unto him He therefore propounds as the best way in his judgement in order to a peace that his two Houses would instantly take into consideration those proposals upon which there may be a personal Treatie with his Majestie and upon such other Propositions as his Majestie shall make hoping that the said proposals may be so moderated in the said Treatie as to render them the more capable of his Majesties full concession wherein he resolves to give full satisfaction to his people for whatsoever shall concern the Protestant profession with liberty to tender Consciences the securing of the Lawes Liberties and properties of his Subjects and all the just Priviledges of Parliaments for the future and likewise by his present deportment in this Treaty he will make the world clearly judge of his intentions in matters of future Government In which Treaty his Majestie will be well pleased if it be thought fit that Commissioners from the Army whose the proposals are may likewise be admitted His Majestie therefore conjures his two Houses of Parliament by the duty they owe God and his Majesty their King And by the bowels of Compassion they have to their fellow Subjects both for relief of their present sufferings and to prevent future miseries that they will forthwith accept of this his Majesties offer whereby the joyful news of Peace may be restored to this distressed Kingdom And for what concerns the Kingdom of Scotland mentioned in the Propositions his Majestie will very willingly Treat upon those particulars with the Scotish Commissioners and doubts not but to give reasonable satisfaction to that his Kingdom At Hampton-Court the 9. of September 1647. For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated c. By this Answer we see the King is catchâ—t to comply with the Army rather in their Proposals for setling of a peace 1. Aug. for now the design is working In order thereto Colonel Hamond is sent down to be Governour of the Isle of Wight an Item to the great fate that followed And the Kings Answer is Voted a flat denial That the King denies in his Answer to give his assent to the Propositions and that the King and those about the King shall speedily be taken into consideration Then after a dayes time to consider they debate Whether to adhere to the Propositions or fall upon the Proposals or have a personal Treaty with the King or not or whether to send the Propositions again to the King But after debates they resolve To fall upon the settlement of the Kingdom by
Against abuses committed on Sundays The King to make Leases of Lands parcel of his Dutchy of Cornwall For ease of obtaining Licences of Alienation and in the Pleadings of Pardon in the Exchequer or else where For restraining Misbehaviour in Inns and Alehouses That this Session shall not determine by his Majesties royal assent to these Acts. Then passed a Bill in the Lower House of Tonnage and Poundage but because it was limited to one year whereas former Grants to his Majesties Predecessors were for Life It was foundred in the Upper House The Reason of this Restraint was thus In a Parliament the 18. of King Iames the Kings learned Councill culled out of that Act reasons for pretermitted Customes and other Impositions which were accounted Grievances to the Subject and an Imoderate charge upon those Customes and therefore their Design was to reduce them to the rate settled long since tempore Mariae but they wanted time enough to mold it now The next Assembly met the first day of August at Oxford The Divinity School for the Commons and the Gallery above for the Lords Hence is observed a pretty Note To give up the Divinity-School to the Commons and that Chair to their Speaker put them into an usurpation of Determinations of Divinity and henceforward no Parliaments without a Committee of Religion of Lay-Persons not onely to mannage controversies of Divinity but to ruine the old and to establish a New And because the Kings designes required Expedition He summons both Houses to Christ-Church Hall where he urged to them his Necessities for setting forth his Fleet. But his desires found no other consideration than for a formal Petition against Recusants and the causes of their increase with the Remedies Most Gracious Soveraâ—gn IT being infallibly true that nothing can more establish your Throne and assure the peace and prosperity of your People then the unity and sincerity of Religion We your Majesties most humble and loyal Subjects and Commons in this present Parliament assembled observing that of late there is an apparent mischievous encrease of Papists within your Dominions hold our selves bound in conscience and duty to present the same unto your sacred Majesty together with the dangerous consequences and what we conceive to be the most principal causes and what may be the remedies thereof 1. Their desperate ends being the subversion both of Church and State and the restlessness of their Spirits to attain those ends The Doctrine of their Teachers and Leaders perswading them that therein they shall do God good Service 2. Their evident and strict dependance upon such Foreign Princes as no way affect the good of your Majesty and this State 3. An opening a way of Popularity to the ambition of any who shall adventure to make himself head of so great a party The principal causes of the increase of Papists 1. The want of due execution of the Laws against Iesuits seminary Priests and Papists Recusants occasioned partly by Connivance of the State partly by many abuses of Officers 2. The interposing of foreign Princes by their Ambassadours and Agents in favour of them 3. Their great Concourse to the City and their frequent conventicles and conferences there 4. The Education of their children in Houses and Seminaries of their Religion in foreign parts which of late have been greatly multiplied and enlarged for the entertainment of the English 5. That in many places of this your Realm your people are not sufficiently instructed in the knowledge of true Religion 6. The licentious publishing of Popish and seditious Books 7. The imployment of men ill affected in Religion in places of Government who countenance the Popish party The Remedies be these 1. That there be great Care taken in the choise and admitting School-Masters and that the Ordinaries make diligent inquiries of their demeanours and proceed to the removing of such as shall be faulty 2. That the antient Discipline of the University be restored being the famous Nursery of literature 3. That for the propagation of the Gospel such able Ministers as have been formerly silenced may by fair entreaty of the Bishops be reduced to the service of the Church and that Non-residency Pluralities and Commendums may be moderated 4. That a straight provision may be made against transporting of English children to Popish Seminaries beyond Seas and for recalling such as are there already 5. That no Popish Recusant be permitted to come within the Court unless upon special occasion agreeable to the Statute 3â— Iacobi 6. That all Jesuits Priests and others having taken Orders from the See of Rome may be banished by Proclamation and in case of disobedience may be proceeded against according to the Laws of the Land 7. That none by any authority derived from the See of Rome be permitted to confer Orders or exercise any Ecclesiastical function within your Majesties Dominions 8. That all former Grants of Recusants lands made to the use and interest of such Recusants may by the advice of your Majesties Council be voided 9. That all Recusants may be excommunicated and not absolved but upon conformity 10. That all Recusants be removed from places of authority and government 11. That all Recusants be disarmed according to the provision of the Law 12. That they may be all confined to remain at their Country habitations and not to travel above five miles from thence 13. That none of your Majesties natural born Subjects be suffered to repair to the hearing of Masses or other superstitious service at the Chappels or houses of foreign Ambassadours or elsewhere 14. That all such insolencies as any Popishly affected have lately committed to the dishonour of our Religion be exemplarily punished 15. That the penalâ—y of 12. d. every Sunday for default of coming to Divine Service in the Church without lawful excuse may be put in Execution Lastly that your Majesty would be pleased to order that the like courses may be taken in Ireland for the establishing of true Religion there The Kings Answer was so satisfactory and sodain to each particular being heretofore branched to his Father and the remedies resolved upon them and now so reasonably required as that the King took him from hence to speak for himself and to put them to it to supply his very urgent Necessities to set forth his Navy It found affection in some earnest to give and to satisfie the present occasion with expedition Others having no heart to deny nor willing to contribute but cunningly to gain convenient time as to prejudice the Design which was to be sodain and there were these the most averse that quarreled not the Expedition for it was secret and so ought to be but old Sir Robert Mansel a quarrelous person for his interest in the Glass house then in dispence must be set up a Man of great Experience and sound Judgement but where in the Narrow Seas And he by Guess had declared against the Design and tendered some overtures
well resemble us the Commons And as it is encompassed with Air and Fire and Spheres Celestial of Planets and a Firmament of fixed Stars All which receive their heat light and life from one great glorious Sun even like the King our Soveraign So that Firmament of fixed Stars I take to be your Lordships Those Planets the great Officers of the Kingdom That pure Element of Fire the most religious zealous and pious Clergy And the reverend Iudges Magistrates and Ministers of Law and Justice the Air wherein we breath All which encompasse round with cherishing comfort this Body of the Commons who truly labour for them all and though they be the Foot-stool and the lowest yet may well be said to be the setled Centre of the State Now my good Lords if that glorious Sun by his powerful Beams of Grace and Favour shall draw from the Bowels of this Earth an Exhalation that shall take fire and burn and shine out like a Star it needs not be marvelled at if the poor Commons gaze and wonder at the Comet and when they feel the Effects impuâ—e all to the corruptible matter of it But if such an imperfect mixture appear like that in the last Age in the Chair of Cassiopeia among the fixed Stars themselves where Aristotle and the old Philosophers conceived there was no place for such corruption then as the learned Mathematicians were troubled to observe the irregular motions the prodigious magnitude and the ominous Prognosticks of that Meteor so the Commons when they see such a Blazing-Star in course so exorbitant in the Affairs of this Common-wealth cannot but look up upon it and for want of Perspectives commend the nearer Examination to your Lordships who may behold it at a neerer distance Such a prodigious Comet the Commons take this Duke of Buckingham to be against whom and his irregular wayes there are by learned Gentlemen legal Articles of Charge to be delivered to your Lordships which I am generally first commanded to lay open First the Offices of this Kingdom that are the eyes the ears and the hands of this Common-wealth these have been engrossed bought and sold and many of the greatest of them holden even in this Dukes own hands which severally gave in former Ages sufficient content to greatest Favourites and were work enough for the wisest Counsellors by means whereof what strange abuses what infinite neglects have followed The Seas have been unguarded Trade disturbed Merchants oppressed their ships and even one of the Royal-Navy by cunning practice delivered over into foreign hands and contrary to our good Kings intention imployed to the prejudice almost to the ruine of friends of our own Religion Next Honours those most precious Jewels of the Crown a Treasure inestimable wherewith your Noble Ancestours my Lords were well rewarded for eminent and publique service in the Common-wealth at home for brave exployts abroad when covered all with dust and blood they sweat in service for the honour of this Crown What back-wayes what by-wayes have been by this Duke found out is too well known to your Lordships whereas anciently it was the honour of England as among the Romanes the way to the Temple of Honour was through the Temple of Virtue But I am commanded to presse this no further then to let your Lordships know one instance may perhaps be given of some one Lord compelled to purchase Honour Thirdly as dâ—vers of the Dukes poor kindred have been raised to great Honours which have been and are likely to be more chargeable and burthensom to the Crown so the Lands and Revenues and the Treasuries of his Maiesty have been intercepted and exhausted by this Duke and his friends and strangely mis-imployed with strange confusion of the Accompts and overthrow of the well established ancient Orders of his Majesties exchequer The last of the Charges which are prepared will be an injury offered to the person of the late King of blessed memory who is with God of which as your Lordships may have heard heretofore you shall anon have further information Now upon this occasion I am commanded by the Commons to take care of the Honour of the King our Soveraign that lives long may he live to our comfort and the good of the Christian world and also of his blessed Father who is dead on whom to the grief of the Commons and their great distaste the Lord Duke did they conceive unworthily cast some ill ordure of his own fowl wayes Whereas Servants were anciently wont to bear as in truth they ought their masters faults and not cast their own on them undeservedly It is well known the King who is with God had the same power and the same wisdom before he knew this Duke yea and the same affections too through which as a good and gracious Master he advanced and raised some Stars of your Lordships Firmament in whose hands this exorbitancy of Will this transcendency of Power such placing and dis-placing of Officers such irregular running into all by-courses of the Planets such sole and single managing of the great Affairs of State was never heard of And therefore onely to the Lord Duke and his procurement by mis-informations these faults complained of by the Commons are to be imputed And for our most gracious Soveraign that lives whose name hath been used and may perhaps now be for the Dukes justification The Commons know well that among his Majesties most royall virtues his Piety unto his Father hath made him a pious Nourisher of his Affections ever to thâ—s Lord Duke on whom out of that consideration his Majesty hath wrought a kinde of wonder making Favour hereditary But the abuse thereof must be the Lord Dukes own And if there have been any Commands such as were or may be pretended his mis-informations have procured them whereas the Laws of England teach us that Kings cannot Command ill or unlawful things when ever they speak though by their Letters-Patents or their Seals if the thing be evil these Letters-Patents are void and whatsoever ill event succeeds the Executioners of such Commands must ever answer for them Thus my Lords in performance of my duty my weaknesse hath been troublesome unto your Lordships It is now high time humbly to intreat your pardon and give way to a learned Gentleman to begin a more particular charge The Prologue ended Sr. Dudly sat down and the Impeachment was read so large as that for method we adjoyne it to the Dukes Answer which came in some dayes after In which time the Commons sent a Message to the Lords how mightily it did mis-become the honor of their House to permit a man so deeply impeached to sit in Councel with them whilest Sr. Dudly Diggs and Sr. Iohn Elliot the Van and the Rear of the Commons were beckened out to speak with two Gentlemen who proved to be two Messengers of the Kings Chamber having his Warrant to take them prisoners to the Tower where they lay till the Iudges resolved
into one Opinion that thereby no reason given to the House their Restraint was an Arrest of the whole Body and a breach of Priviledge must needs follow which was so remonstrated to the King and they therefore released But what ground â—r Presidents had the Judges a late law of their own making for it is well observed That in the Parliament 35. Eliz. Sr. Peter Wentworth and Sr. Henry Bromley by petition to the Upper House to be supplicants with them of the Lower House unto her Majesty for entailing the succession of the Crown the Bill being drawn by them These two were summoned before Sr. Thomas Henage one of the Privy Councel and commanded to forbear the Parliament and to stand secured to their Lodgings and after further examination before the Councel were committed Wentworth to the Tower Bromley and other Courtiers to the Fleet. Another instance Mr. Morice Attorny of the Dutchy of Lancaster for moving against the justice of the Courts of Ecclesiastical Iudges Subscriptions and Oaths was taken out of the House so saith another Authour and committed to Prison for whose release Mr. Wroth humbly moved the House to be petitioners to her Majesty But was answered That the Queen must not accompt for actions of Royal Authority which may be of high and dangerous consequence nor can it become them to search into the Prerogative of Soveraigns These Members were five in all and might have been Precedents for the King and his five Members in due place hereafter But this course now taught the Lords to resent the like indignity to them in the Earl of Arundels case who lay committed to the Tower as before said and so they would sit still without motion to any matter till that he might be reâ—admitted which was instantly done To ballance with the Dukes Enemies Three Persons his confederates were made Barons to compeer in the Lords House the Lord Mandevil the eldest son to the Earl of Manchester created by Patent Baron Kimbolton Grandison son to the created Baron Imbercourt and Sr. Dudly Carlton made Baron Tregate being newly returned from his Trade of seven years Leiger Ambassadour abroad in Venice and Holland But it is said That the Lords found out an Old Order to Counter checque that designe That no Creations sedente Parliamento should have power to vote but onely to sit Not to Iudge but to learn to understand during that Session so that their Suffrages were excluded But I am assured of the contrary for they sate and voted Hence it is truly observed That in the late Parliament 1640. Seymor Littleton and Capel were so created sedente Parliamento and Digby Rich and Howard of Charlton called by special Writ were also admitted their votes and afterwards the last of the nineteen Propositions to the King at York for the King to passe a Bill to restrain Peers made hereafter to sit and vote in Parliament unlesse with consent of both Houses To which the King absolutely refused But however they were admitted the Duke was put to his own Innocency partially stiled impudency and lodges injustice on the Peers whose ill opinion he sayes deprest him and partial affection elevated the other who received the Attornies charge with undaunted spirit and returned so home an Answer as the House was amply satisfied of which take his own so saying for we hear not a word more nor other of it than that he saies so But the Dukes defence came quick to the Lords the eighth of Iune Who he sayes sequestered him from the House until his cause was determined upon which he was much dejected when really of himself he had forbore the House And therefore this morning had resolved to send it but was advised to present it himself which we shall finde to this purpose The Commons Impeachment and Declaration against the Duke of Buckingham FOr the speâ—dy redresse of the great evils and mischiefs and of the chief causes of those evils and mischiefs which this Kingdom of England now grievously suffereth and of late years hath suffered and to the Honour and Safety of our Soveraign Lord the KING and of his Crown and dignities and to the good and welfare of his people the Commons in this present Parliament by the authority of our said Soveraign Lord the King assembled do by this their Bill shew and declare against GEORGE Duke Marquesse and Earl of Buckingham Earl of Coventry Viscount Villers Baron of Whaddon great Admirall of the Kingdoms of ENGLAND and Ireland and of the principalitie of Wales and of the Dominions and Islands of the same of the Town of Calais and of the Marches of the same and of Normandy Gascoigne and Guyen Generall Governour of the Seas and Ships of the said Kingdoms Lieutenant Generall Admirall Captain Generall and Governour of his Majesties Royall Fleet and Army lately set forth Master of the Horses of our Soveraign Lord the King Lord Waâ—den Chancellour and Admirall of the Cinque-ports and of the Members thereof Constable of Dover Castle Iustice in Eyre of all Forests and Chaces on this side of the River of Trent Constable of the Castle of Windsor Lieutenant of Middlesex and Buckingham-shire Steward and Bailiffe of Westminster Gentleman of his Bed-chamber and one of his Majesties honourable Frivie Councel in his Realms both of England Scotland and Ireland and Knight of the most noble order of the Garter The Misdemeanors Misprisions Offences Crimes and other matters comprised in the Articles following And him the said Duke do accuse and impeach of the the said Misdemeanors Misprisions Offences and Crimes ARTIC I. The Duke 's 1. Reply THat he the said Duke being young and unexperienced hath of late years with exorbitant ambition and for his own advantage procured and engrossed into his own hands severall great Offices both to the danger â—f the State and prejudice of that Service which should have been performed in them and to the discouragement of others who are thereby precluded from such hopes as their virtues abilities and publique employments might otherwise have obtained THat his late Majesty did of his own Royal Motion bestow them upon him and he hopeth and concieveth he may without blame recieve what his bountiful Master conferred upon him if the Common-wealth doth not suffer thereby Nor is it without precedents that men eminent in the esteem of their Soveraign have held as great and many Offices as himself But if it shall be proved that he falsely or corruptly hath executed those Offices he is and will be ready to resign them with his life and fortunes to his Majesties dispose II. Reply 2. That in the 16. year of the Reign of the late King he did give and pay to the then Earl of Nottingham for the Office of Great Admiral of England and Ireland and of the principality of Wales and Generall Governour of the Seas and Ships of the said Kingdomes and for the surrender of the said Offices to the intent the said Duke might
obtain them to his own use the summe of 3000 l. and did also procure for the said Surrender from the late King an Annuity of 1000 l. per annum payable to the said Earl for which considerations the said Earl surrendred the said Office with his Letters Patents unto the late King who granted them to the said Duke for his life which is an Offence contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm those Offices so highly concerning the Administration and execution of Justice That the Earl of Nottingham then Lâ—rd Admiral being grown much in years and finding himself not so fit nor able to perform what appertained to his place as formerly became an earnest sutor to his late Majesty to permit him to surrender up his Office who at length being overcome by the Earls many solicitations condescended thereunto and his late Majesty at the entreaty of others without the Dukes privity was also perswaded to confer it upon the Duke much against his will he being no way experienced in those Affairs so that the Earl did freely surrender and the Duke aecept the grant of the said Office without any the least contract or proviso But true it is that his late Majesty out of his Royall Bounty did grant to the said Earl a Pension of 1000 l. per annum as a Recompence for his former service to the Crown and also the Duke himself did freely and voluntarily with his late Majesties approbation as an Argument of his honorable respects to so Noble a Predecessor send the Earl three thousand pounds which he hopeth is not blame worthy in him III. Reply 3. That he the said Duke in the 22. year of the late King did give and pay unto Edward Lord Zouch for the Offices of the Lord Warden of the Cinque-Ports and Constable of Dover Castle the sum of one thousand pounds and granted also an Annuity of 500 l. per annum during his life and that for the consideration aforesaid the said L. Zouch did surrender his Offices and Letters Patents to the late King who granted them to the said Duke for his life which Offices so highly concerning the Administration of Justice the Duke hath ever since held against the Laws of the Land That the Lord Zouch being grown in years and unfit to manage the Office of the Warden of the Cinque-Ports and Constable of Dover Castle which are indeed both but one discovered a willingness to surrender it and made severall Offers thereof to the Duke of Richmond who at last contracted with the said Lord Zouch for his surrender for the consideration of 1000 l. in money and 500â— l. per annum and the said Duke of Richmond being prevented by death his late Majesty directed the Duke of Buckingham to go through with the Lord Zouch for it upon the same terms which he was the willinger to do by reason he had found by experience that the Kings service suffered much through the emulation disaffectiâ—n and contention arising between those two Officers and he hopeth this act of his in acquiring this Office accompanied with such circumstances the King also being both privy and directing it will receive a favorable construction especially considering he was altogether unacquainted with any law tâ— the contrary IV. Reply 4. That he hath neglected the just execution of those his offices and violated the Trust reposed in and committed to him by them insomuch as through his neglect the trade of this Kingdome hath been of late much decayed and the Seas ignominiously infested with Pirates and Enemies to the great loss of both ships and Goods and imminent danger of this Kingdom That the loss happening to the Kings Subjects by Pirats and Enemies hath not proceeded through the Dukes default as is suggested but because those Pirats ships are built of a mould as fit for flight as for fight being far too nimble for the Kings Ships To prevent which inconvenience for the time to come there is present order taken for the building of Ships of the same shape with those of Dunkirk and for the Pirats of Sally that provision is taken either to restrain by Treaty or to repress them by force as will give good satisfaction and this will clearly appear upon proof V. Reply 5. That whereas about Michaelmas last a Ship called the St. Peter of New-haven laden with divers Merchants Jewels and Commodities to the value of 40000 l. or thereabout for the proper account of Monsieur de Villeurs then Governour of New-Haven was taken by the Ships of his Majesties late Fleet and brought into the Port of Plymouth as a Prize upon probability that the said Ship or Goods belonged to the Subjects of the King of Spain whereupon there was an arrest of two English ships at New-haven in the Kingdome of France after which intimation was given to the Advocate in the chief Court of Admiralty from his Majesty by Secretary Coke for the freeing and discharge of the said ship and goods and thereupon by Commission under Seal the said Ship and goods were released The said Duke notwithstanding any such order and decree detained still to his own use the Gold Silver Pearls Jewels and other Commodities so taken out of the said Ship and unjustly caused the said Ship to be arrested again in contempt of the Laws of this Land and to the prejudice of Trade That Complaint being made on the behalf of some French men at the Councel Table concerning the Saint Peter and some other ships His Majesty then present did order that she and all other stould be released as were found to belong to any Prince or State in amity with him provided they were not fraâ—dulently coloured And accordingly this ship was by Sentence in the Admiralty discharged But within few daies after new information came to the Lord Admiral that this ship was laden by the Subjects of the King of Spain in Spain that the Amirantesio wafâ—ed her beyond the North Cape and that Witnesses were ready to attest as much upon which the Duke acquainted his Majesty therewith and by his command made stay of this ship as he was assured by the opinion of the King and five other Advocates he might do and command was given to the Kings Advocate to hasten the examination of Witnesses in pursuance of the new information But the French Merchants impatient of delaies which the producing many witnesses would occasion complained again to the Council-board and obtained an Order from thence for the delivery of the said Ship and goods upon security which Security was once offered but after retracted yet upon consideration of the testimonies produced the Kings Advocate informing the Duke that the proof came short for that Ship the D. did instantly give order for her final discharge and that all her goods should be re-imbarked to the Owners which was done accordingly VI. Reply 6. That the East-India Merchants in the 21. of the late Kings Reign preparing to set forth four great
for two couple of Dogs from England When it was certain we had of of theirs here that came prisoners to the Duke and of greater quality to be exchanged for him and others and only the Common men returned free Nor does any of all our Adversaries Authors whom I have named that spit their malice most make the least mention hereof Only this our own writer defames us At this time Pens and Tongues were set on work to scandal and descant on this Expedition I have answered these our Adversaries Some of our own too do say It was propter Inscitiam temeritatem Ducis But Buckingham himself and others that lived to suffer under obloquie lodge the loss of the Design upon the Earl of Holland not seconding the expedition with recruit of Men and Victual with those ten Ships committed to his command for strengthing and continuance of the Siege and guarding the Passes to the Island which might have prevented the Relief of the Besieged And which Ships were ready part at Plymouth under oversight of the Lord Wilmot Vice Admiral the other Squadron made up at Chatham were to take in provision there and the Earl of Holland admiral of all T is true he failed of his time to attend the Wind which afterwards he lost so long that the King was returned his Summer progress ere Holland was got out of Portsmouth Roade but was aboard where he received the Kings angry Order That the Vice Admiral the Lord Wilmot hast post command at Plymouth to be gone with his Squadron and Holland might now stay his own leisure which so astonisht him to be left behind that instantly he quits his ship and all but his Secretary and one of his Chamber and with the help of a small fisher Boat skews the Wind to the Cowes in the Isle of Wight in imminent danger of drowning by the way and the next day by Post to Newport from thence he got into the weather and wind and so gained of thâ— way and landed again in the west posting to Plymouth timely enough to put to Sea And by the way he met with the Duke returned from the Isle of Ree for which he hardly escaped resentment and jealousie during life that Holland could have been content with his feigned hopes to succeed him favourite Thus ended this Design with loss of blood and honour Which had it succeeded saies one to our desire would not have rewarded the charge but he is much mistaken in this account for besides the preserving Rochel and the advantage to us of those Isles Rhe and Oleron and so footing in that part of Aquitain Besides the mid-way and conveniency of carrying on our Fleets and Forces towards Spain upon all occasions of quarrel with that Monarch But the Duke returned having an eye of Jealousie upon the Earl of Holland for retarding his necessary Recruit and so relief which indeed for the present had slender apology However the Duke posting to Court and heartily received of the King Professing that this neglect of Relief must lodge on his Friend and Confident Holland To which he acknowledged That indeed he had very affectionately intrusted him in ordinary affairs but never in such an esteem as to second him in Arms. And accordingly it being now in the Dukes power to reward his wilfull negligence Holland had orders to stay by the way and remain at Portsmouth under the notion of ordering the Ships and Souldiers there untill the Dukes further pleasure which was so long in resolve as lodged Holland under suspition to find the effects of utter ruin prevented only by his humble Remonstrance and submission to the Duke But the Landmen many strangers Irish and Scots were billeted by parcels in the County Villages and to the great regret of their Hosts that never felt any such burthen before nor could this give any just cause of murmurre at all And to boot Sir William Balfore a Scot Coâ—mander of Horse in the Netherlands and Dalbier a Dutch Commissary heretofore under Count Mansfield joined in commission with bills of Exchange thirty thousand pounds to buy and transport horses from beyond Seas into England for the Kings service which occasioned the more muttering in fear forsooth as the Turkish Ianizaries and terrour to force obedience of the people which report was fain to be palliated by Protestation That as they might be useful for suddain and foraign service so he willingly endeavoured at his own charge to ease their purses and so the Design took end with these Jealouâ—ies In the time of the Expedition to the Isle of Rhe the French had a gallant great Ship built at Texel in Holland named the Sancta Esprit and furnished with all materials necessary foâ— War Captain Trevere a worthy Englishman in his return from Hamburgh had Command to seize any Ships of the French upon the coast which lay there in the mouth of that Haven and this in the Harbour The night most proper for Trevers enterprize he procured a Dutchman Hollander for a round sum of money to direct him in the dark to aboard this great Ship which Toras the Governour of the Isle of Rhe caused to be built at his own charge upon the approach the French man let fly his great guns suspecting this Ship advancing so neer but Trevers made up with courage under this others upper Tire and shot the Frenchman through and through boarded her bravely and brought her away And fitting her with his own Men summoned the rest of his own consorts and so fell upon the whole French Fleet who in fear by the noise of the Cannon and ignorant of any event weighed anchor and got away to Sea in great confusion Spesse the French Agent complains to the States of Trevers boldness to seize any Ship in their Chambers of Harbour under their Protection To which Trevers tells them the Articles of Amity between his Royal Master and them to pursue Enemy in eithers Harbour which you have done said he by the Dunkirks out of English Ports But whilst they disputed Trevers hoists sail and comes home with his Prize and 20. whole brass Culverins two brass semi-Culverins two other great brass Guns sixteen large Iron Guns and two less In the Hold for Ballast was twelve great Guns arms of 1100. Souldiers eighty barrels of Powder And though a general command kept all the French Ships in Harbour not to stir whilest the English were Masters at Sea Yet Pennington the English Vice-Admiral took thirty four of theirs homeward bound rich Merchant men without loss of any of ours and others were forced out of their Havens under their very Castles and Forts to the terrour of the French At this time Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury was sequestred from those services which he could not at that present personally attend otherwise proper for his cognisance and jurisdiction and which as Arch-bishop he might and ought in his own person to perform and execute and a Commission
Proctors deprived and others partakers check't for engaging But the Expulsion of these Preachers Expelled not their Schism which inwardly burnt the more for blazing the lesse many complaining of the two edged sword of justice too penal for some to touch then others to break the Kings Declaration And in this controversie died the Arch Bishop of York Dr. Harsnet a discreet Assertor of these necessary and useful Ceremonies and complained even against the Conformable Puritan who preached it in policy but diffented in judgement His Epitaph sets forth his Bishopricks Indignus Episcopus Cicestrensis Indignior Norvicensis Indignissimus Archiepiscopus Eboracensis enjoying them all three And now they revive the Sabbatarian controversie which was begun five years since 1628. Bradburn on the Sabbath day and directed to the King maintaining First The fourth Commandment simply and intirely Moral and Christians obliged as well as the Iews to observe everlastingly that day That the Lords day is an ordinary working day it being Will-worship to make it a Sabbath by vertue of the fourth Commandment But the High Commission Court soon made this man a Convert which opinions begat controversies of five heads What is the fittest name of that day when to begin and end Upon what authority grounded Whether alterable or no Whether any recreations and what kinds on that day And then these disputants were distinguished into Sabbatarians Moderate men and Anti-Sabbatarians and their preaching and pamphlets so quarrelous as made the poor distracted people to seek what to do And at the Temple It was Explained by Learned Dr. Micklethwait That the richer fort were more obliged to the strictnesse of the day than the poor workman such as have no diversion by labour all the week need no Recreation on One day the Labourer having some title to Liberty But from the Pen they fall to Pikes and Somersetshire the Stage and fieâ—y Scene First keeping their Church-Ales and Wakes of meetings on that day evening which upon complaint to Richardson Chief Justice that Circuit he suppressed them totally by Order of the nineteenth of March. This being an usurpation of a Lay Judg on Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction the Arch-bishop Laud procures from the King a Commission to two Bishops and other Divines to examine the Judges carriage therein which Order at last he was fain to revoke the next Assize and so the quarrel on foot and petition troubling the King to settle this difference it procured reason of State in the King to revive his Fathers Declaration for Sports set out in the fifteenth of King Iames upon the like occasion in Lancashire which refer to the subsequent time 1654. And indeed though the State was induced with much prudence to afford some liberty to labouring people carving to some freedom on that day cut most for others and leave least for themselves The Declaration was not pressed on the Minister to publish more proper for a Lay Officer or Constable but because Judg Richardson had enjoyned his Order to the contrary and the Minister obeyed it Now the Declaration was put upon them also by the Order of the Bishops Some Schismaticks were forward to read it and forthwith the fourth Commandment setting as they meant God and the King at odds that so themselves might escape in the fray Nor was the reading absolutely urged upon any unless under the Bishop of Norwich too severe there Many men out of breath observe this as the concurring cause of our sad events and Civil War 'T is true our fights were often forced upon the King on that day as pointing at the punishing of profaneness but our Battels have been rubrick'd each day in the Week with English bloud and therefore to pick a solemn Providence out of a common Casualty savours more of Curiosity than Conscience though indeed Edg-hill Fight fell on that day which entred us into so much misery And truly had we all of us strictand duly observed the holy keeping that Holy Day we might be happy there still I mean the due measure but we have wrested it awry from the right way reeling into extremes afterwards neglecters now contemners Transcendents above common piety they need not keep any because they observe all days we call them Levellers equalling all Times Places Persons nay to our Lands in common a general confusion they make to be Gospel perfection for having supprest all due observation of festival Saints days and their Eves Wednesdays and Fridays Service and Letanies now our Hypocrites out of errour or worse perfect prâ—faness take away the Lords day also The famous Fabrick of Saint Pauls Church and Steeple made so in process of time from the pâ—ety of primitive Christians their devout zeal to good works and since by several additions of Benefactours raised to a structure of admiration a Pile huge and honourable not the like left to our last Age to be sampled in the whole World What the hands of good men had made wonderfull the hand of wasting had extremely decayed Onely the hand of Heaven by accident of Lightning had burnt down the high Spire in the time of Queen Elizabeth who then had designed not onely to rebuild that but to repair the whole Church and to that end some Materials were then prepared Afterwards in the time of King Iames the religious Patriot Sir Paul Pindar of worthy memory returning into England some years since from his Ambassie Lieger in Constantinople and afterwards one of the great Farmers of the Kings Customes and of ample fortune the most in money became the great Example of Charity to many and the Patern of Piety to all in his magnificent re-edifyfying of this Church First he repaired the Entry front and Porches to all the upper Church Quire and Chancel and enriched them with Marble Structures and Figures of the Apostles with Carvings and Guildings far exceeding their former beauty which cost above two thousand pounds the act of a good man as King Iames said But the main Fabrick fit for the work of a King And therefore King Charls having a pious resolution to begin the Repair of the whole Church and Steeple made his humble entry at the West end of the Isles up to the Body Quire and Chancel where after a Sermon of Exhortation to that Christian intention he made his pious Procession about the inside Circumvelation thereof and viewing the Decays gave up his promise with his Devotions speedâ—ly to settle the beginning of the work And this year issued out his Commissions under his Great Seal to the Lord Maior Sir Robert Drewry the two Arch-bishops the Chancellour Treasurer Privy Seal some Bishops Secretaries and Councellours of State Deans Aldermen and others or any six of them whereof three to be of the Privy Council and always the Bishop of London for the time being to be one who was then William Laud and the first man but not the chief Promoter being promoved and attempted by others before he was of
affections of the four Inns of Court presenting the King and Queen with a most glorious and gallant Masque Heretofore they usually divided themselves in assistance Lincolns Inn with the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple with Greys Inn but now they unite all in some regret against Master William Prynn an Utter Barrister of Lincolns Inn for his late Book Histrio Mastix invective against Stage-plays the solemn Musick used in the Cathedrals and the Royal Chappels against Masques and Dancings at Court the Hospitality of the Gentry at Christmass not without scandal to the King and Queen and some Passages very dangerous to their Persons for which an Information was preferred against him by Noy the Attorney General and the Cause near Sentence the Inns of Court ashamed of such a Member amongst them discovered to their Majesties their disdain of his Doctrines and so in this gallant way of expressing their duties they would out-do any that had been before accompanied also after the Masques with a Train of Christian Captives many years enslaved in Chains under the Emperour of Morocco and now sent by him a Present to the King for his assistance in taking of Sally and destroying those Pyrates to the future security of all Traders in the Mediterranean Sea And the City willing to do something answerable feasted their Majesties a Fortnight after at the Lord Maiors house Alderman Freeman so magnificent that to please these People the Inns of Court Revellers adorned the Kings Feast at Merchant-Tailors Hall where that Masque was again shewed to the City The first Act of open Popularity to them enough to beget hearty affection to him which they seemed to fain but with false hearts ever after And those two places of Feasting are mistaken not being at Guild-Hall Whilest the Deputies of the obedient Provinces Flanders c. were â—usie in seeking for an end of their Evils in some happy Overtures of Peace the Infanta Clara Eugenia their Governess dies whom the Cardinal Infanto succeeds A Lady she was of excellent fame for her milde and gentle Government over them foreseeing that those Treaties then on foot would produce little effect although the other Provinces disobedient Netherlands were offered conditions advantageous enough The States stood fast upon Impossibilities and the other could not exclude their Master And indeed the Prince of Orange his Dispatch of taking Rhinburgh in three Weeks made the Treaty more insolent on his part being hindred by the French Minister that eloquent and able Charnasse who by his diligent pursuits broke off the Treaty and brought the States back again to take up Arms with his Master the French King and so follows on with the Confederacy of the Swedes against the Marques of Aitona for the Spaniard amongst them all in this Militia were such insolencies committed as almost dissolved and spoiled the Hollands Discipline But Aitona marches towards the Maze where he seizes some Prisoners Complotters with Count Henry of Bergues the Prince of Espinoy already fled into France and the Duke of Arscot gone into Spain and the Cause examined dissipated and tried Then he sends the Marques de Ledio who took the strong House of Argentean and retook the Dutchy of Limbergh making a shew of besieging Mastrick thereby to have the passage open into Germany But the Prince of Orange to divert him from this Design plants himself before Breda but not willing to meddle with the Spanish Army now marching towards him to dislodg him from thence he retired five days after And thus ended this years fighting in the Low-countreys The English Coasts were much infested by the Pirates of all our neighbour Nations nay from out the Mediterranean Turks Algiers And as they were generall afflictions to all honest men that came in their way so the great Traders Merchants suffered much and the English because of their generall commerce the most of all and the State being busied in that honourable design of suppressing them our neighbour Dutchmen minded the more their gain and were almost Masters at sea in the Northern fishing which because so farr and so small return they went away with the whole benefit But then for they to settle upon the Hering Busses and the general fishing of the very British seas and our own Coasts after much muttering of our fish-mangers and the complaint upon their Markets the State were rowzed up by several overtures and Projects concerning Bussos for our own Coast and prevention of strangers as an Inlawd over all the Narrow-Seas some petty quarrels there about happened between us and the Hollander and then began the dispute which that able Scholar Grotius intended to conclude by his Tract of Mare Liberum and although the English right was not now to be questioned by a new challenge of the General interest and so to make the case common to all and that by the Pen. Yet to answer him therein also he was incountred by as learned a Piece intituled Mare Clausum the Author Mr. Selden able enough to make it good and did so far as he intended towards them proving the Soveraignty of those Seas under the dominion of this Crown of England and by continual practise of our former Kings levying monies of the Subject meerly for that purpose to maintain that Right But when the King found that it was now in controversie and must be kept by force which his Coffers fayled to perform Herein he considers the way and means to require supply of his Subjects by duty which hitherto had been refused of Curtesie or by Privy-Seals or by Loans which are miscalled disgustfull Impositions illegal they were not so they had been lawfully demanded and no Impositions but seemly and necessarily used by all former Soveraigns Disgustful indeed they might be so are all demands of mony from hard-hearted Subjects and being restrained by his own consent to the late Petition of Right he would depend upon his own the revenue by his right of Prerogative And having Precedents of former Soveraigns he sets on foot that payment of Ship-mony as a duty for indeed Mr. Selden comes short of home in his proofs bringing his Levies of Naval-aid but to the time of Henry the second and might no doubt by his reading have reached home without helpe even of a Parliament But the course went on by the orderly legal proceeding of Writ in effect an ancient President of raising a Tax upon the Nation for seting forth a Navy in case of danger And being managed by that excellent Artizar of Law the Atturney Noy whose Readings and search had no doubt hapened upon Records for Levying a Naval-aid by sole authority of the King for safety of the Kingdome as also in time of those Parliaments when free subsidies and this enforced command of aid came together the one by their love to support what might refer to himself this other by authority when it concerned the publique But the wisdome of State made
are contained in our late printed Declarations which were sent to your Lordship which summarily we here repeat That the late Acts of Parliament may be published in his Majesties Name with the States of Parliament That Edenburgh Castle and other Strengths of Scotland may as to their first foundation be fortified and used for our defence and security That our Countreymen in England and Ireland may not be pressed with Oaths and Subscription warranted by your Law and contrary to their National Oath and Covenant That the common Incendiaries the Authours of Combustions in his Majesties Dominions may receive their Censure That our Ships and Goods with all the Dammage thereof may be restored That the wrongs losses and charges which all the time we have sustained may be repaired That the Declarations made against us as Traitours may be recalled That by the advice and consent of the States of England to be convened in Parliament the Garrisons may be removed from the Borders and any Impediment that may stop free Trade and settle Peace for our Religion and Liberties against all Fears of Molestation and the undoing of us from year to year or as our Adversaries shall take the advantage And that the meeting of the Peers the four and twentieth of this instant will be too long ere the Parliament will be convened the onely means of settling Peace the sooner they come the more shall we be enabled to obey his Majesties Prohibition of our advancing with our Army Nothing but invincible necessity hath brought us out of our Countrey to this place and no other thing shall draw us beyond the Limits appointed by his Majesty wherein we hope your Lordship will labour for our Kings honour and the good of our Countrey Leaguer at New-castle Septemb. 8. 1640. Your Lordships loving and humble Servants and Friends c. Those English Lords that meant not to fight either for necessity or honour fearing that their next Meeting might prevent a Parliament had this while devised their Petition to the King in effect for a Parliament the great aim on all sides answerable to the Scots desire before they set out from home which they published at the head of their Army in a Pamphlet called The Intentions of their Army viz. Not to lay down Arms till the Reformed Religion were settled in both Nations upon sure grounds the Causers and Abetters of their present Troubles be brought to publick justice and that in Parliament And these Abetters were the Papists Prelates and their Adherents in general but more particular the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the Lieutenant of Ireland And therefore to answer them comes out a correspondent Petition from a Compound of six Earls one Viscount and four Barons being a Descant on the Scots Plain-song And to back these Petitions are poasted from London and other places presently after The Lords Petition was thus Most gracious Sovereign The zeal of that duty and service which we ow to your Sacred Majesty and our earnest affection to the good and welfare of this your Realm of England have moved us in all humility to beseek your Royal Majesty to give us leave to offer to your Princely wisdom the apprehension which we and others your faithfull Subjects have conceived of the great Distempers and Dangers now threatning the Church and State and your Royal Person and of the fittest means by which they may be removed and prevented The Evils and Dangers whereof your Majesty may be pleased to take notice are these 1. That your Majesties Sacred Person is exposed to Hazzard and Danger in the present Expedition against the Scotish Army and by occafion of this War your Majesties Revenue is much wasted your Subjects burthened with Coat and Conduct-money billeting of Souldiers and other Military charges and divers Rapines and Disorders committed in several parts of this your Realm by the Souldiers raised for that Service and your whole Kingdom become full of Fears and Discontents 2. The sundry Innovations in matters of Religion the Oath and Canons lately imposed upon the Clergy and other your Majesties Subjects 3. The great increase of Popery and the imploying of Popish Recusants and others ill-affected to the Religion by Laws established in Places of power and tâ—ust especially in commanding of Men and Arms both in the Field and sundry Counties of this your Realm whereas by Law they are not permitted to have any Arms in their own Houses 4. The great Mischiefs which may fall upon this Kingdom if the intentions which have been credibly reported of bringing in Irish and foreign Forces should take effect 5. The urging of Ship money and prosecution of some Sheriffs in the Star-chamber for not levying of it 6. The heavy charge upon Merchandise to the discouragement of Trade the multitude of Monopolies and other Patents whereby the Commodities and Manufactures of the Kingdom are much burthened to the great and universal grievance of your people 7. The great grief of your Subjects by long intermission of Parliaments and the late and former dissolving of such as have been called without the happy effects which otherwise they might have produced For remedy whereof and prevention of the dangers that may arise to your Royal Person and to the whole State they do in all humility and faithfulness beseek your most Excellent Majesty that you would be pleased to summon a Parliament within some convenient time whereby the causes of these and other great grievances which your people lie under may be taken away and the Authors and Counsellors of them may be there brought to such legal trial and condign punishment as the nature of their several offences shall require And that the present War may be composed by your Majesties wisdom without blood in such manner as may conduce to the Honour and safety of your Majesties Person the comfort of your people and the uniting of both your Realms against the common Enemy of the Reformed Religion And your Majesties petitioners shall ever pray c. Concluded the 28. of August 1640 Francis Bedford Roberâ— Essex Mulgrave Say Seal Edward Howard The Earl of Bristow William Hartford Warwick Bulling brook Mandevil Brook Paget The Kings Answer was BEfore the receipt of your Petition his Majesty well foresaw the danger that threatens himself and Crown and therefore resolved to summon all the Peers to his presence upon the 24 of this September and with them to consult what in this case is fittest to be done for his honour and safety of the Kingdom where they with the rest may offer any thing that may conduce to these ends And so accordingly the Lord Keeper had command and did issue out Writs of summons for their appearance at York the 24. of September And to meet them there comes To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of your Majesties Loyal Subjects the Citizens of London Most Gracious Soveraign BEing moved by the Duty and Obedience which by Religion and Laws your Petitioners owe unto
for never were men so idolized as these Commissioners feasted and presented by all sorts of People their Lodgings visited as a Novelty to frequent their Praying and Preaching more than ever were the Houses and Chappels of Popish Ambassadours and with more danger for here were fabricked the Petitions and Tumults which followed as you shall see hereafter And it is to be remembred that in the time of Queen Elizabeth when some Scots Commissioners came to her to settle the Differences of both Nations and had nestled themselves about Petty-France in Tuttle-fields far enough from dangerous connivance of the City Puritan in those days and there exercised their Prayers and Preaching and so increasing boldness they petition for to be allowed in publick which so startled her and her Council in fear of Innovation as that they were absolutely forbidden to pray or preach at any Meeting Tuesday the third of November the time prefixt the Parliament assemble and Master William Lenthall one of the Benchers and Readers of Lincolns Inn was elected Speaker who during their continuance near years He was a Person of known integrity and ample sufficiency for the dignity of that place through all that time of wonderfull distraction carried himself with extraordinary wisdom and judgment without blame And being set the King salutes them thus My Lords The knowledg that I have of the Scotish Subjects was the cause of my calling of the last Assembly of PARLIAMENT wherein if I had been believed I do most sincerely think that things had not fallen as we now see but it is no wonder that men are so slow to believe that so great a Sedition should be raised upon so little Ground But now my Lords and Gentlemen the honour and safety of this Kingdom lying so heavily at stake I am resolved to put my self freely upon the love and affections of my English Subjects as those of my Lords that waited on me at York very well remember I there declared Therefore my Lords I shall not mention mine own interest or that support I might justly expect from you till the common safety be secured though I must tell you I am not ashamed to say those charges I have been at have been meerly for the securing and good of this Kingdom though the success hath not been answerable to my desires Therefore I shall onely desire you to consider the best way both for the safety and security of this Kingdom wherein there are two things chiefly considerable First the chasing out of the Rebells And secondly that other in satisfying your just Grievances wherein I shall promise you to concur so heartily and clearly with you that all the World may see my intentions have ever been and shall be to make this a glorious and flourishing Kingdom There are onely two things more that I shall mention to you The one is to tell you that the Loan of Money which I lately had from the City of London wherein the Lords who waited on me at York assisted me will onely maintain my Army for two Moneths from the beginning of that time it was granted Now my Lords and Gentlemen I leave it to your consideration what dishonour and mischief it might be in case for want of Money my Army be disbanded before the Rebells be put out of this Kingdom Secondly the securing of the calamities the Northern People endure at this time and so long as the Treaty is on foot And in this I may say not onely they but all this Kingdom will suffer the harm therefore I leave this also to your consideration For the ordering of the great affairs whereof you are to treat at this time I am so confident of your love to me and that your care is such for the honour and safetie of the Kingdom that I shall freely leave to you where to begin onely this that you may the better know the state of all affairs I have commanded my Lord Keeper to give you a short and free account of those things that have happened in this interim with this Protestation that if his account be not satisfactory as it ought to be I shall whensoever you desire it give you a full and perfect account of every particular One thing more I desire of you as one of the greatest means to make this an happie PARLIAMENT that you on your parts as I on mine lay aside Suspicion one of another as I promised my Lords at York it shall not be my Fault if this be not an happie and good PARLIAMENT The Lord Keeper in pursuance of the Kings Commands summarily related all things referring to the Scotish Invasion which I shall not be nice to call Rebellion for so the King gave their Character and because ill resented by some persons of note and so intimated to the King he confirmed it to the Lords two days after My Lords I shall explain my self concerning one thing I spake the last Day I told you the Rebells were to be put out of this Kingdom It is true I must needs call them so so long as they have an Army that do invade us And although I am now under a Treaty with them and under my Great Seal do call them my Subjects and so they are too but the estate of my Affairs is briefly this It is true I did expect when I called my Lords and great ones at York to have given a gracious Answer to all your Grievances for I was in good hope by their wisdom and assistance to have made an end with that Business but I must tell you that my Subjects of Scotland did so delay them that it was not possible for me to end there therefore I can in no wise blame my Lords that were at Rippon that the Treaty was not ended but must thank them for their pains and industry And certainly had they as much power as affections I should by this time have brought these Distempers to a happy period so that now the Treaty is transported from Rippon to London where I shall conclude nothing without your knowledg and I doubt not but with your approbation for I do not desire to have this great work done in a corner but I shall lay open all the steps of this mis-understanding and causes of this great Difference between me and them and I doubt not but by your assistance I shall make them know their duty and enforce them to return whether they will or no. This whole Week was in a manâ—er spent by the Parliament in the settling of the Commissions for general Grievances wherein they had work enough made so to their hands and partly also in several set Speeches the bane of business rhetorically declaiming against them and dissecting their particulars which were made up on Munday after the ninth of November by a world of Petitions some framed I know not where but brought in by Bands of men and Troops of Horse-men from several Countreys craving redress of general Exorbitancies
and they have just cause to believe it to be true Fifthly the Papists as publickly and with 〈…〉 importunity resort to Mass at Denmark house Saint James's aâ—d the Ambassadours Chappel as others do to their Parochial Churches Sixthly there is found already so bad consequence of this Priest John Goodman his 〈◊〉 that the City of London being solicited by the Parliament for their assistance in the advancement of Money for the supply of his Majesties Army have absolutely denied the same for that very reason which may become an ill 〈…〉 To which the King makes answer That it was against his minde that Popery or Superstition should any way increase within this Kingdom that he will restrain the same by causing the Laws to be put in execution That he is resolved to provide against Iesuits and Papists by setting forth a Proclamation speedily commanding them to depart the Kingdom within one Moneth of which â—f they fail or shall return then they shall be Proceeded against according to Law Concerning the Popes Nuncio Rosetti he hath no Commission 〈◊〉 onely to retain correspondency between the Queen and the Pope in things requisite for the exercise of her Religion which is warranted to her by the Articles of Marriage which gave her a full liberty of conscience yet 〈◊〉 he hath perswaded her that since the mis-understanding of that persons condition gives offence she will within a time convenient remove him Moreover he will take special care to restrain his Subjects 〈◊〉 resorting to Mass at Denmark house Saint James's and the Chappels of Ambassadours Lastly concerning Goodman because he will avoid the inconvenience of giving so great discontent to his People as his Mercy may produce therefore he doth remit his particular case to both Houses But he desired them to take into their considerations the Inconveniences that may upon this Occasion fall upon his Subjects and other Protestants abroad especially since it may seem to other States to be a Severity But this while though of consequence to the main Affairs we have been enforced to leave the Scots in their five Moneths warm Quarters in this Kingdom The Treaty at Rippon produced a Câ—ssation of Hostility referring further to a Treaty at London which was impowred by Commission the three and twentieth of November to the former Lords the Earls of Bedford Hartford Essex Salisbury 〈◊〉 Bristow Holland and Berkshire the Lords Wharton Paget 〈◊〉 Brook Paulet Howard of Estrick Savile and Dunsmore 〈◊〉 to any ten or more of them to treat with the Scotish Commissioners or any seven of them being the Earls of Rothes and Dumferling the Lord Loudon Sir Patrick Hâ—pburn Sir William Douglas William Drummond Iohn Smith Bailiff of Edinburg Alexander Wedderburn Hugh Kennedy Alexander Henderson and Archibald Iohnson to take into consideration their Demands and to compose all Differences thereupon in pursuance of which Commission these Demands were assented unto The Scotish Comissioners demanded First that his Majesty would be graciously pleased to command that the Acts of the late Parliament may be published in His Higness Name as our Sovereign Lord with the consent of the Estates of Parliament conveâ—eal by his Majesties Authority To this it is answered and agreed 30 Decembris 1640. That forasmuch as the Kings Majesty at the humble desire of his Subjects did call and convene a Parliament to be holden at Edinburgh the 2. of Iune 1640. wherein certain Acts were made and agreed upon which Acts his Majesty is pleased to publish in his own Name with the consent of the Estates and therefore commands that the said Acts bearing date the 2. day of Iune 1640. be published with the Acts to be made in the next Session of the same Parliament and that all the said Acts as well of the precedent as of the next Session to be holden have in all time coming the strength of Laws and to be obeyed by all the Subjects of the Kingdom of Scotland Secondly that the Castle of Edinburgh and other Strengths of the â—ingdom should with the advice of the Estates of Parliament according to their first foundation be furnished and used for defence and security of the Kingdom It is agreed unto Thirdly that Scotish men within his Majesties Dominions of England and Ireland may be freed from censure for subscribing the Covenant and be no more pressed with Oaths and Subscriptions unwarranted by their Laws and contrary to their National Oath and covenant approved by his Majesty It is agreed Decemb. 8. 1640. that all those who in his Majesties Dominions of England and Ireland have been imprisoned or censured any way for subscribing of the Covenant on for refusing to take any other Oath 〈◊〉 to the same shall be freed of these Censures and shall be fully restored to their Liberties Estates and Possession and for time coming that the Subjects of Scotland as Subjects of Scotland shall not be constrained to any Oath contrary to the Laws of that Kingdom and the Religion there established but such of the Kingdom of Scotland as shall transport themselves into the Kingdom of England or Ireland and there be settled Inhabitants either by way of having Inheritance or Freehold or by way of settled Trades shall be subject to the Laws of England or Ireland and to the Oaths established by the Laws and Acts of Parliament in the said Kingdoms respectively wherein they live And the English and Irish shall have the like privilege in Scotland Fourthly that his Majesty would be pleased to declare that whosoever shall be found upon Trial and Examination by the Estates of either of the two Parliaments they judging against the persons subject to their own Authority to have been the Authours and Causers of the late and present Troubles and Combustions whether by labouring to make and foment Division betwixt the King and his People or betwixt the two Nations or any other way shall be liable to censure of the said Parliaments respectively It is answered December 11. 1640. That his Majesty believeth he hath none such about him therefore concerning that point he can make no other Declaration than that he is just and that all his Courts of Justice are to be free and open to all men Our Parliament in this Kingdom is now sitting and the current Parliament of Scotland near approaching the time of their meeting In either of which respective he doth not prohibit the Estates to proceed in trying and judging of whatsoever his Subjects And whereas it was further demanded that none after the Sentence of the Parliament should have access to his Majesty or be maintained or enjoy Places or Offices and have credit or authority to inform or advise his Majesty It is declared in his Majesties Name Decemb. 30. 1640. That he will not imploy any person or persons in Office or Place that shall be judged incapable by Sentence of Parliament nor will he make use of their service without the consent of
pleased to assent to their Acts of Parliament including the Articles of their Assembly their Religion Laws and Liberties ratified their grievances relieved for which we use to give the King Money The Scots Remonstrance professing that they would take nothing of the English but for Money or Security But we have defrayed them hitherto and are still provided to do longer That heretofore we established their Reformation and bore our own Charges and concerning mutual restitution of Ships and Goods which now our Commissioners have fairly accommodated already As for inferential and consequential Dammages such a Representment would not administer unacceptable matter of contestation We could truly allege that Northumberland New-castle and the Bishoprick will not recover their former Estate these twenty years that the Coal-mines of New-castle will not be set right for an hundred thousand pounds besides the price of Coals doth cost this City and other parts of this Kingdom above that value in loss And much more of this nature and dammage might be justly urged They say they do not make any former Demands but yet they make their Sum appear above four hundred and fourteen thousand pounds more than ever we gave the King A portentous apparition which shews it self in a very dry time the Kings Revenue totally exhausted the Kingdom generally impoverished and yet all this supply is to be drawn out of us onely without the least help from any his Majesties other Dominions an utter draining of this Nation unless England be Puteus inexhaustus yet I shall afford what is reasonable and honourable to a convenient considerable Sum of Money that they may go off with a handsome friendly Loss if they shall reject it we shall improve our Cause It was never thought any great wisdom overmuch to trust to a succesfull Sword A man that walks upon rising ground the further he goes the more spacious his prospect success enlarges mens desires extends their ambition breeds thoughts never dreamt on before But the Scots being truly touched with Religion according to their professions that onely is able to keep their words for Religion is stronger and wiser than Reason it self But we hope of a good conclusion of the effects of all these hitherto Inconveniences to the advance of Religion King and Kingdoms But for the present to satisfie the clamour of the Scots Master Speaker was ordered to write to the City of London to advance sixty thousand pounds upon security and Assignment out of the next Subsidies to be levied and to pay in the Money to the Chamber of London which was so humbly obeyed This being but one Loan for I finde several Acquittances for the like Sum of sixty thousand pounds mentioning therein For Supply of the Kings Army and providing for the Northern Counties And so belike were issued for Supply of both Armies The Dutch Ambassadour Lieger having made Overtures of a Marriage between William young Prince of Orange and the Kings eldest Daughter the Princess Mary which he very willingly inclined to accept yet though fit as his condition stood with the Parliament to acquaint them therewith And tells the House of Lords My Lords That freedom and confidence which I expressed at the beginning of this Parliament to have of your love and fidelity towards my Person and Estate hath made me at this time come hither to acquaint you with that Alliance and Confederacy which I intend to make with the Prince of Orange and the States which before this time I did not think expedient to do because that part which I do desire your advice and assistance upon was not ready to be treated on I will not trouble you with a long digression by shewing the steps of this Treaty but leave you to be satisfied in that by those who under me do manage that Affair Onely I shall shew you the Reasons which have induced me to it and in which I expect your assistance and counsel The Considerations that have induced me to it are these First the matter of Religion here needs no Dispensation no fear that my Daughters conscience may be any way perverted Secondly I do esteem that a strict Alliance and Confederacy with the States will be as usefull to this Kingdom as that with any of my Neighbours especially considering their Affinity Neighbourhood and way of their strength And lastly which I must never forget in these occasions the use I may make of this Alliance towards the establishing of my Sister and Nephews Now to shew you in what I desire your assistance you must know that the Articles of Marriage are in a manner concluded but not to be totally ratified untill that of Alliance be ended and agreed which before I demanded your assistance I did not think fit to enter upon And that I may not leave you too much at large how to begin that Council I present you here the Propositions which are offered by me to the States Ambassadours for that intent And so my Lords I shall onely desire you to make as much expedition in your Councils as so great a Business shall require and shall leave your Lordships to your own free debate This Proposition of Alliance both with the Prince and with the United Provinces was extremely and unanimously affected by all the People and was universally embraced without Fears or Jealousies upon our Liberties or Religion and soon concluded but what resulted think you from another party Papists Plots perpetually allarming for The very next Day four Members of the Commons House bore up the Message to the Lords of a monstrous Design of the Papists an Army of fifteen thousand in Lancashire and eight thousand in Ireland and I know not how many thousands in many places well armed and in pay raised by the Earl of Strafford the Earl of Worcester and others After-ages will think these Hyperboles for though there was no such Armies possibly by them nor no such Fears by others yet this Message was sent and carried from the Lower to the Higher House and gave the occasion to the multitude of People to frame Petitions sutable to Plots and Fears and Jealousies for the Parliaments purpose The thirteenth of February one of the Ship-money Judges so nick-named Sir Robert Berkley was by a motion of the Commons accused of High-treason and by Maxwell the Black Rod taken the next day from his Seat in the Kings Bench and kept Prisoner The Bill for the Triennial Parliament having passed both Houses was confirmed with the Kings royal assent February 16. and to let them see how sensible himself was of this his great grace he thought fit to put them in minde of their gratitude of fear of their failing My Lords And you the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons you may remember when both Houses were with me at the Banquetting-house at White-hall I did declare unto you two Rocks I wished you to shun this is one of them and of that consequence that
have sought to gain a like consent from me to Acts wherein my conscience is unsatisfied than the sharp touches I have had for what passed me in my Lord of Strafford's business Not that I resolved to have imploied him in my affairs against the advice of my Parliament but I would not have had any hand in his death of whose guiltlesness I was better assured than any man living could be Nor were the crimes objected against him so clear as after a long and fair hearing to give convincing satisfaction to the major part of both Houses especially that of the Lords of whom scarce a third part were present when the Bill passed that House And for the House of Commons many Gentlemen disposed enough to diminish my Lord of Strafford's greatness and power yet unsatisfied of his guilt in Law durst not condem him to die who for their integritie in their Votes were by posting their Names exposed to the popular calumnie hatred and furie which grew then so exorbitant in their clamours for justice that is to have both my self and the two Houses Vote and to do as they would have us that many 't is thought were rather terrified to concur with the condemning partie than satisfied that of right they ought so to do And that after-Act vacating the authoritie of the precedent for future imitation tells the world that some remorse touched even his most implacable enemies as knowing he had very hard measure and such as they would be very loth should be repeated to themseves This tenderness and regret I finde in my soul for having had any hand and that very unwillingly God knows in shedding one mans bloud unjustly though under the colour and formalitie of justice and pretences of avoiding publick mischiefs which may I hope be some evidence before God and man to all posteritie that I am far from bearing justly that vast load and guilt of all that bloud which hath been shed in this unhappie War which some men will needs charge on me to ease their own souls who am and ever shall be more afraid to take away any mans life unjustly than to lose mine own And now I take my leave of our two Writers the Historian and his Observatour They stop here and we part Friends But I am to go on towards my journeys end a great way farther The sad execution of this brave man put the great Officers of State in some doubt what to do with themselves as fearing that upon the like score they might be subject to destruction And because envy and insecurity wait nearest upon persons of eminency in office or because they considered that the ambition of the adverse party might be some way satisfied divers of the Kings nearest Officers resigned up their Places the seventeenth of May viz. The Lord Cottington Master of the Wards to the profitable desires of the Lord Say Dr. Iuxon Bishop of London resigning his Office of Treasurer of England into the hands of five Commissioners more sufficient than he could be The Earl of Leicester was made Lieutenant of Ireland perhaps to ballance with the late Lord's merit Marquess Hertford sworn Governour of the Prince in the room of the Earl of New-castle who hereafter the Parliament pretend to be a Papist The Earl of Essex made Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold and Pembroke put out The Officers of the English Army set a Design on foot by which it was pretended that they meant to force the Parliament but being discovered and soon made publick the manner and matter collected out of the Examinations in May and Iune were thus The Field-officers and Commanders being at London and Members of either Houses the Army was left to the oversight of Sir Iacob Astley the Ground of the Design was pretended from the Dislikes between the King and Parliament with the hasty Supply of the Scotish Army and the neglect of the English which begat Discontent in them and private Meetings and Consultations there and so brought up to Court But their Design not fixed fell into several Intentions which never came to head being crushed in the Embryo by sudden discovery In the general it was voted the nineteenth of Iune that the Scots should receive one hundred thousand pounds of their three hundred thousand pounds at Mid-summer next 1642. and the remainder at Mid-summer 1644. But the Scots by writing pretend necessity for the present and demanded twenty five thousand pounds there being in readiness but fifteen thousand pounds for the Parliament had designed fifty thousand pounds for the necessity of the English Army from whose Money the House of Commons soon consented to deduct ten thousand pounds for the Scots The Lord Piercy Commissary General Wilmot and Colonel Ashenburnham sitting together and murmuring at it Wilmot stept up and told Master Speaker That if such Papers of the Scots could procure Moneys he doubted not but the Officers of the English would soon do the like But it prevailed not to prevent the Scot and provoked the English Army to say that the Parliament had disobliged them These at London put themselves into a Iunto of sworn secrecy resolving to engage in some particular for themselves and the publick service of the King drawing up uncertain extravagant Heads by way of Petition to the King and Parliament For Money for the Army Not to disband before the Scots To preserve Bishops Votes and Functions To settle the Kings Revenue The Army tainted from hence meet at Burrowbrig draw up a Letter by way of Petition which Paper of Instructions was shewn to the King who seemed to approve of it say the Parliament by singing it C. R. which served onely as a direction to Captain Leg that none should see it but Sir Iacob Astley who in absence of the chief Commanders ordered the Army The main of the matter there was that all good men ought to thank God for directing the Kings heart to the desires of his Parliament by delivering up into their hands the chiefest of Counsellours and Servants and many other things to gratifie them which never was done by any his Ancestours By Petition of Right Triennial Parliament and such like yet that some turbulent spirits backt by rude and tumultuous Mechanicks seem not to be satisfied without the total subversion of the Government of State c. That therefore the Army so orderly governed though without Martial Law No payment and few Officers might be called up to attend the safety of the Kings person and Parliaments security or that both Armies should be disbanded for the ease of the Kingdom with a desire to procure the Officers hands hereto c. The Actours there were Sir Iames Ashley Sir Iohn Conniers Sir Foulk Hunks Colonel Vavisor Chudleigh William Leg and Oneal and others all examined to this purpose but none suffered for the same Amongst those others here above and some Courtiers was Master Henry Iermin who to avoid the bad effects of his Medling conveyed himself
from the west Indies the onely facile way to prevail against the Spainard to an expenceful successless attempt upon Cales 4. The precipitate breach with France taking their goods and ships without recompense to the English whose goods were confiscate in that Kingdom 5. The peace with Spain without consent of Parliament the deserting the Palsgraves cause mannaged by his Enemies 6. The charging of this Kingdom with billeted Souldiers with the Design of German Horse to enslave this Nation to Arbitrary Contributions 7. The dissolving of the Parliament 2 Caroli and the exacting of the proportion of five Subsidies after the Parliament was dissolved by Commission of Loan and such as refused imprisoned some to Death great Sums of Money required by Privy Seals Excise the Petition of Right blasted 8. The Parliament dissolved 4 Caroli imprisoning some Members fining them and others Sir Francis Barington died in Prison whose bloud still cries for vengeance of those Ministers of State The publishing of false and scandalous Declarations against the Parliament And afterwards Injustice Oppression and Violence broke in The enlargements of Forests contrary to Charta de Foresta Coat and Conduct Money c. And then the Remonstrance ravels into all the particular pretended Designs corrupt Councils and the effects of what ever happened or usually doth happen in any Nation of Government even to Clerks of the Market and Commissions of Sewers Brass Farthings Projects Monopolies c. Then upon all the mis-actions of Courts of Iudicature Council-Table and all And principally against Bishops and their Proceeding by all their subordinate Officers their Writings Preachings Opinions in conjunction with Papists and Prote stants in Doctrine Discipline and Ceremony And endeavouring to reduce Scotland thereto and an Army was raised against them by Contribution of Clergy and Papists the Scots enforced to raise an Army for their Defence but concluded in Pacification and throughout excusing the Scots palliating all their Insurrections as necessitated to defend themselves against malignant Councils and Counsellours calling them Scots Rebells and the English War Bellum Episcopale Then to make a progress into Reformation the Remonstrance tells us what they have done by their care wisdoms and circumspection removed some Malignants suppressed Monopolies and all the aforesaid Disorders in an instant taking away High Commission and Star-Chamber Courts c. Procuring Bills of Triennial Parliament and continuance of this which two Laws they say are more advantageous than all the other Statutes enforce And in a word what ere the King hath done amiss they are not sparing to publish it what gracious favours he hath afforded by several Bills the Parliament ascribe to their own wisdoms and promise to the King and whole Kingdom more honour and happiness than ever was enjoyed by any his Predecessours And this the Parliament instantly printed and published contrary to the Kings desire though his Answer was speedy to the Petition and Remonstrance thus in effect That having received a long Petition consisting of many Desires of great moment together with a Declaration of a very unusual nature being confident that their own reason and regard to him as well as his express Intimation by his Controller to that purpose would have restrained them from publishing of it untill his convenient time of answer and tells them how sensible he is of this their disrespect To the Preamble of the Petition he professes he understands not of a wicked and malignant party admitted to his Council and Imployment of Trust of endeavouring to sow amongst the People false Scandals to blemish and disgrace the Parliament c. All or any of which did he know of he would be as ready to punish as they are to complain To their Petition the first part concerning Religion and consisting of several Branches as for that of Popish Designs he hath and will concur with all the just Desires of his People in a Parliamentary way To the depriving of the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament their Right is grounded upon the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and Constitutions of Parliament For the abridging of the inordinate power of the Clergy The taking away of the High Commission Court moderates that and if there continue Usurpations in their Iurisdictions he neither hath nor will protect them And as to the clause of Corruptions in Religion Church-government and Discipline c. That for any Innovations he will willingly concur for the removal if any be by a National Synod but he is sorry to hear of such terms Corruptions since he is perswaded that no Church can be found upon Earth professing the true Religion with more purity of Doctrine than the Church of England doth which by the grace of God he will maintain not onely against all Invasions of Popery but also from the Irreverence of those many Schismaticks and Seperatists wherewith of late this Kingdom and this City abounds To the second prayer of the Petition concerning the Removal and choice of Counsellours that by these which he hath exposed to Trial there is none so near to him in place and affection whom he will not leave to the Law and to their particular charge and sufficient proof That for their choice of his Counsellours and Ministers of State that were to debar him the natural liberty which all Free-men have being besides the undoubted Right of his Crown to call to his Council whom he pleaseth being carefull to elect persons of ability and integrity To the third prayer concerning Ireland Not to alienate the Forfeited Lands thereof he concurs with them but then whether it be now seasonable to resolve before the Event of War be seen that he much doubts of but thanks them for their chearfull Ingagement for their suppression of that Rebellion upon which so many hazzards do depend And for their Conclusion and promise to apply themselves for support of his royal Estate c. he doubts not thereof from their Loyalties to which he will add his assistance The Kings Declaration to all his loving Subjects Although he doth not believe that the House of Commons intended by their Remonstrance to put him to any Apology for his past or present Actions yet since they have thought it so very necessary to publish the same he thinks it not below his Kingly Dignity to compose and settle the affections of his meanest Subjects He shall in few words pass over the narrative part wherein the Misfortunes of this Kingdom from the first entring to the Crown to the beginning of this Parliament are remembred in so sensible expressions And that other which acknowledgeth those many good Laws passed this Parliament To which he saith that as he hath not refused any Bill for redress of Grievances mentioned in their Remonstrance so he hath not had a greater Motive thereto than his own Resolution to free his Subjects for the future And possibly they may confess that they have enjoyed a greater measure of happiness these last sixteen years both in peace
Proofs and therefore to avoid more Mistakes that it be resolved whether his Majestie be bound in respect of Privileges to proceed by Impeachment in Parliament or be at libertie to proffer an Inditement at the Common Law or to have his choice in either thereupon he will speedily give Direction to proceed to the business Jan. 24. The Attourney General in fear to be grinded between these Disputes and finding his the hardest bargain supplicates the King for his Authority to take him off which he did by his Letter to the Lord Keeper from Roiston the fourth of March. Certifying That the third of January last he did deliver to the Attourney General certain Articles of Accusation ingrossed in Paper the Câ—pie being inclosed and commanded him to acquaint the house of Peers That divers great and treasonable Designs against Us and the State had come to the Kings knowledg of which he was commanded to accuse those six Persons of high Treason by delivering the Paper to them and to desire to have it read and that a Committee of Lords might examine such Witnesses as the King would produce and they to be under a command of secrecie and for the King to add or alter if there be cause And declares the Attourney General clear as to his Answer And had he refused the Kings command herein he would have questioned him for Breach of Oath Dutie and Trust to which he was obliged This as to the truth and the Attourneys defence but being weary of the business and finding no relief to be expected nor leave to proceed in his way against them he adds a clause to the Letter But having declared that we finde cause wholly to desist from proceeding against the Persons accused we have commanded our Attourney General to proceed no further there nor to produce nor discover any Proof concerning the same And so this Breach between the King and Parliament was stitched up but the Seam not well sewed the Rent grew the wider and either party more nicely concerning Prerogative and Privileges And because this Action of the Kings was often taken up as a Breach of Privilege unpardonable we may examine the Kings Reasons from his own Relation in his Eikon Basilike cap. 3. My going to the House of Commons says the King to demand Iustice upon the five Members was an act which mine Enemies loaded with all the obloquies and exasperations they could I filled indifferent men with great Iealousies and Fears yea and manie of my Friends resented it as a motion rising rather from Passion than from Reason and not guided with such Discretion as the touchiness of those Times required But these men knew not the just Motives and pregnant Grounds with which I thought my self so furnished that there needed nothing to such Evidence as I could have produced against those I charged save onely a free and legal Trial which was all I desired Nor had I anie temptation of Displeasure or Revenge against those mens Persons further than I had discovered those as I thought unlawfull correspondencies they had used and engagements they had made to embroil my Kingdoms of all which I missed but little to have produced Writings under some mens own hands who were the chief Contrivers of the following Innovations Providence would not have it so yet I wanted not such Probabilitie as were sufficient to raise Iealousies in anie Kings heart who is not wholly stupid and neglective of the publick Peace which to preserve by calling in question half a Dozen men in a fair and legal way which God knows was all my Design could have amounted to no worse effect had it succeeded than either to do me and my Kingdoms right in case they had been found guiltie or else to have cleared their Innocencie and removed my suspition which as they were not raised out of any malice so neither were they in Reason to be smothered What Flames of Discontent this spark though I sought by all speedie and possible means to quench it soon kindled all the World is witness The aspersion which some men cast upon that Action as if I had designed by force to assault the House of Commons and invade their Privilege is so false that as God best knows I had no such intent so none that attended could justly gather from anie thing I then said or did the least intimation of anie such thoughts That I went attended with some Gentlemen as it was no unwonted thing for the Majestie and safetie of a King so to be attended especially in discontented times so were my Followers at that time short of mine ordinarie Guard and no waie proportionable to hazzard a tumultuarie Conflict Nor were they more scared at my coming than I was unassured of not having some Affronts cast upon me if I had none with me to preserve a reverence to me for many people had at that time learned to think those hard thoughts which they have since abundantly vented against me both by Words and Deeds The Sum of that Business was this Those men and their Adherents were then looked upon by the affrighted Vulgar as greater Protectours of their Laws and Liberties than my self and worthier of their protection I leave them to God and their own Consciences who if guiltie of evil machinations no present impunitie or popular vindications of them will be subterfuge sufficient to rescue them from those exact Tribunals To which in the obstructions of Iustice among men we must religiously appeal as being an Argument to us Christians of that after-unavoidable Iudgment which shall rejudg what among men is but corruptly decided or not at all I endeavoured to have prevented if God had seen sit those future Commotions which I fore-saw would in all likelihood follow some mens activitie if not restrained and so now hath done to the undoing of many thousands the more is the pitie But to over-aw the freedom of the Houses or to weaken their just Authoritie by anie violent impressions upon them was not at all my Design I thought I had so much Iustice and Reason on my side as should not have needed so rough assistance and I was resolved rather to bear the Repulse with patience than to use such hazzardous Extremities The King evermore very sensible of the necessity of State proposeth unto them to consider of all those particulars necessary for his Majesties just Right and regal Authority and for settling of his Revenue And as for the settlement of their Privileges free enjoyment of their Estates the liberties of their persons the security of Religion and the settling of Ceremonies in the Church as may take away all just offence which when they shall have digested it shall then appear what his Majesty shall do protesting his innocency from intending any Design to cause their Fears or Jealousies and how ready he will be to exceed the greatest Examples of the most indulgent Princes to their People and calls Heaven and Earth God and Man to
denied to some men lest he should seem not to dare to denie any thing and give too much encouragement to unreasonable demands or importunities But to binde my self to a general and implicite consent to what ever they shall desire or propound for such is one of their Propositions were such a latitude of blinde obedience as never was expected from any Free-man nor fit to be required of any man much less of a King by his own Subjects any of whom he may possibly exceed as much in wisdom as he doth in place and power This were as if Sampson should have consented not onely to binde his own hands and cut off his own hair but to put out his own eys that the Philistines might with the more safetie mock and abuse him which they chose rather to do than quite to destroy him when he was become so tame an object and fit occasion for their sport and scorn Certainly to exclude all power of denial seems an arrogancie least of all becoming those who pretend to make their Addresses in an humble and loyal way of petitioning who by that sufficiently confess their own inferioritie which obligeth them to rest if not satisfied yet quieted with such an Answer as the will and reason of their Superiour thinks fit to give who is acknowledged to have a freedom and power of Reason to consent or dissent else it were very foolish and absurd to ask what another having not libertie to denie neither hath power to grant But if this be my Right belonging to me in reason as a man and in honour as a Sovereign King as undoubtedly it doth how can it be other than extreme injurie to confine my Reason to a nâ—â—essitie of granting all they have a minde to ask whose mindes may be as differing from mine both in Reason and Honour as their Aims may be and their Qualities are which last God and the Laws have sufficiently distinguished making me their Sovereign and them my Subjects whose Propositions may soon prove violent oppositions if once they gain to be necessarie Impositions upon the Regal Authoritie Since no man seeks to limit and confine his King in Reason who hath not a secret Aim to share with him or usurp upon him in power and dominion But they would have me trust to their moderation and abandon mine own discretion that so I might verifie what representations some have made of me to the world that I am fitter to be their Pupil than their Prince Truly I am not so confident of mine own sufficiencie as not willingly to admit the counsel of others but yet I am not so diffident of my self as brutishly to submit to any mens dictates and at once to betray the Sovereigntie of Reason in my soul and the majestie of mine own Crown to any of my Subjects Least of all have I any ground of credulitie to induce me fully to submit to all the desires of those men who will not admit or do refuse and neglect to vindicate the freedom of their own and others sitting and voting in Parliament Besides all men that know them know this how young States-men the most part of these propounders are so that till experience of one seven years hath shewed me how well they can govern themselves and so much power as is wrested from me I should be very foolish indeed and unfaithfull in my Trust to put the Reins of both Reason and Government wholly out of mine own into their hands whose driving is already too much like Jehu's and whose forwardness to ascend the Throne of Supremacie portends more of Phaeton than of Phoebus God divert the Omen if it be his will They may remember that at best they sit in Parliament as my Subjects not my Superiours called to be my Counsellours not Dictatours their Summons extends to recommend their Advice not to command my Dutie When I first heard of Propositions to be sent me I expected either some good Laws which had been antiquated by the course of time or over-laid by the corruption of manners had been desired to a restauration of their vigour and due execution or some evil customes preter-legal and abuses personal had been to be removed or some injuries done by my self and others to the Common-weal were to be repaired or some equable offertures were to be tendred to me wherein the advantages of my Crown being considered by them might fairly induce mâ— to condescend to what tended to my Subjects good without any great diminution of my self whom Nature Law Reason and Religion binde me in the first place to preserve without which 't is impossible to preserve my people according to my place Or at least I looked for such moderate desires of due Reformation of what was indeed amiss in Church and State as might still preserve the foundation and essentials of Government in both not shake and quite over-throw either of them without any regard to the Laws in force the wisdom and pietie of former Parliaments the antient and universal practice of Christian Churches the Rights and Privileges of particular men nor yet any thing offered in lieu or in the room of what must be destroied which might at once teach the good end of the others institution and also supplie its pretended defects reform its abuses and satisfie sober and wise men not with soft and specious words pretending zeal and special pietie but with pregnant and solid Reasons both divine and humane which might justifie the abruptness and necessitie of such vast alterations But in all their Propositions I can observe little of these kindes or to these ends nothing of any Laws dis-jointed which are to be restored of any right invaded of any justice to be un-obstructed of any compensations to be made of any impartial Reformation to be granted to all or any of which Reason Religion true policie or any other humane motives might induce me But as to the main matters propounded by them at any time in which is either great noveltie or difficultie I perceive that what were formerly looked upon as Factions in the State and Schisms in the Church and so punishable by the Laws have now the confidence by vulgar clamours and assistance chiefly to demand not onely Tolerations of themselves in their vanitie noveltie and confusion but also Abolition of the Laws against them and a total extirpation of that Government whose Rights they have a minde to invade This as to the main other Propositions are for the most part but as waste paper in which those are wrapped up to present them somewhat more handsomly Nor do I so much wonder at the varietie and horrible noveltie of some Propositions there being nothing so monstrous which some fancies are not prone to long for This casts me into not an Admiration but an Extasie how such things should have the fortune to be propounded in the name of the two Houses of the Parliament of England among whom I am very confident there was not
dare present their tenderness of his sufferings their own just grievances and the sense of the violation of the Laws if they did it was stifled in the birth and called Sedition and burnt by the Hang-man They have so restrained his Houshold sworn Servants seized upon his Money which his credit had gotten to buy him Bread so that in effect they have blocked him up in York They have filled the Peoples ears with Fears and Jealousies idle Tales false Allarms by which to prepare the peoples impressions the better to advance their Design when it should be ripe And now the King it seems must be ready to receive these humble desires Nor do they tell the King that these Propositions are all No these are yet but Preparatives Some of these disguised with mixtures of real honest things others specious and popular and some already granted by the King all which are cunningly twisted with those other things of their main Design Ambition and private Interest and so not easily to be discerned in their proper colours Not that the King fixes this Design upon all and both Houses many absent many dissenting but professes to all the World that the malignity of the Design dangerous and wicked hath proceeded from all subtil informations mischievous practises and evil counsels of ambitious spirits dis-affected to God Religion unity peace and prosperity of the people with a strong influence upon the very actions of both Houses And these Propositions coming to the King in the name of both Houses he takes the more notâ—ce of every of them and answers to this effect following which because he expresseth in the first person plural not usual heretofore I shall so represent it If the nineteen Propositions had been in a Tragedie unknown to us and our people they might have been believed as they profess to be in order to the ends proposed in the Petition to us and our people honour peace and happiness But being understood will rather appear a Mockerie and a scorn And we unworthie of our Trust or Descent from so many famous Ancestours if we abandon that power which enables us to protect our people and Laws and so assume others into it as to divest our selves of it as if we were already vanquished and a prisoner and the most unfortunate of our predecessours that have been reduced to by the most criminal of their Subjects And though the Bait laid to draw us to it the promises of a plentifull and unparallel'd Revenue were reduced from generals which signifie nothing to clear and certain propositions would but resemble Esau's Bargain to part with such Flowers of our Crown as are worth all the rest of the Garland which gives us cause to believe that the Contrivers of these had no intention of a good Accommodation but rather to widen that Division which is by their fault fallen upon us both It is asked That all the Lords and others of our Privy Council and such or all great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond Sea to leave out no person or place that our dishonour may not be bounded at home should be put from our Privy Council and from these Offices and Imployments unless by them approved How faithfull soever we have found them or how innocent in offending the onely Rule for all men to walk by But to this part of the Demand we are willing that they shall take a larger Oath than you desire in your 11th Demand for maintaining the whole Law That they shall be persons of Trust and abilities without exception reasonable And to be left to the justice of the Law upon sufficient charge or proof against any of them And that we have given you the best pledg of the effects of our promise and the best securitie for their dutie a Triennial Parliament to make them warie how they provoke and us warie how we chuse such as may discredit our Election But that without any fault objected onely because some persons who have too great an influence on both Houses shall judg them not affected to that new Utopia of Religion and Government into which they endeavour to transform the Kingdom we will never consent to the displacing of any of merit and affection to us and the publick whom we have intrusted since we conceive it would take away from the affection of our service the care of us and the honour of our justice And we the more wonder that it should be asked of us since by your twelfth Demand your selves count it reasonable after the present turn be served that the Judges and Officers who are then placed may hold them Quam diu se bene gesserint But this Demand is but one Link of a good Chain or but the first Round of the Ladder by which our just ancient regal power is endeavoured to be fetched down to the ground not with the persons now chosen but with our chusing that you are displeased for they must be approved by both Houses And of the two if we would grant away either we would sooner be content that you should nominate and we approve lest by our Election we should hazzard whom we esteemed to the scorn of your refusal if they be not agreeable to the passion interest or humour of the major part of the House Not to speak of the great Factions and Divisions which this power would introduce in the Parliament between both Houses and in the several Counties for the choice of persons and between them that were so chosen Nor is the potion prescribed onely for once for the curing of some pressure or present disease but for a Diet to us and our posteritie It is demanded That our Counsellours all chief Officers of Law and State Commanders of Forts and Castles and all Peers hereafter made be approved of by them from time to time and rather than ever it should be left to the Crown to whom it doth and shall belong if any place fall void in intermission of Parliaments the major part of the approved Counsellours is to approve them And so we must not onely acquit our Right but for Councellours we are restrained in the number as in the persons and if they have this power it were not fit we should be trusted to chuse those which were to be trusted as much as we It is demanded That such matters as concern the publick and are proper for the high Court of Parliament may be debated resolved and transacted onely in Parliament and such as presume to do to the contrary shall be censured by Parliament and such other matters of State as are proper for debate with our Privy Council shall be concluded by such of our Nobility or rather herein your Nobilitie and others as shall be chosen for that place by approbation of Parliament and that not publick acts concerning the affairs of the Kingdom proper for our privie Council be esteemed valid or proceeding from royal Authority unless it be done
by consent of the major part of our Council attested under their hands Which in effect being granted is to depose our self and posteritie These being past we may be waited on bare headed our hand kist be called Majestie and the Kings Authoritie declared by Parliament may be still the style of your Commands We may have Swords and Maces born before us and please our self with the sight of a Crown and Scepter Nor would these Twigs flourish when the Stock were dead and we receive but the picture and sign of a King We were ever willing our Parliament should debate such matters proper for them but not to extend their Resolutions beyond what is proper to them and so by degrees you draw as well all the causes as all the faults of Westminster-hall That the course of Law be not diverted as was actually done in the stop of the proceedings against a Riot in Southwark by Order of the Lower House by countenancing such popular Insolencies and discountenance to Law That you descend not to the leasure of recommending Lectures to Churches nor ascend to the Legislative power to command such to be received without approbation of either Parson or Bishop nor regarding whether they be Orthodox Learned or Moderate or have taken Orders and are not depravers of the Book of Common Prayer concerning you in dutie and the Common-wealth in consequence to be carefull there And that our Forts may not be seized our Arms not removed our Money not be stopt our legal Directions not to be countermanded by you nor such entrance be made upon a real War against us upon pretence of an imaginarie War against you and a Chimaera of necessitie We could have wished you had exprest what matters you meant as fit to be transacted onely in Parliament and what you meant by onely in Parliament You have been taught new Doctrines to debate what was never used within you walls to do but been trusted with our Predecessours and us which without the regal Authoritie since there were Kings of this Kingdom were never transacted It therefore concerns us the more that you speak out that the World may know the bottom of your Demands or know them to be bottomless What is more proper for the Parliament than the making of Laws but then you must admit us a part of the Parliament You must not denie us the freedom of our Answer when we have as much Right to reject what we think unreasonable as you have to propose what you think necessarie nor is it possible our Answers either to Bills or any other Propositions should be wholly free if we may not use the libertie of every one of you and receive advice from any persons in which the manage of our Vote is trusted by the Law to our own judgment and conscience which how best to inform is likewise left to us and most unreasonable it were for two Estates proposing something to the third that third should take no advice but from those two that did propose it We shall ever in these things not decline the advice of our great Council and shall also use to hear willingly the debate of our Privie Council and they shall not be terrified from that freedom by Votes and Brands of Malignants and Enemies to the State admitting no more than the nature of the business requires and of discoursing with whom we please and of what we please and not to tie our self not to hear any more than twentie five out of a Kingâ—dom so replenished with judicious and experienced persons in several kindes yet we shall alwaies look upon their Advices as Advices not as Commands or Impositions and upon such persons as our Counsellours not as Tutours or Guardians and upon our self as their King not as their Pupil or Ward And it is not plainly exprest in the first part of the second Demand whether they meant us so much as a single Vote in these affairs and no more power than every one of the rest of our fellow Counsellours onely leaving to us of all our ancient power a choice and great care is taken that the Oath which these men shall take shall be such in the framing as that we may be wholly excluded and that wholly to be agreed upon by the Parliament And to shew there is no more care taken of our safetie than of our power after our Town and Fort kept from us which sure your selves will not denie to be Treason our Arms taken and our Goods sent away our Money stopt our Guards are not onely desired to be dismissed but it is likewise desired that we shall not for the future raise any Guards or Forces but in case of actual Rebellion or Invasion whicâ— if it had been Law in our famous Predecessours few of those Victories which have made this Nation famous could have been legally atchieved nor could Queen Elizabeth have so defended her self in Eightie Eight and if no Forces may be raised untill Rebellions or Invasions be actual they must no doubt be effectual and prevalent And as neither care is taken for our Rights Honour nor Safetie as a Prince so our Rights as a private person are endeavoured to be had from us It being demanded that it may be unlawfull and punishable not onely to conclude but even to treat of any Mariage with any person for our own Children or to place Governours about them without consent of Parliament and in the intermission of these without the consent of our good Lords of our Council More despicable than any of our Predecessours or than the meaner and viler of the lowest of our Subjects who value no libertie more than that of desposing their Children from which we are asked to debar our self and have reason the more to take it ill we are so because that for the choice of a Governour for our Son and a Husband for Daughter we conceived we had reason to expect your thanks and the increase of your future Trusts We suppose these Demands by this time appear such as the Demanders cannot have such real fear of us as hath been long pretended they are too much in the style not onely of Equals but of Conquerours But we call God to witness that as for our Subjects sakes these Rights are vested in us so for their sakes and our own we are resolved not to quite them nor to sâ—bvert the ancient equal happie well poised and never enough commended Constitution of the Government of this Kingdom not to make our self of a King of England a Duke of Venice and thus of 〈◊〉 Kingdom a Republick There being three kindes of Government Absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and in all these their particular convenienceâ— and inconveniences the experience and wisdom of your Ancestours hath molded this out of a mixture of these with the conveniences of all Three without the inconveniences of any One as long as the Ballance hangs even between the three Estates and in their proper Chanel begetting
as to a Bill for Education of their Children we have always wished it to be so and incourage you in it and we will do it The Reformation of Church-government and Liturgie we have sufficiently told you in our Answer to your Petition at Hampton Court Decemb. 1. To which they are referred As also in our first Declaration printed by advice of our Council and our Message of the fourth of February of all which we the more hoped of success because you seem now in this to desire but a Reformation and not as is frequently preached a Destruction of the present Discipline and Liturgie and we shall take care for preaching Ministers As to your Bills we can say nothing till we see them We would not have the Oath of all privie Counsellours and Iudges straitened to particular Statutes but to all Statutes of all Parliaments and shall willingly consent that an inquirie c. Therein we shall be most ready to joyn with the State of the United Provinces c. with our life and fortune if need require It was not our fault that an Act was not passed to clear Kimbolton and the five Members but yours that inserted such clauses in the Preamble and Act That no Member upon any accusation of Treason could be seized without consent of that House though the known Law be That Privilege of Parliament extends not to Treason And so how guiltie soever may have fair leave to run away and prevent his Trial. And concludes conjuring them and all men to rest satisfied with his profession and real intentions with some particular advises to them which he often hath hinted in most of his Answers And then to grant his general pardon c. If such an Answer as this proceeds from the advice and sufficiency of a few malignant Counsellours about the King when their nineteen Demands had been hammered out by labour and pains of a full Committee and then debated several days after we may rest satisfied that either the justice of the Cause easily carried on the consideration or that the Parliament party had the weaker pates And not onely is the King thus enforced to answer those above to the Parliaments Transactions but he is put to it to undeceive his Neighbours at Court the Commons of the County of York must be satisfied and therefore the King declares to them the Reasons of summoning the Gentry and not them That he never intended the least neglect unto them in any former Summons of the Countie his love excluding none And sums up to them the particular Reasons of his remove from White-hall enforced by Tumults as yet unpunished and securing himself here in their Countie on whose fidelitie he doth relie being to be used for the defence of the orthodox Religion professed by Queen Elizabeth the defence of the Laws and the peace of the Kingdom The Example of the Parliament having made him to prepare for a Guard so far from War as it serves onely to secure him and them His choice being of the prime Gentrie and of one Regiment of his Trained Bands never intending to use the force of strangers And these thus armed take the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacie And intends to put the Trained Bands of all the Kingdom to be under persons of Honour and loyaltie to him and the Countie And all to protect them against oppressions and delusive fancies of such as presuming upon his royal Authoritie pretend by their Warrants to protect the people He intends to ease the Countie of their Trained Bands and Billet-money And shall make his grace and bountie to them answerable to their best fidelitie and loyaltie And now warlike preparations go on of both sides the Parliament most forward do order That all the Deputie Lieutenants of England and Wales that be not Members of the House of Commons be present at the several days and places of Training and Mustering the Counties and all Lords Lieutenants are ordered to dispatch their Warrants and Commissions accordingly and that some Members of both Houses shall be sent down to be present and to countenance the service June 4. Hereupon all the spare Lords that lookt for imployment are actively busied to repaire to the several Counties And henceforth Letters and avisâ—es from them to their favourites of both Houses are Posted to the Parliament of their vigilant services and the effects by wondrous appearance of the people then necessarily requiring the Parliaments Letters and Messages of thanks to them and to the Country together with Letters and submissions of the respective officers of each trained band to their right Honourable Lords Lieutenants acknowledging their indefatigable diligence herein and the tender of all their lives in the publique service which their Lordships are desired to commend to the knowledge of the supream Council of the Nation who must publish a grand Approbation of all which the others have don or shall do Then followes Resolutions upon several questions To provide for every County competent numbers of orders and Declarations of the House of Commons from time to time That every Minister Constable c. may have one of each How they shall be Printed how bundled up how transported so that a wonder it was how busily new Officers got imployments with such hurrying and posting up and down as if all this world were wilde for a war for now comes out Propositions and Orders of Parliament for bringing in of Money or Plate to maintain Horse Horsemen and Arms for the publique peace and defence of the King and both Houses of Parliament the tenth of Iune All the Northern Roads be searched by the Justices of Peace for seizing of Arms Ammunition of all sorts that are to be carried thitherward Then comes Intelligence from beyond the Seas by Letters from Amsterdam with a list of the number of Arms and Ammunition speedily to be furnished for the King upon jewels pawned by the Queen particularly mentioned and no doubt by him who was appointed by Her for that service But he prays that his own name may be concealed pour evitro de tiltre despiou though with zeal and ardour he professes he affects the good cause for which he is thus treacherous and being now dead I forbear to record to memory who he was The King provides Commissioners of Array and first to Leicestershire accompanied with his Letters to the Lords Lieutenants of the County Grounding his Commission on the votes of Parliament the fifteenth of March last That the Kingdom being in danger of Enemies abroad and a Popish party at home it is necessary to put the people into a posture of defence A small number of both Houses without the Kings consent or the opinion of the Judges have attempted by way of Ordinance to put in Execution the power of the Militia dispossessing such of the Nobility as He intrusted with the Command and â—ominated others of their own election and this design of theirs by a new way of Ordinance
law bound to be faithful not to the King only as King but to his Person as King Charles When Hugh Spencer caused it to be written tempore Edw. that Homage and Allegeance was more by reason of his Crown viz. his Kingdome than of his Person and if He can not be reformed by sute of Law nor will redress the evil from the people It ought to be removed by force and that his Liege be bound to govern in ayd of Him and in default of him for this he was condemned by two Parliaments and banished for ever Then to assist the King the people are bound by the duty of their Allegeance to serve and assist him at all seasons when need requires 11 Hen. 7. Cap. 18. And therefore the charges all his loving Subjects from levying forces other then according to a late Act this sessions for the present defence of England and Ireland or contribute money thereto And Proclaimes the Lawfulness of his commissions of Array issued into the several Counties of England and dominion of Wales and of the use of them and their execution And we may expect the Parliaments answer to all And first to the Kings Paper as they call it sent to the Lord Mayor Alderâ—men and Sâ—eriffs of London the fourteenth of Iune They declaim against the Kings proceedings therein mentioned justâ—fie their intents promise a just use and right disposing of the great Loans of money for suppressing the Irish Rebellion conveyed this Paper to be suppressed and do assure themselves that neither the Kings commands nor his threats can deterre the well affected for the publique to do their Duty to the Parliament to contribute their money Horse and Plate for preserving what is most precious Religion Libert Safety the overthow of the Cities Charter and exposing their wives and children to rapine violence and villany and the wealth of this famous City to be a prey to desperate and necessitous persons in which the Parliament will evermore protect them To which the King replies and they again to his Commission of Array and he again to them in such particulars as becomes to be a great Book and now left to the Lawyers to dispute on both sides and to which we refer the reverend readers And now we enter upon the war on both sides and being thus distinguished into faction they also were distinct in terms whether by hap or so designed by themselves The one called the Royal the other the Parliament party untill after a while they were nick-named the Cavaliers and the Roundhead The first a Title of Hoâ—nour to the Gallantest persons throughout Christendome this other I know not from whence derived which reminds me of what I have read That a Prince being ingaged in a foreign expedition and to invite his Subjects to a general assistance with their persons and purses devised a nickname with this odium That he which refused to wait upon him was for ever to be called Truant or Truand from the French or the Greek Trouein consumere quoniam in desidia inertia et otio tempus conterit as we say Truants which fixed upon him and his posterities till the policy of state to avoid friends and factions suppressed that term upon pain of punishment It were not amiss to wish it so with us if that could make us friends But on they go amain and wondrous busie on both sides Matter enough for much History wherein hitherto I have adventured on the Readers patience not to be brief which makes this Book thus big The rather to acquaint you with the manner as well as the matter the several stiles of eithers Publications the one very natural the other more forced But now we come to blowes down right war we are necessitated not to be tedious And because the Transactions are of a double nature Civil and Martial we shall set them apart for the better apprehension of their several stories For Defâ—ciunt arma nisi sunt concilia domi we will therefore afford the affairs of State the first place and the effects of War to follow for Cedant arma togâ— with this advice that although I have with extreme curiosity and pains laboured the truth out of the best Records and Relations and therein ingenious just and true yet the effects of War have been so partially exprest by such as set them down as that therein by comparing their Narratives if I willingly recede from either and make choice of a better Text between them I hope to finde a reasonable excuse professing that I have no self-seeking no self-interest if I forbear the ranting reputation which hath been bestowed on either And although we cannot deny them their equal value yet we shall abate them the numbers of their slain and wish in truth they had been less for fear if you afford them the total sum which they set down it would have depopulated this Nation into women and children The varietie of Actions of this present Age and Government have been very remarkable that of the Militarie not the least worthie though the storie thereof be below the Stage and requires not an uncontroulable pass without a Preface The Event of which War all Christendom have or may expect with admiration and horrour An Historie not to be viewed by intricate parcels but in one intire bodie the rise and progress of things being proceedings perplexed with multiplicitie of interwoven discourses and uncertain Relations partially put together by either partie when three Kingdoms came to be ingaged as too soon it happened and no part in either stand free the labour then must needs be large to lodg things in a narrow room and to comprize the several parts with their just true and perfect measure into little so many divided Plots are not easily to be gathered into a greater harmonie and a more exact symmeâ—rie of parts The life of this Narrative being as well to declare the delinquencie of States as its accomplishment and pretended perfection A standing Monument it must be wherein nothing may be thrust upon the world more than the thing it self But withall we shall endeavour a true Rehearsal of such particulars and rare changes as are more deserving to grace the composure and affect the Reader with this Protestation for my self herein Neuter to carrie no Byass affection to any side thereby to deserve a check or suspition to be more true to a Faction or their ends lest I should transgress against the honour of this work which I undertake The great Ingagement of this people in this cause began when the Parliament declâ—red their Resolution of a War quickened by the same principles in the main which did actuate that supreme Court the very motions of a Parliament spirit in the people complying with every Act of theirs whose Remonstrances were received with all obsequious respect more than the Declarations of the King and both of them blown up into a flame This partie intending to maintain
his Forces within the Counties of Devon Cornwall Somerset Dorset Wilts Southampton Glocester Berks Oxford Hereford Monmouth Radnor Brecknock Glamorgan Carmarthen Pembroke Cardigan The Cities of Exeter Bristol â—locester Oxford Bath and Wells New Salisbury and Hereford The Towns of Pool Southampton and Havenport and of all the Trained Bands and others Voluntiers to march against the said Earl of Essex and his Complices and them subdue specially in behalf of the Town of Portsmouth the Isle of Wight and Southampton August 9. at York 'T is true that the King did what he could to answer them in Arms he being put upon the defensive part and so and not otherwise to oppose the Parliament As they began by Meetings and Mutinies they now proceed to the effects fighting upon which the King falls into a Soliloquy with himself thus I finde that I am says the King at the same point and posture I was when they forced me to leave White-hall what Tumults could not do an Armie must which is but Tumults listed and enrolled to a better order but as bad an end my recess hath given them confidence that I may be conquered And so I easily may as to any outward strength which God knows is little or none at all but I have a Soul invincible through Gods grace inabling me here I am sure to be Conquerour if God will give me such a measure of constancie as to fear him more than man and to love the inward peace of my conscience before any outward tranquillitie And must I be opposed â—ith force because they have not reason wherewith to convince me O my Soul be of good courage they confess their own weakness as to â—ruth and Iustice who chuse rather to contend by Armies than by Arguments Is this the reward and thanks that I am to receive for those many acts of grace I have lately passed and for those many Indignities I have endured Is there no way left to make me a glorious King but by my Sufferings It is an hard and disputable choice for a King that loves his People and desires their love either to kill his own Subjects or to be killed by them Are the hazzards and miseries of Civil War in the bowels of my most flourishing Kingdom the fruits I must now reap after seventeen years living and reigning among them with such a measure of justice peace plentie and Religion as all Nations about either admired or envied Notwithstanding some miscarriages in Government which might escape rather through ill counsel of some men driving on their private ends or the peevishness of others envying the publick should be managed without them or the hidden and insuperable necessities of State than any propensitie I hope of my self either to injuriousness or oppression Whose innocent bloud during my Reign have I shed to satisfie my lust anger or covetousness What Widows or Orphans tears can witness against me the just crie of which must now be avenged with mine own bloud For the hazzards of War are equal nor doth the Cannon know any respect of persons In vain is my person excepted by a Parenthesis of words when so many hands are armed against me with Swords God knows how much I have studied to see what ground of justice is alledged for this War against me that so I might by giving just satisfaction either prevent or soon end so unnatural aâ—otion which to many men seems rather the production of a surfeit of peace and wantonness of mindes or of private discontents ambition and faction which easily finde or make causes of quarrel than any real obstruction of publick justice or parliamentarie privilege But this is pretended and this I must be able to avoid and answer before God in mine own conscience however some men are not willing to believe me lest they should condemn themselves When I first withdrew from White-hall to see if I could allay the insolencie of the Tumults of the not suppressing of which no account in reason can be given where an orderly Guard was granted but onely to oppress both mine and the two Houses freedom of declaring and voting according to every mans conscience what obstructions of justice were there further than this that what seemed just to one man might not seem so to another Whom did I by power protect against the justice of Parliament That some men withdrew who feared the partialitie of their trial warned by my Lord of Strafford's death while the vulgar threatned to be their Oppressours and Iudgers of their Iudges was from that instinct which is in all creatures to preserve themselves If any others refused to appear where they evidently saw the current of justice and freedom so stopped and troubled by the Rabble that their lawfull Iudges either durst not come to the Houses or not declare their sense with libertie and safetie it cannot seem strange to any reasonable man when the sole exposing them to the publick odium was enough to ruine them before their cause could be heard or tried Had not factious Tumults overborn the freedom and honour of the two Houses had they asserted their justice against them and made the way open for all the Members quietly to come and declare their consciences I know no man so dear to me whom I had the least inclination to advise either to withdraw himself or denie appearing upon their Summons to whose Sentence according to Law I think every Subject bound to stand Distempers indeed were risen to so great a height for want of timely repressing the vulgar insolencies that the greatest guilt of those which were voted and demanded as Delinquents was this That they would not suffâ—r themselves to be overaw'd with the Tumults and their Patroâ—s nor compelled to abet by their suffrages or presence the Designs of those men who agitated Innovations and ruine both in Church and State In this point I could not but approve their generous constancie and cautiousness further than this I did never allow any mans Refractoriness against the Privileges and Orders of the Houses to whom I wished nothing more than Saftie Fulness and Freedom But the truth is some men and those not many despairing in fair and Parliamentarie waies by free deliberations and Votes to gain the concurrence of the majoâ— part of Lords and Commons betook themselves by the desperate activitie of factious Tumults to sift and terrifie away all those Memâ—ers whom they saw to be of contrarie mindes to their purposes How oft was the business of the Bishops enjoying their ancient places and undoubted privileges in the House of Peers carried for them by far the major part of Lords Yet after five Repulses contrarie to all Order and Custom it was by tumultuarie Instigations obtruded again and by a few carried wheâ— most of the Peers were forced to absent themselves In like manner was the Bill against Root and Branch brought on by tumultuarie Clamours and schismatical Terrours which could never pass â—ill both Houses were
publishes a very ample Declaration concerning the whole proceedings of this present Parliament in effect thus It being more than time now after so many indignities to his person affronts to his Kingly Office and traiterous Pamphlets against his Government to vindicate himself from those damnable Combinations and Conspiracies contrived against him That he resolved to summon this Parliament before his great Council met at York and uncompelled by any violence but of his love to peace That at the beginning thereof he quickly discerned they meant not to confine within the path of their Predecessours but by the combination of several persons for alteration of Government in the Church and State also To that end they expelled a very great number of Members in Parliament duly elected upon pretence that they had some hand in Monopolies without any crime objected or other proceedings and yet continued Sir Henry Mildmay though a notorious promotor of the Monopoly of Gold and Silver Thread as also Mr. Lawrence Whitaker and others Commissioners in matters of the like nature or worse which he mentions to them their partiality of that Faction The remedy which they proposed was a Bill for a Triennial Parliament against which though he had many Reasons to except yet he passed it which seemed so to work upon their sense as never to be forgot in the return of their duty and affections yet all he could do did not satisfie the factious contrivement and disguise of subverting the Government And because most of the Grievances seemed to proceed from the great liberty of his Council Board he admitted seven or eight of those Lords eminently in esteem with the people and passionately dis-â—nclined both the civil affairs and Government of the Church and so hoping by a free communication they might be excellent Instruments of a blessed Reformation in Church and State Thus for the Court Then he applied visible Remedies proportionable to the desires of both Houses and pressed not the Reformation of the Arbitrary power of the Star-chamber but utterly abolished it He pressed not the Review of that Statute by which the High Commission Court was erected but in compliance to the pretended sufferings of the people thereby he consented to repeal the Branch of that Statute The Writs for Ship-money whereby several sums of money had been received from his Subjects and judged legal he was contented should be void and disannulled and the Judgment vacated The bounds and limits of executing the Forest Laws and keeping the Iustices and Eires seat he passed an Act for the Subjects ease as was desired As also an Act against Incroachments and Oppressions in the Stannery Courts and regulated the Clerk of the Market And parted from his right and duty in the business of Knighthood But also which is the highest trust that ever King gave his Subjects he passed the Act for continuance of this Parliament untill the peace of England and Scotland and all their desires in reference thereto were provided for All the time in which those Acts of grace were passed he lay under the burthen of extreme want without any fruit of relief and they the mean while contrived advantages of Offices and places of profit and power to themselves changing Religion and Fundamental Laws raising Aspersions upon his very Acts of Grace and Favours upon them that no security could be of the effects of all he could or should do without a through-alteration of Church and State Hereupon they oppose the disbanding of the Armies delay the Scots Treaty although the Scots Commissioners hastened it and in plain English the Parliament declared That they could not yet spare them for that the sons of Zerviah were too strong for them ingaging this Kingdom in so vast a Debt that there might be no way of paying it but by the Lands of the Church disguising that Design pretending onely to remove the Bishops from their Votes in the Upper House though upon three Debates absolutely rejected by the Lords by which they took advantage and produced a Bill in the House of Commons for abolition of Bishops Root and Branch out of the Church as Mr. Pym said to a Member It was not enough to be against the persons of Bishops if he were not against the Function And for extirpation of Deans and Chapters and reducing that admirable Frame of Government into a Chaos of confusion that out of it they might mould an Utopia which no six of them had or yet hath agreed upon whereby they have raised Estates to repair their own broken Fortunes And two Armies must be kept to eat out the heart of this Kingdom at the charge of fourscore thousand pounds a Moneth Then they devised false Reports created spread and countenanced by themselves of Designs dangerous plots against them hereupon a Protestation is so framed and devised to oblige them to any unlawfull action and taken by all the Members of the Commons but the Lords refusing it it is recommended to the City of London and to all the Kingdom by Order of the Lower House onely a strange and unheard of usurpation a Declaration followed as peremptory and like a Law without the King Then came out a new Fright of a Design in the English Army to face the Parliament and of the Kings consenting to it of which he calls God to witness to be ignorant And that the Affairs in Scotland necessarily requiring the Kings Journey thither for a small time he returned and found things far more out of order with their Orders against the Book of Common Prayer and Divine Service contrary to the Lords Ordinance and therefore the Commons Declaration of the ninth of September was such a notorious violation of the privilege of the House of Peers as was never heard of before and an apparent evidence of their intended legislative power by the House of Commons without King or Lords and such as did not submit thereto were imprisoned and fined Then they erect Lecturers men of no learning or conscience but furious promotors of the most dangerous Innovations that ever were induced into any State men of no Orders onely such as boldly and seditiously would preach or prate against the Liturgy royal power and authority and persons of learning and eminency in preaching and of good conversation were put out That all licence had been given to any lewd persons to publish seditious Pamphlets against Church and State or scorns upon the Kings person or Office filling the peoples eaâ—s with lies and monstrous discourses and those to be dedicated to the Parliament and whatever the rancour or venome of any infamous person could digest were published without controul And thus prepared and the King absent in Scotland they frame a Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom and present it to him at his return to Hampton Court December 15. 1641. laying before him all the mishaps and misfortunes that have been since his Reign to that hour reproaching him with actions beyond his
Kings partie are Masters of the Field with Garisons round about plentifully supplied from the King but the Parliaments partie in great want are likely to disband within ten days And this is the Relation from the Lord Fairfax Decemb. 10. 1642. The Counties of Norfolk Suffolk Essex Cambridg the Isle of Elie Hertford and City of Norwich are authorized to associate and their General the Earl of Essex gives Commission to the Lord Grey of Wark to command in cheif as Major General over those Counties with Instructions to govern accordingly The most part of the Earl of Newcastle's Forces lie upon the County towards Halifax and the clothing Towns imposing Taxes upon the Inhabitants according to their qualities from one thousand pounds to one hundred pounds proportionable who found a Light-horse at an hundred pounds every one who found Musket or Pâ—ke at fourty shillings And about the fifteenth of December lands Colonel Goring for the King with more Arms some Pieces of Ordnance and some Money and fourscore old Commanders with the Queens Standard and to joyn with the Earl of Newcastle And in this Moneth of December the Kings Forces prospered Westward Marlborough and Tadcaster taken with a great Defeat of their Enemy Winchester and Chichester won by the Parliament The noble Lord Aubignie Brother to the Duke of Richmond died and was buried at Oxford And now it was thought time for the City to speak for themselves they well know what an odium lodged upon their disloyalty and therefore they petition the King how they are deeply pierced with Gangrene-wounds of his Majesties fear to hazzard his person in returning home to his Citie they abhor all thoughts of Disloyaltie making good their late Solemn Protestationâ— and sacred Oath with the last drop of their dearest bloud to defend and maintain the true Reformed Protestant Religion and your Majesties royal person honour and estate and do hereby engage themselves their estates and all they have to defend your Majestie with as much love loyaltie and dutie as ever Citizens expressed towards their Sovereign They are answered That his Majestie can distinguish some good Subjects in the Citie from the bad not all guiltie but what confidence can the King have there where the Laws of the Land are notoriously despised and the whole Government of the Citie submitted to the arbitrarie power of a few desperate persons of no reputation and names them Pennington their pretended Mayor the principal Authour of these Calamities which threaton ruine to that heretofore famous Citie Ven Foulk and Manwaring all of them notoriously guiltie of Schism and high Treason in oppressing robbing and imprisoning his good Subjects because they will not rebell against his Majestie nor assist those that do not that he condemns all for some that are guiltie and yet he offers his gracious pardon to all except such as are excepted if they shall yet return to their dutie if not he sums up the miserie that will necessarily fall upon every such person as shall continue acting and assisting the Rebellion This Answer full and home to the Cities conscience startled many into reluctancy when it was therefore thought fit by the Parliament to visit their Common Council and to caress them with a Committee of some Members lest this Answer should work too much with reluctancy And are told by Mr. Pym and others That this Answer reflects with wounding Aspersions upon persons of very eminent Authoritie of very great fidelitie amongst them that the Parliament owns them and their actions and will live and die in their defence and evermore concluding that their protection is the Armie and that it is hoped they will enlarge their Contributions for the maintenance of this Armie wherein as they have been liberal in former necessities so now they will exceed for safetie of themselves At the end of every period which Mr. Pym made in his Speech the applause was so great and so loud that he was silenced not without jugling and so concludes Worthy Citizens turning to the Rabble you see what the Parliament will do for your Lord Mayor and you 〈◊〉 your affections to do for the Parliament and State To which they replied We will live and die with them live and die with them All which says their printed Paper we may sum up in that Triumph of that Man of God In the thing wherein they dealt proudly God was above them There were some humble Desires and Propositions presented to the King at Oxford February 1. by four Lords and eight Members of the Commons but with so wilde and ranting a Preamble and the Desires so peremptory no less than fourteen viz. To disband his Armie and to return home to his Parliament Leave Delinquents to Trial Papists to be disarmed Bill for abolishing the Church-governours and Government and to pass such other Bills as shall be devised for a new Reformation Recusants to abjure Papacie To remove malignant Counsellours To settle the Mâ—litia as the Parliament please To prefer to the great Offices and Places of Iudicature such of the Parliament as they name and to take in all such as have been put out of Commissions of the peace A Bill to vindicate the Lord Kimbolton and the five Members To enter Alliance with his Proâ—estant Neighbours for Recoverie of the Palatinate To grant a general pardon with Exception of the Earl of Newcastle the Lord Digby and others To restore such of the Parliaments Members to their Offices and Places and to satisfie for their Losses c. The King answers with amazement If he had not given up all the faculties of his soul to an earnest endeavour of â—eace and Reconciliation or if he would suffer himself by any proâ—â—â—â—tion to be drawn to a sharpness of language at a time of Overtures of Accommodation he could not otherwise but resent their heavie charges upon him in the preamble and not suffer Reproaches which they cast upon him but his Majestie will forbear bitterness or the heat of his own sufferings throughout that if it be possible the memory thereof may be lost to the world And how unparliamentarie it is by Arms to require new Laws And he is pleased that a speedie time may be agreed upon for a Meeting and to debate those Propositions of theirs and these of his viz. That his own Revenues Magazines Towns Ships and Forts be restored That what hath been done contrary to Law and the Kings right may be renounced and recalled That all illegal power claimed or acted by Orders of Parliament be disclaimed The King will readily consent to the execution of all Laws made or to be made concerning Popery and Reformation so he desires a Bill for preserving the Book of Common Prayer and against Sectaries That all persons to be excepted against in the Treatie may be tried per pares with the cessation of Arms and for a free Trade But nothing followed till the third of March. In the North parts from
had their several successes and losses on each other recovered from suddain ruine by the assistance of either Allies their Colleagues for the French Swede and all the Protestant Princes against the Emperour and House of Austria who had the help of Spain with the most of Catholiques The Weymarians were well reinforced by the conduct of four Marshals of France with their French Troops and undertook to quarter in Bavaria and were thwarted by the Duke of Loraine whose sufferings from the French forced him to accept the Spanish Command he was accompanied with Iohn de Werde and the Baron of Mercy directors of the Cavalrie to spie out the enemy and in the end met with the Messieurs routed each quarter after other took the Marshals prisoners with four hundred Officers and one thousand common Souldiers without counting the pillage This defeat was as famous for the Spaniard and saved Bavaria from that storm intended and put the French to raise another Army under the same name Weymarian but with a new General for Guebriana was killed the day before the fight And this glorious battel takes name of Durling where it was disputed we shall not read of any such battels so memorable in this last age the first was in May and began the happy reign of Lewis 14 th The other in the end of November and these may stand parallel with those of Leipsick and Northingen the last year This Victory set up Lorain who was caressed into a treaty by the French without any fruit having been once at Paris to that purpose and abused back again to take revenge and marches away to the Low-countries takes Falconstia and leaves the Army to the brave Baron of Mercy who takes Rotweil and Uburling comes to Fiburgh and Brisquer where he meets with his match the Prince of Conde The Parliament having sent their Emissaries to the neigbour Princes and States to caress them for their friendships the King was careful likewise to satisfie them of the true cause of these differences And as they had sent to the King of Denmark so does he also by an expresse one Colonel Cockram with these instructions You are to inform the King â—f Denmark that by his Majesties command as to the nearest ally of his Crown his Unkle and who he believes will not be unconcerned in his affairs as well in interests as affections you are sent to give a particular account of the state of his Majesties affairs to renew the antient League and Amity between the two Kingdoms and Families Royal and to reduce it to more exact particulars such as might be useful to the present affairs of England and all occurrence of those of Denmark That the present affair of your negotiation is to demand an assistance from his Majesty such as the present state of the affairs of England requires against a dangerous combination of his Majesties Subjects who have not only invaded his Majesty in his particular rights but have laid a design to dissolve the Monarchy and frame of Government under pretence of Liberty and Religion becoming a dangerous precedent to all the Monarches of Christendom to be looked upon with successe to their design That the nature of their proceedings hath been such as hath not admitted any foreign treaty to be interessed in suppressing their design without giving them advantage of Scandaling his Majesties intentions and drawing away universally the hearts of his people whom they had insinuated under pretence of Reformation of particular abuses of Government and Ministers of Estate to concur generally with approbation of their proceedings and in which though the dangerous consequence aâ—d design were visible to his Majesty a present compliance was necessary lest any publick opposition on his Majesties part that might seem to defeat the great expeâ—tations which they had raised in the Commons in those plausible particulars might have occasioned a general revolt throughout the Kingdoms great jealousies being dispersed and fomented amongst them of his Majesties Foreign Treaties and Force to be used to oppose and suppresse those their desires and the movers therein Upon the credit they had herewith on the peoples opinions they proceeded under pretence of Reformation of Religion to disolve the Government of the Church according to its constitution in England a chief column and support to that Monarchy and Crown They lastly invaded his Majesty in all the prerogatives of his Crown and under pretence of ill Ministers and Councellours of Estate whom they pretended to remove endeavoured to invest in themselves in all times for the future the nomination of all Ministers of Estate and of his Majesties Family withdrew all his Revenue into their own hands and to confirm themselves in an absolute power of disposing His estate entred upon possessing themselves of the Militia of the Kingdom His Navy and Magazines in which his Majesty being forced to appear in opposition dangerous Tumults were raised against Him so that He was forced to forsake London for preservation of His Person His Queen and Children That since for the safety of the Queen He hath been forced to send her into Holland to retire Himself to the best affected party of His Subjects from whence by Declarations setting forth the sinister proceedings of that Faction discovering their designs of innovating the Government and falsifying the scandals they had imputed to Him He hath had the advantage generally to undeceive His people to draw to Him universally the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom But the other Faction still keeping up some interest and credit with the Commons in the desperate estate they finde themselves begin to make head against Him have appointed a General and are levying Forces to maintain their party committing divers acts of hostility violence and Rebellion That his Majesty having great encouragements given Him by the exceeding numbers of Gentry and Noblemen that resort to Him is already advanced near them with six thousand Horse and ten thousand Foot That the States of Holland have condescended to give Her Majesty the Queen a convoy of the greatest part of their Fleet now at Sea for her â—eturn into England That divers Forts and Counties upon his Majesties personal appearance have declared for Him so that His affairs at home grow daily into abetter estate as he likewise expects and hopes that all His Neighbour Princes and Allies will not look upon so dangerous a president to their own Crowns and Monarchies without contributing to suppressâ— this so pernicious a design begun within His Kingdom That to give His Majesty the juster ground to reflect upon the dangerous consequences in relation to His own interest of their successe it hath been by them publickly moved in the Commons House long since to interpose in the accommodation of the Dutch and to set out a Fleet to take away His Customs of the Sound That they have since imputed to his Majesty as a ground to scandal Him with His people that he did
in London and Westminster and Lines of Communication shall pay upon each Tuesday the value of one ordinary Meal for himself and Family according to his quality and condition to be assessed by fitting persons in each VVard and to continue for six Moneths from 2. of April next The forwardness of the Citizens heretofore for VValler onely now draws it into an Ordinance which continued for many years Colonel Oliver Cromwell was by Ordinance of Parliament appointed Governour of the Garison and Isle of Ely in Cambridgshire of seven hundred Foot and three Troops of Horse with power to put in execution the several Ordinances of raising Moneys within the Isle of Ely also for support of that Garison I mention him not till now his great actions come together The Earl of Holland made his humble Request to the House of Commons That he might have leave to wait upon the General Essex in this his Expedition which both Houses assented unto but admiting afterwards some debate by the Commons the Negative was voted not a Member contradicting and sent word to the General of the whole sense of the House therein and so he did not go It was a handsome Exploit of Colonel Fox for the Parliament who with a single Troop of seventy Horse marched the third of May from Tamworth to Bewdley a strong Garison of the Cavaliers and coming late at night bold and confident demanded entrance at the first Guard under pretence of one of Prince Rupert's Troops the Chain was presently drawn up and they were welcome in this Guard he forthwith secures and passes to the next and so to the third with like success and with little noise went up to the Main Guard in the middle of the Town upon the Bridg over Severn killed the Centinels and seized the Guard without loss of a Man and so passed on and mastered the whole Town took Sir Thomas Littleton Prisoner with divers other Gentlemen about fifty Horse and carried all away with him returning home by dayâ— break The Lord Fairfax and his Son Sir Thomas joyning Forces had many several Successes in Yorkshire and the tenth of April drew near to the Kings Garison of Fairfax's Forlorn of Horse beat in the other and the next morning beset the Town in three Divisions and after a very hot Encounter entered the Town slew many and took the rest few escaping a thousand Prisoners sundry Commanders and other Officers and much Amunition Another like Success at Hemtough near Selby so that Fairfax was fain to desire the Parliaments Order how to dispose of the Prisoners by his own Letters he hoped very shortly utterly to roâ—t the Earl of Newcastle for now he was Master of the Field And upon all such like Successes so monstrously set forth in Pamphlets a Thanksgiving and a Play-day published with which the people were well pleased But the main business General Essex was not so well recruited as that he would march and therefore all possible means were made to raise Money A great Debate there was to borrow a hundred thousand pounds of the States Netherlands and a Committee came to the City to send their Agent thither to procure it and to offer their Security But it ended in this way That the City must do it themselves upon Publick Faith That is so much Money for levying of a Guard for the City Another Sum for Men for the Lord General and a Brigade in readiness as a Reserve and to pay them six Moneths provided some Taxes might be spared and no more laid upon them And evermore the necessity was urged upon some excellent Design which would give enâ— to the VVar and settle Peace for ever more And this in private was onely whispered To catch the King from his Cavaliers And because he had made proclamation for the assistance of all the neighbour Counties to come in with Provisions to Oxford the Parliament thereupon set out their Declaration observing therein That the same Councils now predominate in Oxford which have contrived and effected the destruction of Ireland by force and Sword do further labour to bring the same desolation in England therefore the Parliament declare that they will use their hearty endeavours with the hazzard of their Lives and Fortunes to prevent these Miseries and have ordered that considerable Forces shall speedily advance for defence and protection of the poor harressed people of England April 22. The Parliament Members assembled at Oxford had sate â—â—nce the 〈◊〉 of Ianuary last and with little business and to less purpose themselves were willing to recede which caused the King to come to them on Tuesday 16. April and tells them My Lords and Gentlemen I am brought to you by your selveâ— you desiring I shoâ—ld part with you the same zeal and affection which brought yoâ— hither and staid you here seeks this Recess so by distributing your selves into several Counties we all may reap the fruit of our Consultations I heartily thank you for what you have done and fully approve of what you desire To you that have charge in my Armies I recommend your Example and Discipline against License and Disorders To these engaged in civil affairs to expedite the Supplies of Money being the Nerves of War And be sure to inform all my Subjects of the odiousness of this Rebellion how solicitous I have been for Peace how insolently rejected that my Armies are raised and kept for defence of Religion Laws and Liberties and God who hath blessed this Meeting with unanimity bring us safe together again the eighth of October next But by Proclammation bearing date at Exeter Septemb. 21. prorogued the Assembly till Novemb. 9. The Parliament at Westminster having news of the intended Assembly of the Parliament in Scotland resolved to be timely fitted with Letters congratulatory to their Meeting Expressing therein the great obligation they have to that Kingdom for their effectual engaging in this common cause and their brotherly assistance in their greatest straits which hath mightily abated the violence of the Enemy already and are confident will be a powerfâ—ll means for setling of his Majesties Dominions for effecting thereof it is desired that they be as well joyned in their Councils as Armies and that there be a just correspondency between the two Kingdoms which as it hath been already the care of the Convention of Estates there and the general Assembly of Scotland to which end the Parliament of England hath appointed a Committee to reside with their Army and have setled a Committee of both Kingdoms at Westminster with return of thanks to the Kingdom of Scotland for their care and charge of their Armie in Ireland That therefore the Parliament of England hath thirty thousâ—nd pounds to be sent with speed to that Army and have already sent twenty thousand pounds to the Scotish Army in England and desire the Kingdom of Scotland to take in good part their Endeavours though not answerable to their deserts and
Father and Son Vaughan Windebank Greenvile Hide Morley Cole Riddell Ware Strongways Culpeper Floyd Esquires Endimion Porter Henry Jermin Jo. Bodevile David Jenkins Sir George Strode Sir Alexander Carew With twice so many Earls Lords Bishops Knights and Gentlemen of Scotland All Papists that have are or shall be in Arms against either Parliaments or of the Rebellion in Ireland Then are excepted all those of the then Parliament of Oxford and all such of Scotland that have assisted the King there All such as have deserted either Parliaments of both Kingdoms The Estates of such unpardonable to pay publick Debts The tenth part of all other Delinquents within the joint Declaration Then follows other Acts which the Parliaments shall mannage For arming the Kingdoms setling the Admiralties to name Commissioners That all Honours and Titles given since the great Seal went to the King viz. May 21. 1642. or hereafter to be made shall be null Not to vote in Parliaments and so for Scotland since June 4. 1644. The Governours of Ireland and the great Officers of both Kingdoms be nominated by the Parliaments of both Kingdoms The like for Scotland The Kings Children to be governed and married The Prince Elector to be restored Peace and War 〈◊〉 of Oblivion Armies disbanded All these as the Parliaments of both Kingdoms shall order Thus much in general Now for the City of London Acts for them Their Charters Customs Liberties to be confirmed notwithstanding any Non-user Mis-user or Abuser The Militia of London and the Liberties The Tower of London to be in the Mayor and Common-Council The Citizens not to be drawn out of London to any service The Acts of the Mayor and Common Council heretofore and hereafter to confirm as if by Act of Parliaments And these being granted they will endeavour that the King shall live in splendour c. 'T is true that all the Kings party were impatient for Peace which obliged the King to shew his real Intentions being assured that if he could come to a fair Treaty the chief of the Parliaments party could not hinder the Peace first because themselves are weary of the War and next because of their Distractions Presbyterians against Independents in Religion and General against General in point of Command Upon these grounds the most probable means for the King to procure a Treaty was to be used and the noise was therefore published of the Kings return to London the best Rhetorick to please the Popular that thereupon a Treaty would be procured or if refused it would bring most prejudice to the Parliament and advantage to the King for although he offered fair Propositions yet they were mixed with such Conditions as might not easily be admitted and so the Kings offer did but amaze the people into a milder opinion of his proceedings These Propositions for the present were neglected as unlimited yet the King imagined that in a Treaty Commissioners might Argue them into Reason and so returns the Messengers that he will send to the Houses which he did forthwith by this Letter CHARLES REX The Propositions presented to his Majesty being very long which contain matters in themselves of gâ—â—at weight and importance as being in great part in alteration of the frame of Government both in Church and State And the Messengers who presented them declaring that they have no power to treat or consent to any alteration it cannot be expected that his Majesty shall return a Present Particular and Positive Answer But as he hath from his soul alwaies desired the setling of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 peace in this distracted Kingdom for that purpose hath from time to time tendred all possible Overtures in hope that all will work upon the hearts of all persons concerned That even this apprehension such as it is upon further thought and consideration may produce some good effect towards it to which his Majestie calls God to witness therein shall nothing be wanting on his part which is agreeable to Iustice Honour and Conscience and there shall all possible expedition be used in preparing his Majesties Answer yet â—e intends speedily to send by Messengers of his own and to that purpose that there may be no losse of time He desires safe conduct be speedily for the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Southampton with their attendance to bring up his Majesties said Answer And his Majesty doth heartily wish that God may so deal with him and his as he endeavours all just and lawful waies to restore this poor Kingdom to a lasting and happy peace G. Digby Secretary Oxford 27. Novem. 1644. The Parliament excepts against this Letter as directed to No body the Parliament not so much as named therein And it was remembred that the Lord Digby by his Letters told them long since That the Foundation upon which the King did build all his designs was never to acknowledge this a Parliament and that if he receded from that Maxim the King would undoe himself and all those that have appeared for him Yet after long debate it was resolved that their General Essex do forthwith return a Letter to Prince Rupert who in the absence of the Lord Brainford appears the Kings Lieutenant General That if his Majesty shall send to the Parliament of England Assembled at Westmin and to the Commissioners of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland they will with all readiness grant a safe conduct for the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Southampton and treat with them according to his Majesties desire Which was so acknowledged by Prince Rupert in his Majesties Name and directed to the Earl of Essex and so they were received into Somerset House with this Order That no Member visit or speak or send any Message to either of them during their stay here And had audience of a Committee of twenty four Lords and twenty eight Commons and the Scotish Comissioners in the Painted Chamber which was in effect only That the King designed a Treaty and time speedily to be fixed and to be certified by those Messengers but they had Answer of both Houses that they would hasten and so required them to return back Upon the rumour of this intended Treaty and hereafter of a peace the King was assured that the Parliaments chief Articles would be to continue the Irish Wars Indeed this Article of Ireland was a tender point and the King resolved not only not to break the Cessation but to make peace with the Rebels to which end he had promised the Queen in France of some favours to the Catholicks of Ireland And expressely a little before the Treaty he writes to the Marquesse of Ormond That he is sorry to finde the sad condition of his particular fortune for which saies he I cannot finde so good and speedy remedy as the peace of Ireland and to redresse most necessary affairs here Wherefore I command you to dispatch it out of hand with this Addition to my former dispatch And for Poinings Act I
from Michaelmas last and out of Compositions that shall be made before the concluding of the Peace and the Arrears of such as have been already made the assistance of the Clergy And the Arrears of such Rents of his own Revenue as his two Houses shall not have received before the concluding of the Peace his Majesty will undertake within the space of eighteen moneths the payment of 400000. pounds for the satisfaction of the Army And if those means shall not be sufficient his Majestie intends to give way to the sale of Forest Lands for that purpose this being the publick Debt which in his Majesties judgment is first to be satisfied and for other publick Debts already contracted upon Church Lands or other Ingagements his Majestie will give his consent to such Act or Acts for raising of monies for payment thereof as both Houses shall hereafter agree upon so as they be equally laid whereby his people already too heavily burthened by these late distempers may have no more pressures upon them than this absolute necessity requires And for the further securing of all fears his Majesty will consent that an Act of Parliament be passed for the disposing of the great Offices of State and naming of Privy Councellours for the whole term of his Reign by the two Houses of Parliament their Patents and Commissions being taken from his Majesty and after to return to the Crown as is expressed in the Article of the Militia For the Court of Wards and Liveries his Majesty very well knows the consequence of taking that away by returning of all Tenures into common Soccage as well in point of Revenue to the Crown as in the protection of many of his Subjects being Infants Nevertheless if the continuance thereof seem grievous to his Subjects rather then he will fail on his part in giving satisfaction He will consent to an Act for taking of it away so as a full recompence be setled upon his Majesty and his Successours in perpetuity and that the Arrears now due be reserved unto him towards the payment of the Arrears of the Army And that the memory of these late distractions may be wholly wiped away his Majesty will consent to an Act for suppressing and making null of all Oaths Declarations and Proclamations against both or either House of Parliament and of all Indictments and other proceedings against persons for adhering unto them and his Majesty proposeth â—as the best expedient to take away all seeds of future differences that there be an Act of Oblivion to extend to all his Subjects As for Ireland the cessation there is long since determined but for the future all other things being fully agreed his Majesty will give satisfaction to his two Houses concerning that Kingdom And although his Majesty cannot consent in Honour and Iustice to avoid all his own Grants and Acts past under his great Seal since the two and twentieth of May 1642. or to the confirming of all the Acts and Grants passed under that made by the two Houses yet his Majesty is confident that upon perusal of particulars he shall give full satisfaction to his two Houses to what may reasonably be desired in that particular And now his Majesty conceives that by these his offers which he is ready to make good upon the settlement of a Peace he hath clearly manifested his intentions to give full security and satisfaction to all Interests for what can justly be desired in order to the future happiness of his people and for the perfecting of these concessions as also for such other things as may be proposed by the two Houses and for such just and reasonable demands as his Majesty shall finde necessary to propose on his part he earnestly desires a personal Treaty at London with his two Houses in Honour Freedom and Saftety it being in his Iudgement the most proper and indeed only means to a firm and setled Peace and impossible without it to reconcile former or avoid future misunderstandings All these things being by Treaty perfected his Majesty believes his Houses will think it reasonable that the Proposals of the Army concerning the Succession of Parliaments and their due elections should be taken into consideration As for what concerns His Kingdom of Scotland his Majesty will readily apply himself to give all reasonable satisfaction when the desires of the two Houses of Parliament on their behalf or of the Commissioners of that Kingdom or of both joyned together shall be made known unto him C. Rex Islle of Wight 17. Nov. 1647. For the Speaker of the House of Peers c. And although the King is sufficiently alone from evil Councellours the Parliament have no minde that he should have any company and therefore send a Messenger with Warrants to seize those three Servants that waited on him thither But Hamond excuses them not to be delivered up to the Officer his reasons are truly noble and like a Souldier which he directs to the Speaker of the Lords House the Earle of Manchester My Lord Yesterday came an Officer with Warrants for apprehending c. And finding the matter of very great importance I have desired the Messenger to forbear the execution of his Warrants till I have given the Parliament to understand that in case they should be put in execution it would be impossible for me to preserve the person of the King in security to be disposed by the Parliament unless I should keep him close prisoner which I concieve neither fit nor safe for me to do especially of my self The ground being this The King hath declared himself to me that he came from Hampton Court for no other cause but for the preservation of his Person which was as he apprehended in such danger that he could not with safety continue longer there otherwise he would not have departed thence nor from the Army and that he chose this place rather than any other where he was at liberty that he might still continue under protection of the Army my self being a member thereof and that he might have free entercourse with the Parliament for the settlement of Peace to which he professes greater inclinations and desires then ever The King saith that in case these Gentlemen be taken from him and punished as evil doers for counselling him not to go out of the Kingdom but rather to come to the place where he now is for the ends aforesaid and for their endeavouring accordingly in attending him hither he cannot but himself expect to be dealt with accordingly his case being the same My Lord besides the care I shall alwaies have of these Gentlemen they have engaged their Honours not to depart from me and truly were not their ends the same with their pretences in relation to the Peace of this Kingdom they would never have advised and conducted the King hither There will be none left here for his attendance which besides the offence how great the inconveniencies will be to him your
signal compliance with the Army and their interest and what of importance my complyance was to them and their often repeated Professions and Ingagements for my Iust Rights in general at Newmarket and St Albans and their particular explanation of those generals by their Voted and Re-voted Proposals which I had reason to understand should be the uttermost extremity would be expected from me and that in some things therein I should be eased herein appealing to the Consciences of some of the chiefest Officers in the Army if what I have said be not punctually true and how I have failed of their expectations and my professions to them I challange them and the whole World to produce the least colour of Reason And now I would know what is it that is desired Is it Peace I have shewed the way being both willing and desirous to perform my part in it which is a just complayance with all chief Interests It is Plenty and Happinesse They are the inseparable effects of peace Is it security I who wish that all men would forgive and forget like me have offered the Militia for my time Is it liberty of Conscience he who wants it is most ready to give Is it the right administration of Iustice Officers of trust are committed to the choice of my two Houses of Parliament Is it frequent Parliaments I have legally fully concurred therewith Is it the Arrears of the Army Vpon a settlement they will certainly be paied with much ease but before there will be found much difficulty if not impossibility in it Thus all the world cannot but see my real and unwearied endeavours for Peace the which by the grace of God I shall never repent me of nor ever be slackned in notwithstanding my past present or future sufferings but if I may not be heard let every one judge who it is that obstructs the good I would or might do What is it that men are afraid to hear from me it cannot be Reason at least none will declare themselves so unreasonable as to confess it and it can less be impertinent or unreasonable discourses for thereby peradventure I might more justifie this my restraint then the causers themselves can do so that of all wonders yet this is the greatest to me but it may be easily gathered how these men intend to govern who have used me thus and if it be my hard Fate to fall together with the Liberty of this Kingdom I shall not blush for my self but much lament the future miseries of my people the which I shall still pray to God to avert what ever becomes of me C. R. And now was the strict custody of the King referred to the care and Command of the General to place and displace servants such as to him thought meet and only eight persons for the present allowed to him Of which and his strict Guards he expostulates with Hamond telling him that he might yet ere long be beholding to one of his Sons for his life for now was Prince Charles gone from Paris into Holland from whence we shall hereafter hear more of him February 4. The first alteration of Soveraignty was in Title of things properly stiled the Kings and therefore the Title of the List of his Majesties Ships is but now altered to the List of the Parliaments Ships and the Hollanders refuse to strike Top Sail to the English disputeing that they were the Elder States and indeed so they were and Elder Brothers in the other also The Army resolve of new Modelling themselves to put the Martial power into the best way for themselves to appear formidable in the Field to make good the Garisons and to take in all confiding persons and so to make more Officers and fewer Souldiers under their Command the easier to be governed and in time of Action soon filled up by Sir Thomas Fairfax who now takes an additional Title of Lord Fairfax being the unic Son to his Father who of a Corn on his great Toe iâ— turned to a Gangreen and killed him And so we end the troublesome affairs of State in England for this year But may not pass over those concernments of Scotland and Ireland contemporary Nor would we nor could we handsomly interrupt our History with them and therefore we insert them here by themselves And first of Scotland beginning where we left before The continuation of the Military Actions for the King in Scotland under conduct of the Marquess of Montrose this year 1647. The Covenanters held Convention at St. Andrews upon the East Sea in Fife carrying their prisonâ—rs with them where ever they removed both of War or others of the Kings Friends men of the best note the Lord Ogleby Sir William Spotswood William Murrey and Andrew Gutlery men of singular merit who here were to be sacrificed To which purpose they set up a couple of their Kirk men Kaint and Blaire and others also possessed with the same spirit That God required the blood of these men nor could the sin of the Nation be otherwise expiated or the revenge of heaven diverted sentencing their very souls to damnation But Ogleby the most eminent a Hamilton by the Mothers side and cousin German to Lindsey pretending himself sick had leave for his Mother Wife and Sisters to visit him in prison and whilst the Jaylors withdrew he got on his sisters cloths and put her in his place in bed And at evening passed out with them for a Lady and so got out of danger his sister suffered strict imprisonment in the same Chamber for a long time after and hastened the execution on the rest of the Prisoners The first was Nathaniel Gordon the next Colonel Gordon and then comes Sir Robert Spotswood he had been raised by favour of King Iames to the honour of Knighthood and Privy Councellor of Scotland King Charles made him Lord President of the Session and of late principal Secretary of Scotland Their Charge against him was not for Arms being a man of the Gown but they found Treason in his bringing of the Kings Commission to Montrose to be Vice-roy of the Kingdom and General of all the Kings Forces there It was no boot his Eloquent and Learned defence answerable to the fundamental Laws of that nation But the Earl of Lanerick heretofore Principal Secretary by his revolt against the King this Office was setled upon Spotswood this was additional to his Charge which because he was not able to bear out he was forced to fall under And on the Scaffold prepared to dye he made his last Speech to the People but Blair being by bad the Provost stop his mouth and privately praying Blair interrupting offered his prayers which the other refused adding That of all the Plagues with which God had scourged this Nation this was not the least nay greater than Sword or Pestilence that God had sent a lying Spirit in the mouthes of the pretended Prophets for which Blair basely reproached
speaking freely to me Next that such men of all professions whom I shall send for as of necessary use to me in this Treaty may be admitted to wait upon me In a word that I may be in the same state of freedom I was in when I was last at Hampton-Court And indeed less cannot in any reasonable measure make good those offers which you have made me by your Votâ—s for how can I treat with honour so long as people are terrified with Votes and Orders against coming to speak or write to me And am I honourably treated so long as there is none about me except a â—arber who came now with the Commissioners that ever I named to wait upon me or with freedom untill I may call such unto me of whose services I shall have use in so great and difficult a work And for safety I speak not of my person having no apprehension on that way how can I judge to make a safe and well-grounded peace untill I may know without disguise the true present state of all my Dominions and particularly of all those whose interests are necessarily concerned in the peace of these Kingdoms which leads me naturally to the last necessary demand I shall make for the bringing of this Treaty to a happy end which is That you alone or you and I joyntly doe invite the Scots to send some persons Authorized by them to treat upon such Propositions as they shall make for certainly the publick and necessary Interesse they have in this great settlement is so clearly plain to all the World that I believe no body will deny the necessity of their concurrence in this Treaty in order to a durable peace Wherefore I will only say that as I am King of both nations so I will yeeld to none in either Kingdom for being truly and zealously affected for the good and honour of both my resolution being never to be partial for either to the prejudice of the other Now as to the place because I conceive it to be rather a circumstantial than real part of this Treaty I shall not much insist upon it I name Newport in this Isle yet the fervent zeal I have that a speedy end be put to these unhappy distractions doth force me earnestly to desire you to consider what a great loss of time it will be to treat so far from the body of my two Houses when every small debate of which doubtless there will be many must be transmitted to Westminster before it be concluded And really I think though to some it may seem a Paradox that peoples mindes will be much more apt to settle seeing me treat in or near London then in this Isle because so long as I am here it will never be believed by many that I am really so free as before this Treaty begin I expect to be And so I leave and recommend this point to your serious consideration And thus I have not only fully accepted of the Treaty which you have proposed to me by your Votes of the third of this moneth but also given it all the furtherance that lies in me by demanding the necessary means for the effectual performance thereof All which are so necessary implyed by though not particularly mentioned in your Votes as I can no wayes doubt of your readie compliance with me herein I have now no more to say but to conjure you by all that is dear to Christians honest men or good Patriots that ye will make all the expedition possible to begin this happie work by hasting down your Commissioners fullie Authorized and well instructed and by enabling me as I have shewed you to treat praying the God of peace so to bless our endeavours that all my Dominions may speedily enjoy a safe and well-grounded peace Caresbrook Castle 16. Aug. 1648. Charles R. For the Speaker of the Lords House pro tempore to be communicated to the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of England at Westminster Here we see the Commissioners of Scotland are not to be communicated for they dissent And the King desired two of his Chaplains might be allowed to attend him which were appointed viz. Doctor Sheldon and Doctor Hamond Upon Debate of the Kings Answer the Lords Vote That the Votes of non addresse to the King be recalled That such persons as he shall send for as necessary to him in the Treaty be admitted And that he be in the state of freedom as at Hampton-Court with such servants as he desires That the Treaty be at Newport That the Scots be invited to treat with his Majesty upon the Propositions of both Kingdoms delivered to him at Hampton-Court That his Majesty be admitted to invite the Scots thereto That the Instructions of Parliament to Colonel Hamond be recalled That five Lords and ten Commons be chosen Commissioners to treat with the King That it be referred to a Committee of Lords and Commons for peace to prepare all things in readiness hereto To all those the Commons agree with this Proviso That the King invite the Scots to treat only concerning that Kingdom And these Votes were sent to the King who returns Answer My Lord and Mr. Speaker I have received your Letter of the 25. present and Votes which though not so full as I could wish for the perfecting of a Treaty yet because I perceive by what you have done that I am in some measure fit to begin one Such is my incessant and earnest desire to give a peace to these my now distracted Dominions as I accept the Treaty and therefore desire that such five Lords and ten Commons as my two Houses shall appoint be speedily sent fully Authorized and instructed to treat with me not doubting but what is now wanting will at our meeting upon debate be fully supplyed not only to the furtherance of this Treaty but also to the consummating of a safe and well-grounded Peace So I rest your friend Charles Rex I have sent you inclosed the List you desired and wish that according to one of your Votes you would send me a Pass for Parsons a Messenger of my Presence Chamber to go to Scotland and to receive his dispatch from me Carisbrook 28. August The List inclosed names these which I mention for the honour they had in their Masters esteem Gentlemen of my Bed-chamber Duke of Richmond Marquess Hartford the Earls of Lindsey and Southampton Grooms of my Bed-chamber George Kirke Iames Leviston Wil. Murrey Iohn Ashburnham Wil. Legg Barber Tho. Davis Pages of my back staris Hugh Hern Humphery Rogers Wil. Levit. Yeomen of my Robes Revet Queries with four or six Footmen as they shall finde fittest to wait Mr. Ro. Ternhit Mr. Io. Hensden Mrs Laundreâ—s with her Maid-servants A Groom of my Presence Parsons to wait as they did or as I shall appoint them these Sir Foâ—lk Greenvil Captain Tytus Captain Burroughs Mr. Cresset Mr. Hansted Firebrace Chaplains the Bishop of London Bishop of Salisbury Doctors
an eclipse which oft happeneth as well in clear as cloudy daies But my now long and sharp adversity hath so reconciled in me those natural Antipathies between Life and Death which are in all men that I thank God the common terrors of it are dispelled and the special horror of it as to my particular much allaied for although my death at present may justly be represented to me with all those terrible aggravations which the policy of cruel and implacable enemies can put upon it affairs being drawn to the very dregs of malice yet I bless God I can look upon all those stings as unpoisonous though sharp since my Redeemer hath either pulled them out or given me the Antidote of his death against them which as to immaturity unjustice shame scorn and cruelty of exceeded whatever I can fear Indeed I never did finde so much the life of Religion the feast of a good conscience and the brazen wall of a judicious integritie and constancie as since I came to these closer conflicts with the thoughts of death I am not so old as to be weary of life nor I hope so bad as to be either afraid to dye or ashamed to live true I am so afflicted as might make me sometime even desire to dye if I did not consider That it is the greatest glory of a Christian's life to die daily in conquering by a lively faith and patient hopes of a better life those partial and quotidian deaths which kill vs as it were by piece-meals and make us over-live our Fates while we are deprived of health honour liberty power credit safety or estate and those other comforts of dearest relations which are â—s the life of our lives Though as a KING I think my self to live in nothing temporal so much as in the love and good will of my people for which as I have suffered many deaths so I hope I am not in that point as yet wholly dead notwithstanding my enemies have used all the poisâ—n of falsitie and violence of hostility to destroy first the love and Loyalty which is in my Subjects and then all that content of life in me which from these I chiefly enjoyed Indeed they have left me but little of life and only the husk and shell as it were which their further malice and cruelty can take from me having berâ—aved me of all those worldly comforts for which life it self seems desirable to men But O my Soul think not that life too long or tedious wherein God gives thee any opportunities if not to doe yet to suffer with such Christian patience and magnanimity in a good cause as are the greatest honour of our lives and best improvement of our deaths I know that in point of true Christian valour it argues pusillanimity to desire to die out of wearineâ—â—â— of life and a want of that Heroick greatness of spirit which bâ—comes a Christian in the patient and generous susteining those afflictions which as shadows necessarily attend us while we are in this body and which are lessened or enlarged as the Sun of our prosperity moves higher or lower whose total absence is best recompensed with the dew of Heaven The assaults of affliction may be terrible like Sampsons Lion but they yeeld much sweetness to those that dare to encounter and overcome them who know how to overlive the witherings of their Gourds without discontent or peevishness while they may yet converse with God That I must die as a man is certain that I may dye a King by the hands of mine own Subjects a violent sudden and barbarous death in the strength of my years in the mid'st of my Kingdoms my Friends and loving Subjects being helpless Spectators my Enemies insolent Revilers and triumphers over me living dying and dead is so probable in humane reason that hath God taught me not to hope otherwise as to mans cruelty however I despair not of God's infinite mercy I know my life is the object of the Devils and wicked mens malice but yet under Gods sole custody and disposal Whom I do not think to flatter for longer life by seeming prepared to die but I humbly desire to depend upon him and to submit to his will both in life and death in what order soever he is pleased to lay them out to me I confess it is not easie for me to contend with those many horrors of death wherewith God suffers me to be tempted which are equally horrid either in the suddeness of a barbarous Assination or in those greater formalities whereby my Enemies being more solemly cruel will it may be seek to add as those did who crucified Christ the mockerie of Justice to the cruelty of malice that I may be destroyed as with greater pomp and artifice so with less pitty it will be but a necessary policy to make my death appear as an Act of Justice done by Subjects upon their Soveraign who know that no Law of God or man invests them with any power of Judicature without me much less against me and who being sworn and bound by all that is sacred before God and man to endeavour my preservation must pretend Justice to cover their perjury Iâ— is indeed a sad fate for any man to have his Enemies to be acâ—â—â—ers parties and judges but most desperate when this is acted by the insolence of Subjects against their Sovereign wherein those who have had the chiefest hand and are most guilty of contriving the publick troubles must by shedding my blood seem to wash their own hands of that innocent blood whereof they are now most evidently guilty before 〈◊〉 and man and I believe in their own consciences too while they carried on unreasonable demands first by Tumults after by Armies Nothing makes mean spirits more cowardly cruel in managing their usurped power against their lawful Superiours then this the Guilt of their unjust usurpation notwithstanding those specious and popular pretensions of Justice against delinquents applied only to disguise at first the monstrousness of their designs who despaired indeed of possessing the power and profits of the Vineyard till the heir whose right it is be cast and slain With them my greatest fault must be that I would not either destroy my self with the Church and State by my word or not suffer them to do it unresisted by the Sword whose covetous ambition no Concessions of mine could ever yet either satisfie or abate Nor is it likely they will ever think that Kingdom of brambles which some men seek to erect at once weak sharp and fruitless either to God or man is like to thrive till watered with the Royal blood of those whose right the Kingdom is Well God's will be done I doubt not but my innocency will finde him both my Protector and my Advocate who is my only Judge whom I own as King of Kings not only for the Eminency of his power and Majesty above them but also for that singular care and protection which he
differences and offences by impartiality or so order affairs in point of power that you shall not need to fear or flatter any faction For if ever you stand in need of them or must stand to their courtesie you are undone the Serpent will devour the Dove you may never expect less of Loyalty Iustice or Humanity then from those who engage into Religious Rebellion their interest is alwaies made Gods under the colours of piety ambitious policies march nor only with greatest security but applause as to the populacy you may hear from them Jacobs voice but you shall feel they have Esau's hands Nothing seemed less considerable then the Presbyterian Faction in England for many years so compliant they were to publick order nor indeed was their party great either in Church or State as to mens judgments but as soon as discontents drave men into sidings as ill humors fall to the disaffected part which cause's inflamations so did all at first who affected any Novelties adhere to that side as the most remarkable and specious note of difference then in point of Religion All the lesser Factions at first were officious servants to Presbytery their great Master till time and military success discovering to each their peculiar advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joint stock of uniform Religion they pretended each to drive for their party the trade of profits and preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all Let nothing seem little or despicable to you in matters which concern Religion and the Churches peace so as to neglect a speedy reforming and effectual suppressing Errors and Schisms what seem at first but as a hand breadth by seditious Spirits as by strong windes are soon made to cover and darken the whole heaven When you have done justice to God your own Soul and his Church in the profession and preservation both of truth and unity in Religion the next main hinge on which your prosperity will depend and move is that of Civil Iustice wherein the setled Laws of these Kingdoms to which you are rightly Heir are the most excellent Rules you can govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects industry liberty and happiness and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and Prerogative of any King who owns his people as Subjects not as Slaves whose subjection as it preserves their property peace and safety so it will never diminish your Rights nor their ingenious Liberties which consist in the injoyment of the fruits of their industry and the benefit of those Laws to which themselves have consented Never charge your head with such a Crown as shall by its heaviness oppress the whole body the weakness of whose parts cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the head but a necessary debilitation and ruine Your Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather then exacting the rigor of the Laws there being nothing worse then Legal Tyranny In these two points the preservation of establisted Religion and Laws I may without vanity turn the reproach of my sufferings as to the worlds censure into the honour of a kinde of Martyrdom as to the testimony of my own conscience the troublers of my Kingdoms having nothing else to object against me but this that I prefer Religion and Laws established before those alterations they propounded And so inded I do and ever shall till I am convinced by better Arguments then what hitherto have been chiefly used towards me Tumults Armies and Prisons I cannot yet learn that Lesson nor I hope ever will you that it is safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the perturbation of the Laws in which is wrapt up the Publick Interest and the good of the Community How God will deal with me as to the removal of these pressures and indignities which his Iustice by the very unjust hands of some of my Subjects hath been pleased to lay upon me I cannot tell nor am I much solicitous what wrong I suffer from men while I retein in my soul what I believe is right before God I have offered all for Reformation and safety that in Reason Honour and Conscience I can reserving only what I cannot consent unto without an irreparable injury to my own Soul the Church and my people and you also as the next and undoubted Heir of my Kingdoms To which if the divine Providence to whom no difficulties are insuperable shall in his due time after my decease bring you as I hope he will my counsel and charge to you is that you seriously consider the former real or objected miscarriages which might occasion my troubles that you may avoid them Never repose so much upon any man's single Counsel fidelitie and discretion in managing affairs of the first magnitude that is matters of Religion and Iustice as to create in your self or others a difâ—idence of your own judgment which is likely to be alwaies more constant and impartial to the interests of your Crown and Kingdom then any mans Next beware of exasperating any Factions by the crosness and asperity of some mens passions humours or private opinions imployed by you grounded only upon the differences in lesser matters which are but the Skirts and Suburbs of Religion Wherein a charitable connivence and Christian toleration often dissipates their strength whom rougher opposition fortifies and puts the despised and oppressed Party into such combinations as may most enable them to get a full revenge on those they count their persecutors who are commonly assisted by that vulgar commiseration which attends all that are said to suffer under the notion of Religion Provided the differences amount not to an insolent opposition of Laws and Government or Religion established as to the essentials of them Such motions and minings are intolerable Alwaies keep up solid Piety and those fundamental truths which mend both hearts and lives of men with impartial favor and justice Take heed that outward circumstances and formalities of Religion devour not all or the best encouragements of learning industry and piety but with an equal eye and impartial hand distribute favours and rewards to all men as you finde them for their real goodness both in abilities and fidelity worthy and capable of them This will be sure to gain you the hearts of the best and the most too who though they be not good themselves yet are glad to see the severer wayes of vertue at any time sweetned by temporal rewards I have you see conflicted with different and opposite Factions for so I must needs call and count all those that act not in any conformity to the Laws established in Church and State no sooner have they by force subdued what they counted their common enemie that is all those that adhered to the Laws and to me and are secured from that fear but they