means to prevent this great and threat'ning danger to his Majesties Royal Person and to our Religion Lives Liberties and Fortunes have thought good to give a timely Advertisement thereof to all his Majesties Subjects of the Reformed Protestant Religion declaring hereby That they hold it necessary and adviseable that with all Expeditithey put themselves into a good posture of Defence to provide fit Arms and Ammunition and be ready upon all occasions to defend the several Counties from Domestick Insurrections and Foreign Invasions and that the Sheriffs Justices of Peace Majors and Head-Officers within their several Limits do take Care that their Magazines of Powder Arms and other Ammunition be compleatly furnished and that they cause strong Guards and Watches to be set in convenient places for the Securing themselves and for the apprehending of such Persons who they shall have just cause to suspect and if upon Examination any grounds of danger shall appear to give notice thereof unto the Parliament and that all Officers take special care that no Soldiers Arms or Ammunition be raised or levyed nor any Castles Forts or Magazines delivered up without his Majesties Authority signified by both Houses of Parliament This hopeful Declaration had the misfortune to become only an Abortive for when it came up to the House of Lords how prevalent soever the Faction was there yet they were ashamed to own that for a Child of Parliamentary Authority which carried so many notorious Falshoods and Calumnies most easie to be detected in the Front of it and yet this thing which was to be imposed upon the Nation for so great a Truth was compiled out of 3 or 4 Parcels of the same kind of Stuff but much Coarser which were drawn up by the Committees at Guild-Hall and Grocers-Hall and out of which the Committee for this Declaration were by the appointment of the House Ordered to frame it and they accordingly licked those Monstrous and Deformed Cubbs into this Bear which begins with the Papists but flies directly at the Throat of his Sacred Majesty the best Protestant in all his Dominions And this was one of the greatest Artifices of the Faction to Sail with this Side-wind as if they intended to fall furiously upon the Papists but then to make a sudden Tack and pour in all their Broad-sides of Calumnies Plots and Conspiracies upon the King himself and the Loyal and Orthodox Protestants whom under the Notion of Malignants Popishly-affected and Adherents to the Papists they still drew into the Designs which they said were laid against the Parliament Kingdom and the King himself against whom the Bolt of their Thunder was always directly levell'd though the Noise and Crack sounded nothing but Papist There are two or three Passages very remarkable that I cannot but turn them upon themselves For when they charge these Plotters and Papists that they had a Design To make a Division of the Body of this Common-wealth from the Head thereof they themselves it seems were in that Design afterwards putting that horrid Plot in Execution by cutting off not only in a Political but Literal Sense that Illustrious Head of their Sovereign both from his own and the Body of the Common-wealth And whereas afterwards they Charge this Malignant Party with a Design by intestine Wars here amongst our selves to wast the Wealth and Substance and Totally to Annihilate the True Protestant Religion and the whole frame of Government in all his Majesties Dominions There certainly never was in so few words so true a Character of their own subequent Actions and had they sitten for their Picture in Miniature to the fam'd Appelles who used to boast of his Art that he painted for Eternity it had been impossible for him to draw them more exactly to the life with his Pencil then in these words they have drawn themselves with their own Ink the blackness of which though intended for the King and the Loyal Party will with an Ex ore tuo stick to their Memories so long as there remain any Records of time and Posterity will easily discern who were the Plotters to Subvert the Government not by the Charge but the Execution and may from hence draw this serviceable Aphorism That no Persons are more likely to design against a Government or to bring the People into Slavery then such Subjects as Arraign their Sovereign with Designs of Erecting Arbitrary Power and introducing Popery Which were the two main Engines by which this Rebellious Faction undermined and overthrew the best Church and Government in the Christian World and rendred the Freest People of Europe the most Abject Slaves in Christendom to the Arbitrary Usurpations of their fellow Subjects and Servants in every thing that Men esteem valuable whether Life Liberty Fortune or Religion But whether the Lords would consent or not the materials out of which this Declaration was drawn being the results of several Debates of the Committee at Guild-Hall and Grocers-Hall got immediately into the Press and from that Mint of mischief flew like Lightning through the Nation to the intolerable Scandal of his Majesty And yet the very chief Aggravation of this Action of his Majesties of the Insolence of the Soldiers is by one of the News-writers of the Party and Times before mentioned taken off from the King and his Retinue Who he saith demeaned themselves Civilly though this Declaration takes no notice of that And in truth who considers how ill the Parliament had treated the Soldiers both during their being in Arms and after the Disbanding will not think it strange for such a sort of Men who have Mars predominant should be apt to vent their private Resentments against those Persons whom the King had Impeached of Treason and to whom they owed all their Sufferings But to put this to the King's Score was a Barbarous injustice which none but such Men as had shaken hands with all Respect as well as Loyalty to the King could be guilty of But see the Paper it self A Declaration of the House of Commons The Debates at Guild-hall and Grocers-hall Drawn into a Declaration concerning Breach of Priviledge c. Mr. Glyn Reports from Guild-hall Jan. 6th 1641. Touching a late Breach of their Priviledges And for the Vindication thereof and of divers Members of the said House WHereas the Chambers Studies and Trunks of Mr. Denzill Hollis Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr John Pym Master John Hampden and Mr. William Strode Esquires Members of the House of Commons upon Munday the third of this instant January by colour of His Majesties Warrant have been sealed up by Sir William Killigrew and Sir William Flemen and others which is not only against the Priviledge of Parliament but the common liberty of every Subject Which said Members afterwards the same day were under the like colour by Serjeant Francis one of His Majesties Serjeants at Arms contrary to all former Presidents demanded of the Speaker sitting in the House of Commons to be delivered unto him that
Ant. Van Dyck pinxit R. White sculpsit THOMAS EARLE OF STRAFFORDE Viscount Wentworth Baron Wentworth of Wentworth Woodhouse Newmarch Oversley Raby Ld. Lievtenant Generall and Generall Governor of the Kingdome of Ireland and Ld. President of the Councill established in the North parts of England Ld. Lievtenant of the County City of York one of his Maty most honble Privy Councel and Knight of ye. most Noble order of the Garter EN DIEU EST TOUT HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE Printed for A. Mearne T. Dring B. Took T. Sawbridge and C. Mearne AN Impartial Collection OF THE Great Affairs of State From the Beginning of the SCOTCH REBELLION In the Year MDCXXXIX To the Murther OF King CHARLES I. WHEREIN The first Occasions and the whole Series of the late Troubles IN England Scotland Ireland Are faithfully Represented Taken from Authentick Records and Methodically Digested By JOHN NALSON LL. D. VOL. II. Published by His Majesty's Special Command LONDON Printed for S. Mearne T. Dring B. Toke T. Sawbrige and C. Mearne MDCLXXXIII TO HIS MOST Serene and Excellent MAJESTY King Charles II. GREAT SIR AS Your Majesties Gracious Incouragement gave the first Life and Being to this Work so it naturally in all humble Duty addresses it self for Protection under the Wing of Your Favour and Royal Mercy which Your Majesty so justly challenges as a Virtue more peculiarly Eminent and Conspicuous in your whole Life then in any of Your Illustrious Predecessors It is Necessity and not Presumption which obliges the Author to Prostrate himself and this Book at Your Royal Feet For though the whole World can shew nothing so Harmless and Innocent as Truth yet is she not able to defend her self from her constant Enemies Malice Error and ill Designs nor knows she whither to flie for a secure Refuge but to the Sanctuary of the Great Defender of the Faith to which the nearness of her Relation raises in her a comfortable hope that she shall participate of the same Royal Protection There are some Persons whose Interest it is to lie behind the Curtain even in the present Age and who therefore cannot with patience bear the drawing of it so as to let in the light into that which is past lest by comparing former Occurrences the Temper Inclinations Principles and Movements of those Times there should be discovered so near a Resemblance between the Lineaments and Proportions of the past and present as to be too convincing that there is no greater difference then between the elder and the younger Brother of the same Parents Rebellion and the Good Old Cause Nor is it strange to see some sort of People very angry with the hand which presents them with a Glass wherein they may see the Exact and true Image of Rebellion and Sedition when they can no sooner look into it but they find their own Faces there But it would be not only a Wonder but a Miracle if they should not shew their Resentments against both the Workman and his Work and by indeavouring to hurt his to secure their own Reputation But Your Majesties Grace and Favour is such an Amulet against the Poyson of the most Malignant Faction as is able to secure the happy Persons upon whom it is bestowed from the Infection of the most Malicious Breath and Venemous Tongues and in the Hopes of this the Author does with all humility present Your Majesty with the first opening of the Scene of that Deplorable Tragedy wherein Your Glorious Father had so large a share of Suffering there Your Majesty may see the several Steps and Progressive Advances which those Artists in Rebellion and Usurpation made towards the accomplishment of their Great Design of overthrowing the best Monarchy and Extirpating the most Apostolical Church in the whole World Here may Your Majesty take a view of the most supple Flattery and deep Hypocrisy of a Confederated Faction and how Rebellion to make the People in Love with her was represented to them in the Masquerading Habit and Accoutrements of Religion and Reformation how Slavery and Tyranny those two dreadful Monsters walk'd in the borrowed Equipage of the Liberty of the Subject and the Fundamental Laws and Birthrights of the People and how under the Mantle of Redressing Grievances the Nation came to labour under the greatest Grievance that ever the Necks of the Generous English Submitted to even the Mischief which they pretended to fear absolute Tyranny and the most Arbitrary Government of an Vsurping Faction Here Your Majesty may see the true Picture of the Men of those Principles and Times drawn from the Life by their own hands and in their proper and natural Colours and not only their outward Air Mine and Garb but the Picture of their very Souls their Thoughts Aims Contrivances and most Secret Designs and the black Conclusion at which all these were levell'd over which they so Industriously drew the fair Vails and Curtains of Sanctimony and pretended Loyalty seeming Humility and counterfeit Allegiance Your Majesty may be conducted into those Mines of Sedition unreasonable Fears groundless and unsatisfiable Jealousies of the Dangers of Popery and Arbitrary Government the very Powder which blew up the Foundations both of Church and State Your Majesty may see their Principal Engines of Battery amongst which the Liberty of the Press and I Blush to name it the Licentious abuse of the Pulpit were not the least or did the most Inconsiderable Execution towards the Ruin of the Government I shall not presume to say more but humbly Prostrate my self at Your Majesties Feet to beg the Liberty to add my most fervent Prayers and Wishes to my Sincere indeavours of Serving Your Majesty with my utmost Power May there be an Emulous Strife between the Number and the Glory of Your Majesties Years May the constant Care of Heaven and the Watchful attendance of its Glorious Militia still Guard Your beloved Life against all the Wicked attempts of the Enemies of Your Person and Government May every day that is added to Your Sacred Life contribute fresh Accessions of Happiness and Prosperity Peace and Tranquility to Your Auspicious Reign May You Triumph in the Hearts and Affections of Your People and over the Heads of Your defeated Enemies And could my Prayers Wishes or Indeavours prove as Successful as they are Sincere Your Majesty should not have one Subject in all Your Dominions less Zealous of Your Majesties Service sensible of their Duty and Interest or studious of Expressing their humble Loyalty then the Person who has placed all his Ambition and Glory in Indavouring to approve himself May it please Your Most Sacred Majesty Your Majesties most Humble most Obedient and Intirely Devoted Subject NALSON The Introduction THERE is certainly no manner of Diversion of which Wise and Great Men who indeavour to be really Serviceable to the true Interest of their Prince and Country can make more considerable Advantages or more agreeably spend their Leisure Minutes
whatever opinion others may have of such half-faced Historians I cannot conceive but that even the Cause of Protestancy which these Persons pretend so much to Patronize does extremely suffer by their manifest Partiality There is not any one particular which hath been Exaggerated with more vehemence then the Cruelty of the Rebels by Sir John Temple Dr. Borlase and others and doubtless their Cruelty was strange and barbarous but then on the other side there is not the least mention of any Cruelty exercised upon the Irish or of the hard measure they received from some of the Board in Ireland who were of the Parliamentarian Faction and Scottish Religion which rendred them desperate and made the Rebellion Universal they take no notice of the Severities of the Provost Martials nor of the Barbarism of the Soldiers to the Irish which was such that I have heard a Relation of my own who was a Captain in that Service Relate that no manner of Compassion or Discrimination was shewed either to Age or Sex but that the little Children were promiscuously Sufferers with the Guilty and that if any who had some grains of Compassion reprehended the Soldiers for this unchristian Inhumanity they would scoffingly reply Why Nits will be Lice and so would dispatch them And certainly as to acknowledge an undeniable Truth does in no manner Excuse the barbarous Cruelty of the Rebels so to deny or smother Matters of Fact so easily to be proved even by many Protestants still alive has given the Papists the advantage to bring into Question especially in Foreign Courts and Countries the truth of all those inhumane Cruelties which are charged upon them by such Writers as are found Guilty of such manifest Partiality It is most evident that the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlase did by their Authority Command many things which did not only Exasperate but render the Irish Desperate as will appear by several of their own Letters and publick Acts of State and that in the first Eruption of the Rebellion they had a greater Eye to the Forfeitures of the Rebels Estates then to use such means as might by the hopes of Pardon induce the better sort of the Nobility Gentry and Freeholders to hear Reason and to come in and submit themselves to His Majesties mercy though they had express direction from the King and the Two Houses so to do and it is no less notorious that Sir John Temple in writing his History was bound by Confederacy to assert the proceedings of the then Lords Justices and I cannot find him high in Reputation with the prevailing Usurpers of the Parliamentarian Faction and by them impowered as a Commissioner to impose upon the Protestant Subjects of Ireland that Traiterous Disloyal and Detestable Solemn League and Covenant which was a direct Oath of Confederacy not only against but purposely to Ruin and Destroy the King the Church and the Loyal Party I cannot observe his Book to be Printed in London by publick Allowance in the Year 1646 at a time when no Books were licensed but such as made Court to the prevailing Faction of the Usurpers or which might be helpful to support their Calumnies against His Majesty especially as to the Irish Rebellion I cannot find him decrying the Cessation of 1643 without too just a suspition of his Integrity and that his Biass was too strong to that Party to which he was a Confederate to expect from him an account of those Affairs without the apparent Guilt of prejudice and partiality The late Earl of Orrery cannot escape the like suspition with any Person that considers him Exercising the Talent of his Eloquence in perswading the notorious Rebel Cromwel to Establish his Usurpation by fixing the Royal Diadem the Imperial Crown of these Realms upon his infamous Head nor is it possible to look upon him as an impartial Writer who in the blackest of times rendred himself by his Services to the Usurper so notoriously Conspicuous to the Three Kingdoms being during that gloomy Scene of our Gracious Sovereign's Banishment Lord President of Munster in Ireland President of the Council of Scotland and in England a Lord of the other House in one of the Usurpers mock-Parliaments and to instance in another of his Titles thô not so Illustrious he was Agent for the Fanatiques Established by Cromwel in the Estates of the Irish who repenting of their folly had served His Majesty against the English Rebels at that time when he writ that Treatise which is so warmly answered by Peter Walch As for Dr. Borlase besides the nearness of his Relation to one of the Lords Justices and his being openly and avowedly a favourer of the Faction and the Men and Actions of those times he is an Author of such strange inconsistency that his Book is rather a Paradox then a History and it must needs be so for I know not by what accident the Copy of a Manuscript written by the Right Honorable the late Earl of Clarendon happening to fall into his hands he has very unartfully blended it with his own rough and unpolished heap of Matter so that his Book looks like a curious Imbroidery sowed with coarse thread upon a piece of Sackwebb And truly had he no other Crime but that of a Plagiary it is such a sort of Theft to steal the Child of anothers Brain that may very well render him suspected not to be overstockt with Honesty and Justice so necessary to the Reputation of an unblemished Historian but it is far more unpardonable to castrate the Lawful Issue of another Man's Pen and thereby disable it from propagating Truth and to teach it to speak a Language which the Parent never intended And yet this is the exact Case of Dr. Borlase's History in which he has taken great Pains to expunge some and alter many Passages which he thought were too poignant against his Favourites or spoke too much in Vindication of his late Majesty and his Ministers as in divers particulars hereafter the Reader will observe The World is threatned with a History from another hand which when ever it comes will lie under the same disadvantages with these former Authors and if it may be prejudged by a Specimen already made Publick it will not be very fortunate in the World nor fail of being Sifted and Exposed if it does deserve it by straying from the Road of Truth and leading the World into the Crooked Meanders of Erroneous Partiality And now having given an account how sensible I am of the mistakes and failings of those who have travailed before me in these Irish Transactions I am to acquaint the Reader that my Intention is to Winnow the truth out of their Writings but not to follow them further then good Authority concurring with them shall incourage me and that I have no intention to disclaim any thing in them but such things as are either mistaken or misrepresented in matter of Fact or Written with the strong bent of Partiality purposely
and Goodness My Lords they are the Beauty of the Soul they are the Perfection of all created Natures they are the Image and Character of God upon the Creatures This Beauty Evil Spirits and Evil Men have lost but yet there are none so wicked but they desire to march under the shew and shadow of it though they hate the reality of it This unhappy Earl now the Object of your Lordships Justice hath taken as much care hath used as much cunning to set a face and countenance of Honesty and Justice upon his Actions as he hath been negligent to observe the Rules of Honesty in the Performance of all these Actions My Lords it is the greatest baseness of Wickedness that it dares not look in his own Colours nor be seen in its natural Countenance But Virtue as it is amiable in all respects so the least is not this That it puts a Nobleness it puts a Bravery upon the Mind and lifts it above Hopes and Fears above Favour and Displeasure it makes it always uniform and constant to it self The Service Commanded me and my Colleagues here is to take off those Vizards of Truth and Vprightness which hath been sought to be put upon this Cause and to shew you his Actions and his Intentions in their own natural Blackness and Deformity My Lords He hath put on a Vizard of Truth in these words wherein he says That he should be in his Defence more careful to observe Truth than to gain Advantage to himself He says He would endure any thing rather than be saved by Falshood It was a noble and brave Expression if it were really true My Lords He hath likewise put on the Vizard of Goodness on his Actions when he desires to recite his Services in a great many Particulars as if they were Beneficial to the Common-wealth and State whereas we shall prove them Mischievous and Dangerous It is left upon me My Lords to take off these Vizards and Appearances of Truth and Goodness in that part of his Answer which is the Preamble And that I shall do with as much Faithfulness and Brevity as I can 1. The First thing My Lords that I shall observe in the Preamble is this That having recited all those great and honourable Offices which he hath done under his Majesty he is bold to affirm That he hath been Careful and Faithful in the Execution of them all My Lords If he might be his own Witness and his own Judge I doubt not but he would be Acquitted It is said in the Proverbs of the Adulterous Woman That she wipes her mouth and says she had done no Evil. Here is a wiping of the mouth here is a verbal expression of Honesty But My Lords the foulness and unjustness will never be wiped off neither from his Heart nor from his Actions I mean for the time past God may change him for the time to come That is the first thing I observe 2. My Lords In the second place out of his Apologetical Preamble I shall observe this He doth magnifie his own Endeavours in five particulars 1. That he hath Endeavoured the maintenance of Religion I may miss in words I shall not miss in sense 2. That he hath Endeavoured the Honour of the King 3. The Encrease of his Revenue 4. The Peace and Honour and Safety of the Kingdom 5. The Quiet and Peace of the People These are his five particulars and I shall give a short Answer to every one of them 1. For Religion My Lords we say and we shall prove that he hath been diligent indeed to favour Innovations to favour Superstitions to favour the Incroachments and Vsurpations of the Clergy But for Religion it never received any advantage by him nay a great deal of hurt 2. For the Honour of the King My Lords We say it is the Honour of the King that He is the Father of His People that He is the Fountain of Justice and it cannot stand with His Honour and Justice to have His Government Stain'd and Polluted with Tyranny and Oppression 3. For the Encrease of His Revenue It is true there may be some Addition of Sums but we say There is no Addition of Strength nor Wealth because in those parts where it hath been increased this Earl hath taken the greatest share himself And when he hath spoiled and ravined on the People he hath been content to yield up some part to the King that he might with more security enjoy the rest 4. For the Strength and Honour and Safety of the Kingdom My Lords In a time of Peace he hath let in upon us the Calamities of War Weakness Shame and Confusion 5. And for the Quiet of the Subjects he hath been an Incendiary he hath Armed us amongst our selves and made us weak and naked to all the World besides This is that I shall answer to the second Head of his Apology 3. The Third is this My Lords That by his means many good and wholesome Laws have been made since his Government in Ireland Truly My Lords if we should consider the particulars of these Laws some of them will not be found without great Exception But I shall make another Answer good Laws nay the best Laws are no advantage when Will is set above Law when the Laws have force to bind and restrain the Subject but no force to Relieve and Comfort him 4. He says in the Fourth place He was a means of calling a Parliament not long after he came to his Government My Lords Parliaments without Parliamentary Liberties are but a fair and plausible way into Bondage That Parliament had not the Liberties of a Parliament Sir Pierce Crosby for speaking against a Bill in the Commons House was sequestred from the Council-Table and Committed to Prison Sir John Clotworthy for the same Cause was threatned that he should lose a Lease that he had Mr. Barnewell and two other Gentlemen were threatned they should have Troops of Horse put upon them for speaking in the House Proxies by dozens were given by some of his Favourites And My Lords Parliaments coming in with these Circumstances they be Grievances Mischiefs and Miseries no works of Thanks or Honour 5. The Fifth is That he hath been a means to put off Monopolies and other Projects that would have been Grievous and Burdensome to the Subjects if he had hated the Injustice of a Monopoly or the Mischief of a Monopoly he would have hated it in himself he himself would have been no Monopolist Certainly My Lords It was not the love of Justice nor the Common Good that moved him And if he were moved by any thing else he had his Reward It may be it was because he would have no man gripe them in the Kingdom but himself his own Harvest-Crop would have been less if he had had sharers It may be it was because Monopolies hinder Trade he had the Customs and the benefit of the Customs would have been less when we know the
advance their Trade and Manufactures could not be very valuable since they made any alteration of their ancient Customs how foolish and unreasonable soever a great Grievance and Occasion of Complaint and there is Extant in the Paper-Office a Petition to reverse an Order of the Council-Board forbidding them to plough with their Horses tyed only to one anothers Tails and to use the English way of Traces for their more commodious performing the service of their Tillage But his last expressions put the Managers into a great heat and Mr. Glyn cryed out My Lords these words are not to be suffered charging the House of Commons with Faction Correspondency and Conspiracy we desire your Lordships Justice in this so watchful were they to catch at any seeming advantage even of an incautelous Expression But the Noble Prisoner with his wonted Temper replyed God forbid I should think there was or could be any thing in that House or any Member of it but that which agrees with Truth Justice and Equity and turning to the Lords protested he had no intention to reflect either upon the Lords House in Ireland or the Commons here but upon certain Persons that were not Members of the Commons House here that held Correspondency with some in Ireland that are no Members of the House there Then the Remonstrance of the Commons House in Ireland was read being in Effect the same with that from the Lords The next thing which was insisted on was the point of the Revenue Sir Edward Warder Sir Robert Pye Lord Mountnorris Witnesses which they endeavoured to prove he had not advanced by the Testimony of Sir Edward Warder Sir Robert Pye and the Lord Mountnorris to which my Lord made appear that he found the Crown indebted 100000 l. at his Entrance but had since improved the Revenue so that Ireland was able to subsist without being as it had been in the time of his Predecessors a burthen to England and that at his coming over he left 100000 l. in the King's Exchequer and in Fine the Managers did as good as give him the point for they confessed that it was not to be denied but the Revenue was encreased by such means as my Lord Strafford hath increased it but that it was not the Natural Revenue but the Bounty of the Country that supported the Charge before my Lord came to the Government so that to say Ireland did not support it self before in the general sence is untrue but to say in a special sence that the King 's proper Revenue did not support it his Lordship says true From whence the Earl inferred that therefore it was not material to insist upon it They then Charged him with receiving 24000 l. of the King's Revenue and making use of it which in Effect he did not deny it being a particular Favour of the King to permit him so to do and that he gave good security for the money and had also repaid it The Managers here took exceptions at the Earl's interlocutory discourses to which he answered applying himself to the Lords That he should willingly submit to the Order of their Lordships only there were some things put upon him which were not in the Charge to which he craved Liberty to recollect himself to make his Defence making protestation as in the Presence of Almighty God and by the hopes he had to be delivered out of his Afflictions that he never had other Intentions then to be true and faithful to his Majesty and the Common-wealth and that he hoped to regain the same good opinion of the House of Commons which he once had when he was once a Member of it being he was still the same person both in Opinion and Intention This the Managers opposed and urged to have him answer immediately desiring if he did not answer then he might be precluded from any future Answer Upon which he renewed his Request but withal desired their Lordships if it could not be granted to bear with many infirmities both of his Body and Mind which were very great and which did plead for a little Favour and Compassion He said the House of Commons proceeded with Justice according to their Information but that he knew it was in the Hearts of all that heard him that he should have time to clear a truth that no person could he thought deny it and therefore humbly prayed he might not be surprized Hereupon the Lords adjourned to their House for half an hour and at their return Ordered him to make his Answer presently which to the Admiration of the hearers he did as followeth My Lords I Shall never do other than readily obey whatsoever your Lordships should please to command me The Earl of Strafford's Speech April 23. my heart paying you Obedience and so in truth shall every thing that proceeds from me The question I observe is matter of Truth or not Truth in the Preamble as they call it of this my Answer and to that with all the Humility and Modesty in the World I will apply my self as not conceiving it any way becoming me to speak any thing of Sharpness in any kind but with all Humility and Reverence to bear all these Afflictions with acknowledgment unto Almighty God and to lay them so to my heart that they may provide for me in another World where we are to expect the Consummation of all Blessedness and Happiness And therefore to lay aside all these Aggravations by words wherewith I have been set forth to your Lordships only with this that I trust I shall make my self appear a person otherwise in my Dispositions and Actions than I have been rendred and shortly and briefly I shall fall upon the very points as near as I can that were mentioned by that Noble Gentleman and if I should forget any I desire to be remembred of them that I may give the best Answer I can on a suddain with this Protestation That if I had had time I should have given a far clearer Answer than on the sudden I shall be able to do I will take them as they lye in Order And the first thing in this Answer is That in Ireland by my means many good Laws were made for increase of the King's Revenue and for the good of the Church and Commonwealth and this I humbly conceive was not denied directly only it was inferr'd That Laws were of no use where Will was put above Law That these Laws were made the Acts of Parliament that are extant and visible things do make appear For though I might express it darkly by reason I understood not matters of Law the Truth of it is before such time as I came there the Statutes of Wills and Uses and Fraudulent Conveyances were not of force in Ireland by which there was a very great mischief that fell many ways both on the King and specially on the English Planters For by want of these Statutes no man knew when he had a good Title
things as may advance the King's Service and that from them it passes to the Lord Keeper or Chancellor That he gave no Directions about it nor was any proof offered that he did as to the Execution he never did Act nor stay a minute as President after that Commission granted which appears by the Date which was 21 March 8 Car. and he went towards Ireland July following and being neither privy to the taking out the Commission nor Execution he appealed to their Lordships and the Gentlemen of the House of Commons Whether he could be Criminal That if there be an Error in a Judge so that he gives a Sentence otherwise than a man of better Vnderstanding conceives Reason for there is no cause it should be heightned to a Treason to take from him his Life and Honor merely because he was no wiser That what Mr. John Gore speaks to is not in his Charge That to what Musgrave deposeth he can say nothing but by way of Divination that he is but a single Witness speaks not to the Charge that what he sayes will hardly convince a man of a Trespass it being Grounded on a Rule in our Law Boni Judicis est ampliare Jurisdictionem as far as in Reason and Justice they may As to Thorp's Testimony which he speaks to was before the Commission 8 13 Car. and so is not within the Charge This he proved Witnesses for the Earl Slingsby Railton and Little that from July 8. 1633. he was out of England and returned not till 1639. by Mr. Slingsby his Secretary Mr. Railton and Mr. Tho. Little but not upon Oath To this the Managers rejoyned That whereas he said the Charge is not Treason if the Fact appear satisfaction will in good time be given That though this particular is not Treason yet all the parts of it amount to the subversion of the Laws of the Kingdom that is prest as Treason and this as an Evidence Then they fell upon that Expression in the charge Art 2. that at a Publick Assizes he should say That some of the Justices were all for Law and nothing would please them but Law but they should find that the King 's little finger should be heavier than the Loins of the Law This they indeavoured to prove Witnesses William Long Sir Thomas Leyton Marmaduke Potter Mr. William Long deposed That he heard him say the words Sir Thomas Leyton deposed the same and the deposition of Marmaduke Potter deceased since his Examination was read being to the same words To this he answered He could not possibly be guilty of the words as laid in the Charge which sayes it was August after the 21 March 8 Car. at what time he was in Ireland but he would not stand upon Niceties that truth might appear that the words he spoke were That the little finger of the Law was heavier then the King's Loins which agrees with the eccasion for Sir Thomas Leyton Sherriff Levying with great rigor some Knighthood-Money which was paid before but by some Error above sent down again upon which he desired Sir Thomas to return the Money and he would see him discharged in the Exchequer it being so great an Injustice to the Persons and to satisfie the Country he told them the Commission was of Grace and Favour applying those words before recited that none of the Witnesses took notice of the Occasion Dr. Duncomb being demanded what he knew deposed for the Earl Witnesses Dr. Duncomb for the Earl Sir William Pennyman That Sir Edward Stanhope told him in the presence of divers that my Lord had said That speaking of the Prerogative as easier then the Common Law he heard him use the words before recited But Sir William Pennyman positively averred it to be as my Lord had declared at which the managers took great Exception saying He did his duty well being a Member not to inform the House before The Earl desired he might not be prejudiced for his Testimony professing he would put himself upon God's Mercy and not make use of any member of either House though his principal Witnesses were of them rather than be guilty of the Injustice of overthrowing another to save himself Then Sir David Fowles was offered as a Witness but my Lord excepted against him being then a Prisoner in the Fleet at my Lord's Suit But he was over-ruled the Evidence being for the King He deposed positively That he heard the words but the occasion he did not remember but being interrogated as to the occasion a little after he answered That before my Lord went to Ireland he made a Speech to the Countrey and desired them to go on in their Service and to break out in these words which as it contradicted the former Evidence as to the Occasion so he contradicted himself saying but just before he could not well remember the Occasion Sir William Ingram deposed the words but could not remember the Occasion To this the Earl replied That admitting the words spoken Sir William Ingram yet they were not Treason and referred that as a point of Law in due time to be argued by his Councel and the Managers adding they had proved the Fact the Court adjourned This day they proceeded to the Third Article Thursday March 26. The Fourth Day That the Earl should say That Ireland was a Conquered Kingdom and the King might do with them what he pleased That the Charters of Dublin were nothing worth and did bind the King no further than he pleased The Earl moved that he might add something material to what was spoken yesterday the Manager opposed it as contrary to Order The Earl said it was a Court of Honour and a Rule to it self alledging the disadvantage of suddain Answers but it was denied him Then he moved the Witnesses might not stand with the Committee but apart as in other Courts which was also denied Robert Kennyday was produced Robert Kennyday but the Earl objected against him as a person Sentenced for Misdemeanors in his Office of Remembrancer saying It was his great Misfortune that all that have suffered under the King's Justice in his Ministry are ready to be Witnesses against him But the Manager replied If he was guilty of Extortion yet not of Perjury So he was sworn and deposed positively that he heard the words Sept. 30. 1633 spoken at the Presenting a New Mayor of Dublin The Earl of Cork was sworn against whom the Earl Excepted Richard Earl of Cork in regard of an Information against him which under his hand and Seal he had confessed and acknowledged himself in the King's Mercy for which he might be supposed to be displeased at him for something done in that Cause To this it was said the reflection was unfit the Earl of Cork being a Privy-Councellor so he was admitted He said he came over with a Resolution not to complain and left his Papers behind him that he might have no temptation to it but
and read it in English That the French King had appointed Officers to view mens books and accompts to know what the King might demand of them and force them to pay and something to this purpose That it was an Example or might be an Example to do the like in England Lord Cottington Henry Gogan Sir William Parkhurst and Mr. Gogan being Present Mr. Gogan sworn deposed to the same Effect and that he said to my Lord Cottington My Lord this is worthy your Consideration or hearing or to that purpose Sir William Parkhurst sworn deposed That they were discoursed about the Copper money made for Ireland in Queen Elizabeth 's time Sir William Parkhurst and shewed them such a Letter and read the contents in English as before expressed but further he heard him not say nor any thing as expressed to the Lord Cottington or that if the King should do so he should follow the Example of other Princes Sir Ralph Freeman sworn deposed Sir Ralph Freeman That in a Debate about Copper-money he saying the workmen would not work if paid in that money my Lord replyed You know what course to take with them you may send them to the House of Correction The Examination of Mr. Thomas Skinner was read he being not present and my Lord having a Liberty reserved to Cross-Examine him he in his Examination about the seisure of the Bullion applying with others to my Lord he told them he knew not of it till that morning and that it was no news in other Countries where Princes made use of such wayes to serve their Occasions and in Effect about the Cities ingratitude c. as the other Witnesses To this he answered after some Recollection The Earl's Answer That for that part which would have been the principal part of the Charge concerning his Approving Counselling or Devising these Projects there was no proof offered and that the Testimony of the Witnesses acquits him for the undutifulness of the City the proofs are full and fuller then any thing of the Charge since his Tryal began that at that time he thought so but since he is of another Opinion and expressed himself so at the Council of Peers at York upon the Cities lending the King 200000 l. and that he would serve them with his Life For the French Letter and what was said to the Lord Cottington Mr. Gogan is singular in his Testimony this Letter he received from the Lord of Leicester which mentioned how the Cardinal had given directions to go into the Houses of diverse Merchants in Paris c. and having read it said You see what is done in other places but God be thanked you have so Pious and Gracious a King that he thinks on none of these things My Lord Cottington being interrogated said he knew nothing of the Letter nor ever heard of it but because he would recall it he spake with Sir William Parkhurst and Mr. Palmer they told him that while my Lord was reading the Letter he was in another Room writing From whence my Lord concluded That having told their Lordships the truth clearly under Favour of these Gentlemen he thought nothing can incline one way or other to be an Accusation of High Treason Mr. Maynard replyed Managers Reply That his words concerning the Great City of the Kingdom was no such slight thing Mr. Stroud added That whereas my Lord sayes Words only are laid to his Charge words may be Treason and more dangerous than some Actions such were his Counselling the King and Provoking him to Tyrannical Actions to his Subjects but my Lord stayes not here for Four Aldermen were Committed that day he gave the Counsel concluding That his words and Actions agree in this Kingdom and the miseries of this Kingdom do agree with his words and Actions Mr. Maynard proceeded to the 27th Article Artic. 27. of the Earl's Levying Money in Yorkshire and threatning the Refusers to take satisfaction out of their Goods and that to refuse was little short of High Treason First the Petition of the Gentlemen of the County of Tork was read in these words WHereas Your Majesty imparted to us the danger The Petition of the Yorkshire Gentlemen by the incursions of the Scots and the necessity of continuing the Trained-Bands of this County in entertainment for two Months raising Money so long and did Royally assure us That the Wardships of such as dyed in this Imployment should be freed and one third part of the Trained-Bands should be abated for which we acknowledge our bounden thankfulness in ready obedience of Your Majesties Command we have represented to Your Majesty our present Condition and in the entrance of the business we found a great impediment and discouragement by certain Warrants produced for levying Money towards this new service wherein in the first place we cannot omit to let your Majesty know the great grief we have in that the County is there charged with disaffection and backwardness therein which as we are confident we never were guilty of so we were in good hope your Majesty had received no such Impression of us And in the next place we find our selves much grieved that the execution of such Warrants which we conceive illegal should be concluded and urged on peril of life notwithstanding the strictness of which Warrants we find divers parts of the County have not been able to pay the Money demanded and from thence and the attestation of divers Gentlemen we are assured the scarcity of Money is such that it is disabled from satisfying your expectation therein And that Your Majesty may know it is no pretence but a real poverty we are bold to represent the Charges viz of Ship-Money Vast expences the last year in Military affairs The Billeting and Insolency of Soldiers this Summer part of the time on the credit of the County Decay of Trade Stop of Markets Charge of Carriages especially in Harvest by which means not only the common people but most of the Gentry by the failing of Rents are much impoverished And therefore we petition Your Majesty You will accept our endeavour to prevail with the Country to raise so much Money as will pay the County one whole month from their first rising within which time as is generally reported Your Majesty hath Commanded the attendance of the Peers to consult for the safety of the Kingdom and pray the Trained-Bands may be continued in the Villages where they are Quartered except Your occasions otherwise require it and in the interim for the redress of these Grievances and security of Your Kingdom Your Majesty will please to Declare Your Pleasure for summoning the High Court of Parliament c. This Petition Sir Philip Stapleton deposed upon Oath Sir Philip Stapletan Sir Hugh Cholmley to be the true Petition Then Sir Hugh Cholmley deposed That according to the desire of the Gentlemen this Petition was by the Lord Wharton delivered to the Earl who
I shall first give you an Accompt of the words wherewithal I am Charged forth of Ireland and the first words are in the Third Article where I am Charged to have said That Ireland is a Conquered Nation and that the King may do with them as he pleaseth And to the City of Dublin That their Charters are nothing worth and bind the King no farther than he pleaseth These are the words Charged My Lords methinks it is very strange under favour that this can be made an Inducement to prove this Charge because I said That Ireland is a Conquer'd Nation therefore I endeavour to subvert the Fundamental Laws when I speak the Truth for certainly it is very true it was so My Lords under favour I remember very well there was as much said here at this Bar since we began and yet I dare well Swear and acquit him that spake it from intending to Subvert the Laws For my Lords you were told and told truly That Ireland was a Conquered Nation and that it was Subordinate to England and God forbid that it should be otherwise and that they have received Laws from the Conqueror My Lords the words testified by my Lord Gormonstone and Kilmalock to be spoken are not the words wherewith I am charged and so under favour I conceive cannot be brought to my prejudice as to this Tryal and they are words that are denied by me For my words concerning their Charters your Lordships remember very well I doubt not wherefore I said they were void For their misuse of them and that I told them so not with the intent to overthrow their Patents or Charters but to make them more conformable to those things that the State thought fit for encrease of Religion and Trade and encouraging and bringing English into that Town And that it was meant so and no otherwise Whatsoever was said it appears by this their Charters were never touched nor infringed nor medled withal by me during the time I was in that Kingdom so that words so spoken and to such a purpose that they should go to prove such a Conclusion I conceive there is great difference betwixt those Premises and that Conclusion The next Charge for words in Ireland is in the Fourth Article where I am Charged to have said That I would neither have Law nor Lawyers Dispute or Question my Orders and that I would make the Earl of Cork and all Ireland know That as long as I had the Government there any Act of State should be as binding to the Subjects of that Kingdom as an Act of Parliament My Lords I humbly beseech your Lordships to give me leave to say for my self that these words of the Charge are only sworn by my Lord of Corke and no man else and his Lordship appeared a little mistaken the other day in one point on the Reading of an Order of the Council-Board for so it appears as I conceive so that for one single Witness and he the Party Aggrieved by these words to be the Man that must convince me I conceive your Lordships will not think that to stand with the ordinary Rules of Proceeding For the rest to say Acts of State in Ireland should be binding so long as they are not contrary to Law I confess I then conceived it had been no Offence for I thought them to be as binding being not contrary to Law but the Elder we grow the wiser we may grow If God give us the Grace and Attentions and so I trust I shall by these Gentlemen that have taught me to forbear those kind of Speeches hereafter My Lords These are all the Words charged against me for Ireland saving only some things that I shall come to anon that is Charged upon me in one of the latter Articles concerning Scotland I say my Lords these are all the Words that have slipped from me in Seven years time having been well watched and observed as your Lordships may perswade your selves I have been But in seven years time I say these are all the words brought to my Charge and in truth I conceive a wiser Man then my self might be forgiven for one Error or slip of his Tongue of that Nature in a years time seeing it is no greater measure God be praised than these are My Lords these being the words that passed from me in Ireland there are other words that are charged upon me to have been spoken in England but if your Lordships will give me leave though perhaps in no very good method I shall not fail to touch first or last the words in every Article The next Article then that I am charged withal for words is the second Article and these are the words that I should say concerning the Finger and the Loins My Lords I may alledge much new matter but I will observe your Lordships Order punctually by the Grace of God for what I may say in that case if it might be admitted I keep it to my self but the truth is they that do prove the words to be thus That I would make the little finger of the Law heavier then the King's Loins they do not tell you the occasion of the Speech or what went before or what after for my Lords if they had told the occasion which methinks they should as well have remembred as the words it would plainly and clearly have appeared to your Lordships that Sir William Pennyman's Testimony was most true for the occasion was such that to have said those words had been to have spoken against that to which I intended the discourse but speaking them as I said it makes very strong for that purpose to which I directed them which was to appease the Countrey and quiet the Discontents for having been double charged with the Knight-money and therefore it was not proper by threatning them further to have provoked them My Lords you have Sir William Pennyman's Testimony that it was so and my profession who under favour will not speak an untruth to save my life I protest before God that I say I verily believe or else I will never speak it indeed and there it is they have proved it to have been said one way we another way we give the occasion of our Speech and disavow theirs and so we must leave it and howsoever these words so spoken can never be drawn as I humbly conceive as Premises to prove their Conclusions that therefore I am guilty of High Treason they have made me guilty of a foolish word and that I confess and if they please I will confess it all the day long for I have been foolish all the days of my life and I hope hereafter I shall look unto my ways that I offend not with my Tongue for if I cannot rule it abroad I will rule it within doors else I will never stirr abroad but bound it so to my own business and affairs that I trust I shall give no offence The next Article that chargeth me with words
Sure I am it is both the Practice of England and Ireland and hath alwayes and at all times been practised and used and is only for the preventing of Fraud and Deceipt in Merchants by not paying the King's Duties and Customs The 15th is Answered already I hope The 16th doth Charge upon me certain Propositions I made before I went into Ireland And in good Faith my Lords you may see how short-sighted men may be to their own Actions for I did very well believe I should never have reaped any thing from those Propositions but Thanks I am sure they were well received then when they were offered to His Majesty and the Council and I must truely Confess I never thought they should be objected against me as a Fault My Lords The Proposition was That no man should be allowed to Complain of Injustice or Oppression in Ireland unless he first addressed himself to the Deputy My Lords there was no Original Intent but only to prevent Clamours and Unjust Vexations of the King's Ministers there that after men had received Judgment of the King's Courts they might not presently come and by Clamours call over a Chief Justice or a Chancellor or President to Answer here and be at charge of five or six hundred pounds unless they acquaint the Deputy with it that they might be righted in the place and this is Charged against me as a great Crime Truly My Lords I shall Confess and Amend any thing and trust other Judgments rather than mine own but I see not how this can Charge me as intending to subvert the Laws of the Land but rather to preserve them The other concerns a Proclamation That none shall depart the Kingdom without License My Lords for that I have shewed that no man out of that Kingdom can come without License but upon very great Penalties I have shewed likewise it was the desire of their own Agents some 15 or 16 years since That there might be such a Restraint and none might come over without License I have shewed you likewise the Instructions to my Lord of Faulkland by which he was Commanded in persuance of that Desire that none should come over without his License I have shewed the express Command of His Majesty to me to have it so I have shewed you likewise the Reasons of State why it should be so to prevent that practice and Intelligence which might otherwise arise betwixt them of that Nation serving under Tir-Counell and O Neale and likewise to prevent the going over and Transplanting the Prime Nobility and Gentry to Seminaries and other such places there to be brought up and therefore in reason of State it is a Restraint and ought so to be But having these grounds of Law Warrant Practice Former Instruction and all Why this should be brought to me in particular Charge to Convince me of endeavouring the Subversion of the Laws I must submit to your Lordships My Lords There is in the latter part of this another Charge concerning the Sentencing of one Parry who was Sentenced as I conceive very Justly and I have no more to answer for in that Sentence than any of the rest having but a single Voice and that I should answer for all I confess is something hard But there is no manner of Testimony in the World in this save the Testimony of Parry himself Now if Parry the Man offended his Testimony shall be taken against the Judge I know no Man can be safe and other Testimony is not offered and therefore I trust that that will easily fall off of it self The 17th is likewise waved and is in Truth of no great Consequence one way or other and therefore I shall give no other Answer to it It was well waved and had been as well left out having no great matter in it The 18th is likewise waved but it is that which sticks very heavy upon me and wherein I find my self as much afflicted as in any one part of the Charge For my Lords here I am Charged up and down to endeavour to draw upon my self a Dependance of the Papists in both Kingdoms of Ireland and England and that I have during the time of my Government restored diverse Mass-Houses in Dublin and elsewhere that have been by Precedent Deputies taken away I am likewise Charged to have drawn to my self a Dependance of the Irish Army Eight Thousand all Papists and likewise to have miscarried my self in a Commission intrusted with me before my going into Ireland concerning Compositions for Recusants This is a very heavy and grievous Charge and hath raised a great deal of Ill Opinion against me in the World to be a Favourer and Contriver with Papists and I know not whom against the Religion I profess a Greater and Fouler Crime there cannot be against God or Man and yet this goes in Print all over the World and when it comes to the Point here is no Proof nor any part of the Charge made good And therefore since it is not made good by the Charge I humbly desire I may be vindicated in your Lordships Noble Opinions and the Opinions of all that hear me that I am in my Religion what I ought to be and that which I will Dye in and Maintain against all the World And I am so far from Contriving any thing to the hinderance of it that if God give me life I will serve it and prevent any inconvenience to it and my Religion and Duty to God is so Dear and precious to me that there is nothing in this World but I shall lay it down as Straw and Stubble under my feet and trample upon it rather then in any kind forfeit that but in the mean time I suffer and must be content My Lords The next is the 19th Article and that was for framing a New and Unusual Oath which the Scots did take in Ireland to give Pledges of their Allegiance to the King I have shewed you for that that the Oath was framed by the King 's express Command in January before the Oath was given which was I think in May. And I did then humbly conceive it lawful for me so to do being only to take from them a Pledg of their Allegiance to the King I confess I conceived such an Oath might have been lawfully Administred to the People and shewed that the same Oath was Administred here in England to those of that Nation I shewed that it was taken in Ireland voluntarily And I humbly represent to your Lordships the time when this Oath was required when the King and both the Armies were in the Field lodged not far from one another And whereas it is said it should oblige the Clergy in Ecclesastical Matters if your Lordships call to mind the very Oath it self clears that Point requiring onely a Temporal Obedience and Allegiance in a time of that Danger and Distraction given by the King 's own Command and to no other purpose And my Lords the Proofs
mentioned in the Ninth Article to be issued to the Bishop of Down and Conner whereby he gives power to him and his Officers to apprehend any of the King's Subjects that appeared not upon Process out of his Ecclesiastical Courts expresly contrary to Law and your Lordships have heard how miserably the King's Subjects were used by this Warrant as hath been proved by a Gentleman of Quality Sir James Montgomery and howsoever he pretends it was called in it was three whole years in execution before it was called in and though he pretends his Predecessors did ordinarily grant Warrants of that nature yet he proves no such thing My Lord Primate was examined and he sayes that Bishop Montgomery did tell him there was such a Warrant and one Witness more speaks of one Warrant and that is all the Witnesses produced and that but to be a Copy too Your Lordships have heard how he exercises his jurisdiction and power over particulars and that in a numerous manner now your Lordships shall find it universal and spread over the face of that Kingdom that was under his jurisdiction and that is in the tenth Article which concerns the Customs where he doth impose upon the King's Subjects a Rate and Tax against Law and enforces them to pay it or else punishes them for it which is expresly an arrogating to himself of a jurisdiction above the Law My Lords in his answer he pretends that this is rather a matter of Fraud than otherwise in truth and so it is and that a great one too But as it is a fraud a dis-service and deceit to his Majesty so it is likewise an exercise of a Tyrannical Jurisdiction over his Subjects That it is a fraud to his Majesty it plainly appears for the King lost exceedingly by it whereas before the Rent afforded the King was 11050 l. there was improved by the new Lease that my Lord of Strafford took but 1350 l. and I beseech your Lordships observe how much the King lost by it for my Lord had comprehended in his new Lease the Impost of Wine for which the King before that time received 1400 l. a year and likewise the Custom of London-derry Colerane and Knockfergus for which the King haâ— reserved 1700 l a year besides the moity of the seisures so here is 5000 l. that the King lost of the old Rent expresly and if your Lordships please observe the gain and benefit my Lord of Strafford made by it in one year he and his sharers received 39000 l. and in the last year 51000 l. and that expresly proved upon two accounts and if this be his dealings where is his service to the King in his pretence to advance the Customs It is true he says The King has five eighth parts but it was but within these two years the King had it not before And I would very gladly have heard whether the King received his part of an account of 55000 l. if he had received it I believe we should have heard of it My Lords There is something more here is a new imposition on the King's People without Law and yet I will do my Lord of Strafford no injury but I tell you how the proof stands It was a Book of Rates framed before he came to the farm for the Book of Rates was in March and the date of his Assignment was in April following and therefore my Lord saith It could not be for his benefit But my Lords all this while my Lord of Strafford was in England and in agitation for the procuring of it and they come one upon the heels of another and I beseech you observe cui bono the Book of Rates was procured within a month of the Patent but God knows whether it were not within the compass of his intentions to take the Patent and therefore whether he were not the Instrument of raising Rates it rests in your Lordships Judgment and all that hear me I am sure the benefit redounded to himself and so here is an Arbitrary Government in imposing and forcing to pay for that I desire your Lordships to take with you and he might as well have raised Nineteen shillings on a pound as nine pence or three pence by the same rule of Law The next Article in number was the Eleventh and I would be glad my Lord had not mentioned it it concerns the Pipe-staves wherein he pretends he did the King great Service and that he says was the reason of our passing over it but that was not the reason it had been a foul business if we had opened it but having enough besides we made not use of it for the substance of the proofs by multiplicity of Witnesses had been that the parties themselves that bought the Pipe-staves for Four pound odd money were fain to sell them to his Instruments for Six pounds and after to buy them again for Ten pounds else there must be no Licence to Export them but that I would not have mentioned if he had let it slip over I come to the Twelfth Article and that is concerning the Tobacco wherein he pretends the King's Service and if my memory fail me not the desire of the Parliament that he should take this into his hands for the King My Lords Therein under his favour he hath mis-recited the Evidence and spoken that he cannot justifie for he can shew no such desire of the Parliament It is true there was a desire of the Parliament that the King would be pleased to take his Customs into his hands for the advancement of his Revenue that it might go to maintain himself and he might not be abused and others live by it but to take the Tobacco into his hands he never did nor can produce a Witness to prove such their desire and therefore under favour he fixes a wrong upon the Parliament and injures your Lordships by his reciting that he neither did nor can make good for there was no such thing But if you observe the course he takes he makes Proclamation to hinder the importing of Tobacco into Ireland that if it be imported it must be sold to him at his own rate and by these means he first hinders the liberty of the Subject from doing what the Law allows him and so takes on him an Arbitrary Power And Secondly he ingrosses this commodity to himself deceiving His Majesty to whom he professeth so much fidelity for whereas there is 5000 l. Rent to the King he by the computation of Merchants receives near 14000 l. a year And because their computations are not alwayes true I do not care if I allow him 40000 l. mistaken and then he will gain near 100000 l. so that if he intends the King's benefit it is wonder he told not his Majesty of the great profit that might thereby have risen and let him partake of it as in Justice he should have done according to the Trust reposed in him but you have heard of no such matter And
beseech you call to mind how he hath attempted to deprive the Subject of all means to discover this danger by insinuating to your Lordships what a dangerous thing it were if Counsellors should be called in question for giving of Counsel for who then saith he would be a Counsellor where is your safeguard where is the King's service Is not this as much as in him lies to deprive the People of the means whereby they must make themselves happy and whereby the King must be happy that is by his having good Counsellors about him and yet he infuses that venom that the questioning of Counsellors is dangerous both to King and Peers if it should be brought into Example My Lords for many years by-past your Lordships know an evil spirit hath moved amongst us which in truth hath been made the Author and ground of all our distractions and that is necessity and danger this was the bulwark and the battery that serves to defend all exorbitant actions the ground and foundation of that great invasion of our Liberties and Estates the judgment in the Ship-money and the ground of the Counsel given of late to do any thing and to perswade the King That he was absolved from all Rules of Government and yet your Lordships have observed in the course of his Defence how often he hath raised this spirit that God be thanked hath been laid to the great Comfort of King and Kingdom by your Lordships and all the Commons in Parliament And when he stands under this question and goes about to justify his exorbitant actions how often hath he created this Idol again and therefore I am afraid he discovers too much his own heart in it My Lords I may not omit some other passages in his Defence How he hath cast Scandals upon three Nations in this place that is in his first day of Defence when the Irish Remonstrance made by all the Commons of Ireland was produced by the Commons of England he expressed in a passion that things were carried against him by Faction and Correspondence and if he had time he would make it appear with a strong Conspiracy Here is a scandal cast upon the Parliament of Ireland with a reflection on the Commons of England howsoever it is true your Lordships may remember the recantation he made that day which I will not omit desiring not to lay any thing to his charge but what is true but it is the reflection of a scandal that I cannot omit to put your Lordships in mind of and the rather because this Remonstrance presented from the Parliament of Ireland did bear date before my Lord of Strafford was charged here which is very remarkable viz. the 7th of November and therefore though he pretends a correspondence certainly there could be none then for he is not charged here till the Tenth And the same day justifying a Sentence in the Castle-Chamber your Lordships remember he affirmed that unless a strict hand were kept upon the Nation there they would find it hard to prevent Perjury one of the most crying Sins in Ireland Now to lay an aspersion upon the Subjects of Ireland being under the Government of the same King with us how fit this is to be done by a man in that condition that my Lord of Strafford is I refer to your consideration Another passage I remember whereby in his Defence he fell upon that Nation in answer of which I may not omit to do the service I owe to the Commons for whom I am trusted and that is that talking of an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government in reference to some Orders of the Commons-House in Ireland he used words to this purpose You talk of an Arbitrary Government look upon these Orders here is an Arbitrary Government and yet when he produced the Orders they appeared to have so much justice and discretion in them that he can lay nothing to the charge of them though in a passion he is not backward to asperse them My Lords If this Lyon to use his own language now that he is chained and muzled under the restraint and question of High Treason will here take the boldness to vent this Language and express this Malignity How would he do if he were unchained How would he devour How would he destroy c. My Lords Something concerns your Lordships your Lordships remember that he was not backward in his own answer to fix a Charge of High Treason upon the Lords of the Great Council and howsoever he hath affirmed this day I must open it again That the Charge of the Seven and twentieth Article he fixes in his Answer to be by consent of the Lords of the Great Council though he hath since recanted it and yet you have heard him alledge That he will stand and fall by the truth of his answer My Lords I am now at an end You have my Lord of Strafford here questioned for High Treason for going about to Subvert the Fundamental Laws of both Kingdoms in defence whereof your Noble Ancestors spent their Lives and Bloods My Lords You are the Sons of those Fathers and the same Blood runs in your veins that did in theirs and I am confident you will not think him fit to live that goes about to destroy that which protects your Lives and preserves your Estates and Liberties My Lords You have the Complaints of Three Kingdoms presented before you against this Great Person whereby your Lordships perceive that a great storm of Distemper and Distraction hath been raised that threatens the Ruin and Destruction of them all The Commons with much Pain and Diligence and to their great Expence have discovered the Jonas that is the Occasion of this Tempest they have still and will discharge their Consciences as much as in them lies to cast him out of the Ship and allay the Tempest They Expect and are Confident your Lordships will perfect the Work and that with Expedition lest with the Continuance of the Storm both Ship and Tackling and Mariners both Church and Commonwealth be Ruined and Destroyed It was certainly as appeared by the sequel a great mistake in making this Comparison and when by Tumults they threw this Noble Jonas overboard they threw one of the ablest Pilots the Storm being so far from ceasing that from that Unhappy Moment it was changed to a Tempest which did actually Ruin and Destroy both the Ship Tackling and Mariners the Church and Commonwealth When Mr. Glyn had concluded his Replication Mr. Pym stood up and with all the power of studied and malitious Rhetorique endeavoured to aggravate the Earl of Strafford's guilt in a set Oration which he would have made the Audience believe was the Extempore product of his Parts and Abilities as an immediate Reply to the Earl's Defence but it was his Misfortune which gave occasion to some of the Noble Audience to smile to fall into a great Disorder and Confusion insomuch that by pulling out his Paper to recollect
Necessity therefore to be used being lawful L. L. Ireland Commission of Array to be put in Execution They are to bring them to the Borders In reason of State you have power when they are there to use them at the King's Pay if any of the Lords can shew a better let them do it Town full of Nobility who will talk of it Obser he will make them smart for it Thus did Ambition and private Revenge disguise themselves under the popular pretence of publique Justice and tenderness for the safety of the Common-wealth The truth is Power and Greatness do always render the Great Ministers of State Criminals to Malice and Envy and of this I will give two remarkable Instances out of the above mentioned Memoirs of the Earl of Manchester When saith he The reason why the Marquess Hamilton and the Lord Cottington escaped the fury of the Faction strickt Scrutiny was made into the Councils and Actions of those who were in greatest Power and Credit with the King divers of the Privy-Council most of the Judges came under the Debate of a Capital or Criminal Impeachment and the very Order of Episcopacy with all its Hierarchy incurred the Odium of Superstitious Pride and Oppression But they who were looked upon as the principal Instruments of those Mischiefs which threatned the Ruine of the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland were the Archbishop of Canterbury the Earl of Strafford the Marquiss Hamilton and the Lord Cottington these were of the Juncto where all things of consequence and privacy had been consulted and resolved and these were designed first to be questioned But the Marquiss Hamilton seeing a dark Cloud gathering over his head thought it necessary to seek a timely Shelter and upon consultation with his Friends about the most probable way for preventing of the Clamour of the Commons which might prove a fatal Vote against him he was advised to improve his Interest in the Commissioners of Scotland for he had personally obliged some of them and the rest could not but acknowledge that he had Expressed a great care of his Nations happiness in all those imployments wherein he had been trusted by his Majesty for though he often shewed a great Aversion and activeness against them in their Cause and Quarrel yet in all their Extremities they found him a Friend intending their good He therefore pressed them to intercede for him which they did with earnest solicitations They likewise gave such Engagements for his future Compliance with the Parliaments Designs as he was not only Exempt from all fear of Accusation but he became a Confident in all their private Designs against others and employed his Credit with the King for the obtaining many and great concessions The Lord Cottington could not hope for so powerful an intercession neither durst he rely on his Innocency as Parliament-proof therefore he had recourse to that prudent if not subtle way by stripping himself of his Skin to save his life He knew the Mastership of the Wards was a place of that value and power as probably it might stop the Mouths of his greedy Enemies or else open the hearts of some towards him in a way of Protection and Friendship He therefore declared to the King his condition and propounded the making the Lord Viscount Say and Seal to be his Successor This proved a very successful policy for as soon as this was made known to those who were concerned in their hopes of his place all Criminal Aspersions were laid aside and he gained the advantage of a retired and quiet being Thus far the said Earl in his Memoirs who was no Stranger to the most private transactions of those persons and times The Fall of this lofty Cedar gave not only a general consternation to all the Kings Friends but the greatest encouragement imaginable to the whole Faction who could not dissemble their satisfaction at their having gained so important a point but that it boyled over at the Mouths of the less cautious and more warm of the Party insomuch that I have heard one who was inwardly acquainted among them affirm that one of them as I think Mr. Pym was heard to boast of their success in words to this effect Have we saith he speaking of the Kings passing the Bill of Attainder against the Earl of Strafford got him to part with Strafford then he can deny us nothing And certainly nothing could be of greater disadvantage to his Majesties Affairs then this sacrificing a Great Court Favourite to their Wills rather then to Law or Justice For the whole Nation knew how dear this Great Man was to his Master and the great struglings which the King made if possible to save him and the reluctancy with which he seemed to resign him rather to necessity then reason as it made the victory appear greater so it taught all others of the Kings Friends the greatness of their danger and the impossibility of stemming so strong a Torrent as had wrackt so brave a person as the Earl of Strafford Nor did they think it any disparagement when they saw the King himself stoop to such compliances for them also to bend their Necks And doubtless as nothing can more encourage the Servants and Ministers of any Prince in circumstances and difficulties of this nature than the courage and resolution of the Prince himself so nothing can depress their Spirits comparably to the fear of seeing themselves deserted and left to the Fury and Rage of their Enemies for adhering faithfully to and vigorously prosecuting the Interests of their Master And had his Majesty made use of his Royal Prerogative and refused to Pass the Fatal Bill it could not have happened worse to him then afterwards it did but it might have proved better because they were not then in a condition to Levy a Formal War against him as afterwards they did his Majesty having a very good Army in the North to have Opposed them and had the Earl saved his a Noble and Valiant General to have been at the head of them But to return to the Parliamentary Affairs the Tumults were grown so insolent that his Majesty being sensible of the danger of them sent a Message to the Lords about them Upon which the Lords desired a Conference with the Commons the heads of which the Lord Privy-Seal delivered as follows THat he was commanded from the King to declare to both Houses at a Conference Conference about the Tumults that the People do assemble in such unusual numbers that his Majesty fears the Council and the Peace of the Kingdom may be interrupted and therefore as a King that loves Peace takes care that all Proceedings in the Parliament may be in a fair temperate and peaceable manner It being now time of Parliament his Majesty will not of himself prescribe the way but expects that both Houses upon mutual Conference will advise such a course which may best preserve the quietness of the Kingdom That their
and habit of a Priest and to read Prayers in a Church And not only so but became an Earnest Suitor to his Majesty for a Deanery viz. that of Canterbury notwithstanding his bringing in this Bill against Deans and Chapters and his bitter Invectives upon no other ground but report as he then confessed But being by the King justly denied this Preferment he again turned Apostate to his Royal Master to whom he had fled for Sanctuary indeavoured by mean submissions to reconcile himself to those whom he had called Rebels and Traytors but being by them rejected also he not long after Ended his Unfortunate Life in grief and contempt Neither was this rough procedure from the Abuses of the Function had they been real as most certainly they were false to go about utterly to Abolish the Office so well relished but that divers of those who had hitherto sailed by the Compass of the Faction began now to make a tack and stand off from those dangerous Rocks upon which they saw if they pursued that Course not only the Church but even all Religion and their own Consciences must inevitably suffer shipwrack as appears by a Speech of Sir Benjamin Rudyard's Book of Speeches pag. 103. which I find in the Book of Speeches and several others when the matter came to be debated at a Committee of the whole House Sir Benjamin Rudyard's Speech was as there I find it Printed as followeth Mr. Speaker I Do verily believe that there are many of the Clergy in our Church Sir Benjamin Rudyard's Speech about Episcopacy who do think the simplicity of the Gospel too mean a Vocation for them to serve in They must have a Specious Pompous Sumptuous Religion with additionals of Temporal Greatness Authority Negotiation Notwithstanding they all know better than I what Fathers Schoolmen Councels are against their mixing themselves in Secular Affairs This Roman Ambition will at length bring in the Roman Religion and at last a haughty Insolence even against supream Power it self if it be not Timely and Wisely prevented They have amongst them an Apothegm of their own making which is No Miter No Scepter when we know by dear experience that if the Miter be once in danger they care not to throw the Scepter after to confound the whole Kingdom for their Interest And Histories will tell us that whensoever the Clergy went High Monarchy still went Lower If they could not make the Monarch the Head of their own Faction they would be sure to make him less witness one Example for all The Popes working the Emperor out of Italy Some of ours as soon as they are Bishops adepto sine cessat Motus They will Preach no longer their Office then is to Govern But in my Opinion they Govern worse than they Preach though they Preach not at all for we see to what Pass their Government hath brought us In conformity to themselves They silence others also though Hierom in one of his Epistles saith that even a Bishop let him be of never so blameless a Life yet he doth more hurt by his Licence then he can do good by his Example Mr. Speaker It now behoves us to restrain the Bishops to the Duties of their Function as they may never moâ—â—hanker after heterogeneous extravagant Employments Not be so absolute so single and solitary in Actions of Moment as Excommunication Absolution Ordination and the like but to joyn some of the Ministry with them and further to regulate them according to the usage of Ancient Churches in the best Times that by a well-temper'd Government they may not have Power hereafter to corrupt the Church to undo the Kingdom When they are thus circumscribed and the Publick secur'd from their Eruptions then shall not I grudge them a liberal plentiful Subsistence else I am sure they can never be given to Hospitality Although the calling of the Clergy be all glorious within yet if they have not a Large Considerable outward Support they cannot be freed from Vulgar Contempt It will alwaies be fit that the flourishing of the Church should hold proportion with the flourishing of the Common-wealth wherein it is If we dwell in Houses of Cedar why should they dwell in Skins And I hope I shall never see a good Bishop left worse than a Parson without a Gleab Certainly Sir this superintendency of Eminent Men Bishops over divers Churches is the most Primitive the most spreading the most lasting Government of the Church Wherefore whilest we are earnest to take away Innovations Let us beware we bring not in the greatest Innovation that ever was in England I do very well know what very many do very fervently desire But let us well bethink our selves whether a popular Democratical Government of the Church though fit for other Places will be either sutable or acceptable to a Regal Monarchical Government of the State Every Man can say It is so common and known a Truth that suddain and great Changes both in Natural and Politick Bodies have dangerous Operations and give me leave to say that we cannot presently see to the end of such a consequence especially in so great a Kingdome as this and where Episcopacy is so wrap'd and involv'd in the Laws of it Wherefore Mr. Speaker my humble Motion is that we may punish the present Offenders reduce and preserve the Calling for better Men hereafter Let us remember with fresh thankfulness to God those glorious Martyr-Bishops who were burn'd for our Religion in the Times of Popery who by their Learning Zeal and Constancy upheld and convey'd it down to us We have some good Rishops still who do Preach every Lords-Day and are therefore worthy of double Honour they have suffered enough already in the Disease I shall be sorry we should make them suffer more in the Remedy Mr. Bagshaw reports the Case of Mr. George Walker a Factious Minister Walker the Eactious Ministers Case Reported upon which it was Resolved c. That Mr. George Walker 's Commitment from the Council Board for Preaching a Sermon Oct. 14. 1638. at St. John the Evangelists London and his detainment for the same 12 Weeks in Pecher the Messenger's hands is against Law and the Liberty of the Subject Resolved c. That the prosecution of the said Walker in the Star-Chamber for preaching the said Sermon and his Close Imprisonment thereupon for 10 Weeks in the Gatehouse and the payment of 20 l. Fees to the said Pecher is against Law and the Liberty of the Subject Resolved c. That the 5. passages marked out in the Sermon by Mr. Attorney and Sir John Banks contained no Crime nor deserved any Censure nor he any punishment for them Resolved c. That the Enforcing the said Walker to enter into the Bond of 1000 l. for Confinement to his Brother's house at Cheswick and his Imprisonment there is against Law Resolved c. That the Sequestration of the Parsonage of the said Walker by Sir John Lamb was
said That thereby he gave them leave to put Royal Manacles upon Majestie and an opportunity after having bound him to despoil him of his Crown and Life But besides if there were any weight in this Reason it must always have had the same force and strength against Ecclesiasticks in any Age or Under any Government intermedling in Secular and Civil Affairs since it could not but be as much a hinderance to those of former Ages in the Exercise of their Ministerial Function as to these But the constant Usage of all Ages Places Times and Nations both Barbarous and Civil Pagan Jew and Christian manifest that the Universal Wisdom of Mankind has been of a Contrary Opinion Religious Persons having ever had an Extraordinary Deference paid them and having always been accounted Worthy for their Abilities Wisdome Learning and Integrity to be admitted into the Councils of Princes and having constantly had a great share and interest both in the framing Laws and managing the Civil Polities and Governments of Nations And more particularly the Sacred History gives us a clear account that in the Government of the Jewish Nation formed by God himself the chief Priest was not only the Supreme Governor of that People as well in things Sacred as Civil but the inferior Priests under him were the Judges of Temporal as well as Ecclesiastical matters brought before them and the same Objection lying as naturally and forceably against them as against these cannot Excuse these Objectors from affronting the Wisdom of the Divine Legislator who Expresly Ordered it to be so and truly it is but in other Words the Objection of Corah and his Accomplices against Moses and Aaron Ye take too much upon you ye Sons of Levi. To the Second which is the Solemn promise they who Enter into Holy Orders make That they will give themselves wholly to that Vocation The clear sense of that is That they will principally apply themselves to the Duties of their Calling and not to any Secular Imployments as Husbandry Merchandizing or other Mechanical Callings so as to hinder the performance of their Duty in the Offices of their Function which as before I have shewed the Bishops by Sitting and Voting in Parliament cannot be said to do And to make this Evident I will give a clear instance in the inferior Clergy for suppose any one of them by his frugal Parsimony hath got a Sum of Mony he may lawfully bargain purchase take and keep a Temporal Estate for the future subsistence of his Family he may lawfully Lett Sett Build Lease Receive Rents for such Estate or any one descending to him by Inheritance and manage it to his best advantage without the least danger of violating or intrenching upon this promise made at his Ordination and yet all these are Secular Affairs which he may do without prejudice to his ingagement so long as still he makes the Vocation which he undertook at his receiving Holy Orders the main scope of his Life and Actions and I think none will deny I am assured no person will be able to prove the contrary but that the Bishops notwithstanding the use of their Peerage yet make the Exercise of their Episcopal Function the main and principal business of their lives And so for the Third That Canons and Councils in several Ages do forbid them to meddle in Secular Affairs It is well known that even those who made those Canons were themselves at the same time Councellors to Princes and particularly that Arch-Bishop who made the Constitutions of Westminster mentioned by Linwood upon which these People were perpetually harping was a Peer who himself sate in Parliament and of the King 's Privy Council from which it is evident that by those Canons there was no design to intrench upon the Peerage of the Bishops but to prevent the inferiour Clergy from neglecting their Duty and entring upon the more gainful and tempting employs of Secular Persons besides that those Canons since the Reformation were not binding either to Bishops or Clergy As to the Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh Reasons they are rather sly Insinuations and Calumnies then Reasons and such as having no substantial matters in them worth answering I shall therefore pass them over without any further notice then that admitting all for Truth there Objected which yet was most notoriously False yet they are but personal Crimes and therefore in Justice could only reach to those particular Bishops but not to the Function it self or the Successors of those Bishops and if personal failings had been a ground to disable the Members of Parliament from the Right of sitting and voting in that Assembly both for the present and future Succession 't is not impossible to be supposed but that a far greater number would for ever have been excluded out of the Commons House then these 26 Bishops out of the House of Peers And for the Eighth which is partly made up of Calumny and partly of the Example of Scotland in abolishing Episcopacy it is certainly the worst way of Reasoning in the World to argue a facto ad jus And the way of Tumults Treason and actual levying War against their undoubted Lawful Sovereign by which they got Episcopacy abolished were such methods as certainly no sober Christians can think justifiable either before God or Man and therefore no perswasive Reasons in their own Nature to do the same in England The Ninth and Last Reason is of the same Leaven with the former as if the promotion of those Reverend Prelates to those high Offices and Honours must of necessity blow them up with the vain Tumor of Pride The truth is the Covetousness of some of the Laity who greedily longed to devour the Revenue of the Church and the Pride and Envy of the Factious Presbyterian and other dissenting Ministers and not the Exaltation of the Bishops were the true Reasons of their discontent and of all the disquiets and great disorders which ensued this troublesome and restless Temper of the Non-conforming Ministers and of all the dreadful Revolutions which happened in these miserable Kingdoms to the utter Ruine and Overthrow both of Church and State and to the Eternal infamy of these Pretenders to Reformation and the True Protestant Religion That which seems to have the most force and weight and is therefore reserved to the last is taking away the Votes of the Abbots in the time of King Henry the Eighth upon the Dissolution of those Religious Houses To which notwithstanding the great strength it seems to have that for the same Reason the Bishops might also be removed from the Peerage of England it is easily answered That though some Abbots were Barons in Parliament and part of the Lords Spiritual yet the taking away their Voees did no more destroy the third Estate in Parliament then the Attainders of divers of the Nobility and Temporal Lords and thereby taking away their Votes did abolish the whole Order of the Peerage another of the Three Estates
et Successores Eorum usque ad nos qui nihil tale docuerunt neque cognoverunt quale ab his deliratur Iren. advers haeres Lib. 3. Cap. 3. We are able to number those who by the Apostles were Ordained Bishops in the Churches and their Successors unto our days c. Tertullian in his Book de Praescrip advers haeret Cap. 32. p. 118. Sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia Polycarpum ab Johanne conlocatum refert sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum edit perinde utique et Caeterae exhibent quos ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constitutos Apostolici seminis traduces habent As the Church of Smyrna had Polycarpus placed there by John and the Church at Rome Clement Ordained by Peter so the rest of the Churches did also shew what Bishops they had received by the appointment of the Apostles to propagate the Apostolical Seed Thus far the Reverend Primate From whence it is as clear as the Brightest day that ever enlightned the World That Episcopacy is a Government Instituted in the Church by Apostolical Command and how that should be Unlawful or Anti-Christian without charging the Holy Apostles the Pillars and Foundations of the Church with the horrible Guilt of setting up Antichrist and his Kingdom I think is impossible to be avoided And indeed so Great so Universal and so Powerful is the Truth in this particular that even the greatest Propugnators of Presbyterian Government and Parity have been forced to confess it Petrus Molinaeus in his Book de Munere Pastorali purposely written to defend the Presbyterian Government acknowledges That presently after the Apostles time or even in their time as Ecclesiastical History witnesseth it was Ordained That in every City one of the Presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have preheminence over his Colleagues to avoid Confusion which frequently ariseth from Equality and that truly this Form of Government all Churches every where received And Theodore Beza in Tractatu de triplici Episcopatus genere which he saith was of three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical attributing to the second which he calls Humane but as before is proved plainly is Apostolical at least not only a priority of Order but a superiority of Power and Authority over other Presbyters yet bounded by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny yet is forced to acknowledg That of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops in Ignatius and other Antient Writers And to any person that will deliberately and without prejudice debate the matter with himself it will appear either that the very Apostles were of the Confederacy to set up Antichristian Government over the whole World and where ever they founded Churches and Converted Pagans to bring them into Spiritual Sodom and Egypt and Antichristian bondage Or that the Government is Innocent Lawful and agreeable to the Will of God which must of Necessity be best known to those Miraculously inspired Men upon whom the Cloven Tongues of fire descended which were to lead them into all Truth and whether this will not bring in Question the truth of the Promise and of Him who made it and by Consequence such a Chain of Atheism and Impieties as are not fit to be named among Christians I leave to all men to consider and Judge Besides it is perfectly impossible to considering Men and thinking Minds to apprehend that for so many Hundred Years as from the Apostles Age till of late among all the Churches of Christians in the World and among all the Presbyteries that in all those Ages have yielded subjection and been in subordination to this Government of Bishops there should be none found whom either Conscience of Duty the Natural Love of Liberty or that Aversion which all Mankind have to Pride and the Usurpations of others over them should not once prevail with them to oppose this General Defection and Apostacy and Invasion of the Kingdom of Christ and Liberty of Christians The Ingenuous will I hope Excuse this Excursion which though it may appear out of my Road is not out of my Profession nor I hope of any Disadvantage to the Reader Long-winded Mr. Thomas also took the Cudgels in this Quarrel against Church-Government and shot his Bolt as follows I Have heretofore delivered the Reasons that induced me to yield my several Votes Mr. William Thomas his Speech against Deans and Chapters June 11. 1641. touching the Corruption and unsoundness of the present Episcopacy and Church Government so for the unlawfulness of their intermedling in Secular affairs and using Civil Power as also the harm and noxiousness of their Sitting as Members in the Lords House and Judges in that most Honourable and High Court Now I crave leave to do the like in shewing the Reasons of my Vote concerning Deans and their Office I say that my Opinion then was and now is that as the Office is unnecessary themselves useless so the substance of the one and continuance of the other needless nay rather as I will declare most hurtful therefore may easily be spared nay rather ought to be abolished my reasons are these that the Office of Deans doth neither tend or conduce as some have alledged to the honour of God the propagation of Piety the advancement of Learning or benefit of the Common-weal but è contra that they occasion the dishonour and disservice of God the hinderance if not destruction of Piety the suppression and discouragement of Learning and Learned Men and the detriment and prejudice of Church and Common-weal this I conceive I shall make most apparent if time and your patience will permit But first I humbly crave leave and I think it will not be impertinent to declare what Deans were Originally in their first Birth Secondly what in their encrease and further growth and Lastly their present condition being at their full and as I think their final period As to their Original it is not to be denyed but themselves and Office are of great Antiquity Saint Augustine declaring both but I do not say that it is an ancient Office in the Church but what Officers Deans then were be pleased to hear from Saint Augustin's own delivery in his Book de Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae if that Book as also that of Monachorum be his which Erasmus and others have doubted The Monks saith he for their more retiredness and better contemplation appointed Officers which they called Decanos the Office of them and why they were so called he delivereth in these words as near as I remember Opus autem tradunt illis quos Decanos vocant eo quod sunt denis praepositi ut neminem illorum cura sui corporis tangat neque in cibo neque in vestimento neque si quid aliud vel quotidiana necessitate vel mutata ut assolet valetudine hi autem Decani magna sollicitudine omnia disponentes presto facientes quicquid illa vita propter imbecillitatem
released from their Imprisonment in the Tower but nothing was done upon it The Earl of Northumberland sent a Message to the Commons to let them know he had received a Letter from his Brother Mr. Henry Percy and that if they would send some of their House they should have an account of it Whereupon Mr. Hollis and some others were sent to his Lordship The Letter was in these words WHat with my own innocency Mr. Henry Percy 's Letter to the Earl of Northumberlan concernin the business of the Army and the violence I hear is against me I find my self much distracted I will not ask your Counsel because it may bring prejudice upon you but I will with all faithfulness and truth tell you what my part hath been that at least it may be cleared by you whatsoever becomes of me When there was 50000 l. designed by the Parliament for the English Army there was as I take it a sudden demand by the Scots at the same time of 25000 Pounds of which there was 15000 l. ready this they pressed with much necessity as the Parliament after an order made did think it fit for them to reduct 10000 l. out of the 50000 l. formerly granted upon which the Souldiers in our House were much Scandalized amongst which I was one and sitting by Wilmot and Ashburnham Wilmot stood up and told them if that the Scots would procure Money he doubted not but the Officers of the English Army might easily do the like but the first order was reversed notwithstanding and 10000 l. given to the Scots this was the cause of many discourses of dislike amongst us and came to this purpose that they were disobliged by the Parliament and not by the King this being said often to one another we did resolve that Wilmot Ashburnham Pollard Oneale and my self to make some expressions of serving the King in all things he would command us that were Honourable for him and us being likewise agreeing to the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom that so far we would Live and Die with him this was agreed upon with us not having any Communication with others that I am coupled now withal and further by their joynt consent I was to tell his Majesty thus much from them but withal I was to order the matter so as the King might apprehend this as a great Service done unto him at this time when his Affairs were in so ill a condition they were most confident That they would engage the whole Army thus far but farther they would undertake nothing because they would neither infringe the Liberties of the Subjects nor destroy the Laws to which I and every one consented and having their Sense I drew the Heads up in a Paper to the which they all approved when I read it and then we did by an Oath promise one another to be constant and secret in all this and did all of us take that Oath together then I said Well Sirs I must now be informed what your particular desires are that so I may be the better able to serve you which they were pleased to do and so I did very faithfully serve them therein as far as I could this is the truth and all the truth upon my Soul In particular discourses after that we did fall upon the Petitioning to the King and Parliament for Moneys there being so great Arrears due to us and so much delays made in the procuring of them but that was never done 1. Concerning the Bishops Functions and Votes 2. The not Disbanding of the Irish Army until the Scots were Disbanded too 3. The endeavouring to settle his Majesties Revenue to that proportion as formerly And it was resolved by us all if the King should require our assistance in those things that as far as we could we might contribute thereunto without breaking the Laws of the Kingdom And in case the King should be denyed those things being put to them we would not fly from him all these persons did act and concur in this as well as I this being all imparted to the King by me from them I perceived he had been treated with by others concerning some things of our Army which agreed not with what was purposed by me but inclined a way more sharp and high not having limits either of Honour or Law I told the King he might be pleased to consider with himself which way it was fit for him to hearken unto for us we were resolved not to depart from our grounds we should not be displeased whosoever they were but the particular of the designs or the persons we desired not to know though it was no hard matter to guess at them In the end I believe the danger of the one the justice of the other made the King tell me he would leave all thoughts of other propositions but ours as things not practiceable but desired notwithstanding that Goring and Jermin who were acquainted with the other proceedings should be admitted amongst us I told him I thought the other Gentry would never consent to it but I would propose it which I did and we were all much against it but the King did press it so much as at the last it was consented unto and Goring and Jermin came to my Chamber there I was appointed to tell them after they had sworn to secrecy what we had proposed which I did But before I go into the debate of the way I must tell you Jermin and Goring were very earnest Suckling should be admitted which we did all decline and were desired by all our men to be resolute in it which I was and gave many reasons Whereupon Master Goring made answer he was engaged with Suckling his being employed in the Army but for his meeting with us they were contented to pass it by Then we took up again the ways which were proposed which took great debate and theirs differed from ours in violence and height which we all protested against and parted disagreeing totally yet remitted it to be spoken of by me and Jermin to the King which we both did And the King constant to his former resolutions told him these ways were all vain and foolish and would think of them no more I omit one thing of Mr. Goring he desired to know how the Chief Commanders were to be disposed of for if he had not a condition worthy of him he would not go along with us we made answer that no body thought of that we intended if we were sent down to go all in the same capacity we were in he did not like that by any means and by that did work so with Master Chidley that there was a Letter sent by some of the Commanders to make him Lieutenant General and when he had ordered this matter at London and Master Chidley had his instructions then did he go to Portsmouth pretending to be absent when this was aworking we all desired my Lords of Essex and Holland that if
Vote for them Secondly Temporal Barons have not always been tried by their Peers for 28. H. 6. William de la Poole Duke of Suffolk waved being tried by his Peers and submitted to the Kings mercy upon which the Lords Temporal and Spiritual entred a Protestation that this should not be or turn to the prejudice of them their Heirs nor Successors in time coming but that they might enjoy their freedom in case of their Peerages as largely as their Ancestors and Predecessors had done Thomas Lord Berkley being Arraigned for the Deâ—th of King E. Rot. Par. 4. E. 3. 2 before the Parliament put himself upon his Countrey and the Jury brought him in not Guilty Thus far the Learned Author from whom for the Readers ease and satisfaction in this important particular I have made these short Collections and refer the more Curious to the Book it self I should have given the Reader an account before of the great Complaints of the City against Protections Thursday October 28. but here I present him with the Report which Mr. Reynolds made in the House of Commons upon that Subject which was That the City of London did heretofore present a Petition in the Name of the whole City Report in the House of Commons concerning the Complaint of the City about Protections c. complaining of Protections and Priviledges claimed by Members of both Houses and by the Kings and Queens Servants and having no Redress by their Petition they called a Common Councel and upon a long Debate among themselves they did agree unanimously * This deserves to be taken Notice of for by this it is Easy to conjecture the Grievances of the Nation were aggravated far more then in truth they deserved That this Grievance was greater and more prejudicial to the City and the whole Kingdom than that of Salt Soap Leather and Ship-Money Thereupon they did agree to Address themselves by way of a second Petition to this House and that Petition was referred to a Committee to Regulate Protections this was done 6 July last and during the Sitting of that Committee they attended there two or three times and presented a Book in Folio of the Members of this House that have granted Protections as also the Names of those of the Kings Queens and Princes Servants that were Protected Upon all which they grounded their Complaint which Complaint was there presented in Writing And it was the Opinion of the Committee That it should be read in the House at this time of the Report being Reasons tendred by the Committee appointed by the Common-Councel of the City of London against Protections Priviledges and priviledged Places c. Upon the Reasons mentioned in the Paper and upon other Considerations and after a long Debate and being a tender point to trench upon the Priviledges of Parliament they proceeded unto these two Votes which they commanded me to Report 1. That all the Members of this House should be pleased during the pleasure of this House to wave all Protections for their Menial Servants or others 2. That during the Pleasure of this House all the Lands Estates and Goods of every Member of this House should be Lyable to the Payment of just Debts But for all the Complaints of the City and the greatness of the Grievance which Exceeded all the Monopolies of Salt Soap Leather and Ship-Money put together this was a point so necessarily tender that they made very slow steps toward the Redressing of it or joyning with Mr. Reynolds and his Committee in their Votes And nothing further was at present done in it more than barely to give the Complaint a hearing Had the King Queen and Prince only been concerned in Protections it had immediately been Voted Illegal Unjust against the Liberty of the Subject c. but it too nearly concerned some of them to comply with the Votes of the Committee for if they had particularly I instance in the late infamous Usurper Oliver Cromwell instead of Sitting in the Commons House they were in danger to take up their Lodgings in a Common Prison For had hâ— and many others in the House made all their Lands Estates and Goods lyable to the payment of their just debts they would have been quickly found Bankrupts in Estate then as much as they were afterwards in Honesty and Reputation and unless the Charity of the Faction who obtruded them upon the People for Representatives had maintained them out of the Common Stock they must have wanted Bread as well as they who set them up would have wanted Instruments to carry on their Blessed Work of Reformation which in reality was by many of these hungry and broken Fortunes only to Establish their own out of the Ruins of the Church And therefore to cut off all further Trouble on that side Order to Enter only upon Publick business by letting this Affair and Complaint of the City sleep sine die It was the 28 of October Ordered That in regard of the Weighty and Important Matters in agitation in the House this House will not enter upon any private Matters but into Publick Business only till further Order and this Order to be Printed and Published that so all persons may take Notice of it and regulate themselves accordingly And the truth is they were now deep upon Consultation of the Fatal Point which Ushered in the Rebellion and not only this but many others in former Ages Committee to prepare Heads for a Petition to the King against Evil Councellors c. for a Committee was appointed to prepare Heads out of the whole Debate that has been this day for a Petition to be preferred to his Majesty To prevent the Mischiefs that may happen to the Common-Wealth by the Choice and Imployment of Evil Councellors Ambassadors Judges Officers and other Ministers of State and they are to meet this Afternoon at 4. of the Clock in the Exchequer Chamber and have Power to send for Parties Witnesses Papers and Records and any thing else that may conduce to the Service This day the Certificate of the Two Chief Justices in the Case of Cook and Blackston Friday October 29. referred to them by Order of the House of Lords was Read viz. May it please your Lordships ACcording to your Lordships Order of the 9th of September last touching the business between John Cook Clerk Plaintiff A Case about Superinduction to a Rectory before the Lords and Benjamin Blackston Defendant We have heard the Parties and their Councel on both sides And we find that the said John Cook was Presented Instituted and Inducted into the Rectory of West Thorney in Sussex after the Death of Godfrey Blackston former Incumbent there who died in the Month of January 1637. And that Mr. Blackston procured a Super-institution to this Church and by colour thereof hath gotten the Possession from Mr. Cook We are of Opinion That the Super-institution of Mr. Blackston is void and that Mr. Cook ought
part ought to give Denomination to the Whole and that in that great Defection the Protestant Nobility Gentry and Commonalty and even some of the Ancient Native Irish Nobility to their Immortal Glory persevered in their constant Loyalty and Fidelity to their Lawful Soveraign and did not amidst so many Hazards and Hardships Difficulties and the most pressing Dangers relinquish the gasping Interests of their Royal but Unfortunate Master till after they saw both Him and All their Hopes notwithstanding their most Vigorous and Generous Attempts and Endeavours Breathless and Deplorate and that nothing less than a Miracle of Providence was capable of giving them a Resurrection and even then when they submitted their Necks to the Iron Yoke of the prevailing Usurpers who had Murthered and Dethroned the Father and Banished his Son and Successor our now Gracious Soveraign it was not without a Wise Prospect which the Illustrious Prince James then Lord Marquiss now Duke of Ormond and by that Noble Title as a mark of his Majesties Favour and for his Extraordinary Merits Conduct and Sufferings created a Peer of the Realm of England even then had that it might be to his Majesties Advantage and that reserving themselves to a better Fortune they might upon any Turn of Affairs be in a Capacity to Exert that Loyalty which under all their Pressures lay still warm in their Dutiful Hearts and Willing Inclinations And this I find justified by the Lord Brohall late Earl of Orrery in a small Treatise written in answer to a Printed Letter of P. W's where his Lordship to shew how much the Protestants Exceeded the Papists in Loyalty and Duty to the King hath this Remarkable Passage IN the Year 1650 The Earl of Orrery's Answer to P. W. printed at Dublin 1662. p. 27. saith he speaking of his Grace the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he permitted all those worthy Protestants which till then had served under him to come off to the rest of the Protestants though then headed by Ireton Esteeming them Safer with that Real Regicide so accompanied than with those pretended Anti-Regicides the Papists so Principled And adds he if so Faithful and Wise a Servant to His Majesty as the L. Lieutenant had had any Hopes that the Irish Papists would ever have returned to their Loyalty doubtless he would never have sent away from them so many Powerful Helpers of it and Friends unto it and if he had not had more than Hopes that the English Protestants would return to their Obedience as soon as they had Power The Wisdome of his Grace's foresight has been happily Justified in the Result For all the Protestants which then came off were Eminently Instrumental and Concurring in the Duty of accomplishing that happy Event speaking of his Majesties Restauration I dare as truly as confidently say That most of the Protestants of Ireland only served under the Vsurpers but to bring the Irish Papists to those Terms which without the force of English Swords they would never have been brought to it being too Evident that nothing could bind them but Steel and Iron So far his Lordship But still I am to inform the Reader That the name Protestant whether his Lordship intended that limitation or no I know not and this fair Character ought to be under the restriction of being only applied to those Loyal Protestants who firmly adhered with his Grace the Duke of Ormond to their Duty and Allegiance to his Late Majesty for there were another sort of People who glory much in the Title of Protestants the Covenanting Presbyterians and Schismaticks who were all along as bitter Enemies to his Majesty and his Interests and who by their refusing to submit to his Majesties Authority vested in the Lord Lieutenant did as considerable Mischiefs to the King's Affairs and were in reality no less Rebels than the Papists against whom they fought Nor is it only to gratifie the Curiosity of the Inquisitive that I think it necessary to give this Preliminary account of the state of the Irish Affairs some time preceding and to shew the probable Reasons that occasioned this Great Revolt and Insurrection but also to wipe off the stains which some mens Tongues and Ink have maliciously fixed upon the most Innocent Reputations in the World And indeed such is the Nature of those Corroding Vices of Envy and Detraction that the most polished and brightest Integrity is not Armor of Proof sufficient against the Rust of Time and Popular Calumnies however it is a Duty we ow to Posterity to transmit to them the clearest Accounts we can of Truth and not to suffer the Illustrious Fame of Great and Worthy Men to lie Buried under the Rubbish which prevailing Faction and the accumulated Malice of those who wrought their Ruin hath heaped upon them though to Ingenuous and unprejudiced Persons the greatest Vindication that they are Capable of is the Consideration that they were Enemies who raised those Calumnies and therefore not worthy to be Credited or Regarded It was one of the Common Topiques of those wicked Miscreants the late Usurpers and Regicides who made a Trade of Slandering the Foot-Steps of the Lord 's Anointed constantly to insinuate into the Minds of the People that his late Majesty was the Occasion of the Irish Rebellion and that it was not suppressed was perpetually charged to his Score as the Reader will hereafter have frequent Opportunity to observe but that the direct contrary was the most evident Truth I doubt not but from many clear and undeniable Testimonies I shall be able in the following Collections to Evince even beyond all possibility of Doubting The Irish Rebels indeed at first made his Majesties Authority a pretence for their Treasonable Rebellion as in due time we shall see and the English Rebels as greedily laid hold upon that wicked and groundless Pretension as if it had been the greatest Reality but to manifest how false both the one and the other Calumny was I will give a short hint out of the abovementioned Book of the Earl of Orrery where I find these Words In the Year 1641 speaking of the beginning of the Rebellion the Irish Papists saith he pretended His Majesties Authority the pretending whereof Earl of Orreries Answer to P. W. p. 29. having been so horrid a Sin for it was no less than to have Intituled His Sacred Majesty to all their unparalell'd Crimes nay to have made him the Author of them I think it a Duty to the memory of that Glorious MARTYR to present the Reader with what will clearly Evince their Malice to be as great as His Majesties Innocence I will therefore only cite the Preamble of their own Remonstrance delivered by the Lord Viscount Gormanston Sir Lucas Dillon and Sir Robert Talbot Baronet to His Majesties Commissioners at the Town of Trim in the County of Meath on the 17th of March 1642. In which Remonstrance of Grievances for so they called it after they had taken
9. That a Presbytery without a Bishop was in the World before it was at Geneva 10. That it is a hainous sin to be present when Prayers are read out of a Book 11. That to communicate in presence of a Prophane Person is to partake of his prophaneness 12. That Christs Kingdom hath been a Candle under a Bushel whilst Antichrist hath out-raigned him for 1600 years together Many more instances at little leisure I can gather which together have begotten a general increase of open Libertinisme secret Atheisme bold Arminianisme desperate Socinianisme stupid Anabaptisme and with these the new Chiliastes and the wilfulness of Papists strangely and strongly confirmed by these distractions Good God! look down and direct our consultations The best Issue whereof I think would be to debate the whole debate of Religion out of our Doors by putting it into a free Synod whereupon I doubt not but we should grow unanimous in all our other works So that from this Speech here is an undeniable Authority how from the Infancy of this Idol of Presbyterian Reformation Hell seemed to be broke loose and all the seducing Spirits assisted the beginnings of it And certainly the effects of it we still feel at this day God Grant our Posterity may not do so too This day the Lords entred upon the Debate of the List of Recusants Tuesday Novemb. 22. The Resolution of the Lords concerning securing of the Recusants in the List sent up to the Commons whom the Commons desired might be secured and it was upon the Debate Resolved That the Kingdom was in such Danger at this time as required the securing of the Persons of Recusants and that this shall be done by a legislative Way And a Committee was appointed to draw up a Bill immediately to that purpose In the Commons House the reforming Faction were this day tugging sorely at the Oars to bring the Declaration of the State of the Kingdom which was now ingrossed and read into safe Harbor there blew a fresh Gale from the Coast of Loyalty beyond their Expectation who were the Contrivers of it and several Alterations were made in it and pity it was that it was not after all the shaking and shaking served as the common Opinion is Cucumbers ought to be thrown away as more dangerous to the Health of the Body then their agreeableness to the Palate can compensate the House was divided four several times upon the Question but at the last all that which they called Amendments being read it was put to the Question Whether it should pass and the House dividing upon it with the Yeas were 159 with the Noes were 148. so it was carried in the Affirmative The Question was then put again Whether it should be Printed or not the House was again divided with the Noes were 124 with the Yeas 101. So that passed in the Negative the time for Printing was not yet come Upon this Occasion Sir Edward Deering made this following Speech Mr. Speaker THis Remonstrance is now in Progress upon its last Foot in this House Sir Edward Deering's Speech against the passing of the Remonstrance Nov. 22. 1641. I must give a Vote unto it one way or other my conscience bids me not to dare to be affirmative so sings the Bird in my breast and I do chearfully believe the Tune to be good This Remonstrance whensoever it passeth will make such an impression and leave such a Character behind both of his Majesty the People the Parliament and of this present Church and State as no time shall ever eat it out whilst Histories are written and men have Eyes to read them How curious then ought we to be both in the Matter and the Form Herein is a severe point of conscience to be tryed Let us be sure that every particular substance be a Truth and let us cloath that Truth with a free language yet a modest and a sober language Mr. Speaker this Remonstrance is in some kind greater and more extensive then an Act of Parliament that reacheth only to England and Wales but in this the three Kingdoms will be your immediate supervisors and the greatest part of Christendom will quickly borrow the Glass to see our deformities therein They will scan this work at leisure which I hope we shall not shut up in haste Some pieces here are of excellent use and worth but what is that to me if I may not have them without other parts that are both doubtful and dangerous The Matter Form and final end of this Remonstrance all of them do argue with me not to remonstrate thus The end to what end do we decline thus to them that look not for it Wherefore is this descension from a Parliament to a people they look not up for this so extraordinary courtesie the better sort think best of us and why are we told that the people are expectant for a Declaration I did never look for it of my Predecessors in this place nor shall do from my Successors I do hereby profess that I do not know any one Soul in all that Country for which I have the honour to serve who looks for this at your hands They do humbly and heartily thank you for many good Laws and Statutes already Enacted and pray for more That is the Language best understood of them and most welcome to them They do not expect to hear any other Stories of what you have done much less promises of what you will do Mr. Speaker When I first heard of a Remonstrance I presently imagined that like faithful Counsellors we should hold up a Glass unto his Majesty I thought to represent unto the King the wicked Counsels of pernicious Counsellors the restless turbulency of practical Papists The Treachery of false Judges The bold Innovations and some superstition brought in by some pragmatical BB and the rotten part of the Clergy I did not dream that we should remonstrate downward tell stories to the people and talk of the King as of a third person The use and end of such Remonstrance I understand not at least I hope I do not Mr. Speaker In the Form of this Remonstrance if it were presented to you from a full Committee yet I am bold to make this Quaere Whether that Committee have presented to us any heads in this Remonstrance which were not first agitated here and recommended to them from this House if they have there wanteth then for so much the Formal Power that should actuate and enlive the work so brought unto us 10. Novem. 1640. as may be well observed by perusing the Order now above a Twelve Month old for constituting that Committee In the matter of this Remonstrance I except against several Particulars but upon the transient reading of it not having any view thereof I will gather up two instances only very obvious very easie to be observed First L. Viscount Faulkland as was also observed by a Learned Noble Lord who spake last
here is a Charge of a High Crime against all the Bishops in the Land and that above all proof that yet I have heard Your words are Idolatry introduced by command of the B B. What Plain Flat Formal Idolatry name the Species of this Idolatry that is introduced by the Bishops that is for indefinite propositions are aequipollent to universal by all the Bishops and by a command of theirs Certainly Sir Idolatry in the practice of it is a very visible sin and the Command of the Bishops was either legible or audible Who hath read this Command who hath heard this Command who hath seen this all Commanded Idolatry and can assign wherein it is Some superstition in Doctrines and in Practices by some Bishops this is not the question but the odious Apostacy of Idolatry Give me leave to say No Man in this House can Charge and Prove all the Bishops no nor half of them I dare say not any three among them perhaps and truly I think so not one among them all to have issued forth any one Command for Idolatry If any man can let him speak and convince me I love to be reformed In the mean time I desire to offer you some particulars in Barr and by way of Opposal to this Charge The Learned Pious Dr. Morton and Painful Bishop of Durham hath fought in Front against Roman Superstition and Idolatry The Bishop of Lincoln was the first of Note Dr. Williams that gave check to our Papal Mis-leaders and Altarian Innovators He stood in gap of that Inundation and was a sufferer for us The Bishop of Exeter however mistaken in the Divinity of Episcopacy hath ever had the repute both of a good Man and a good Bishop Dr. Hall He hath not only held and maintained his station but advanced also and made good Impression upon the Idolaters of Rome Mr. Speaker This hath been a very Accusative Age yet have I not heard any Superstition much less Idolatry charged much less proved upon the several Bishops of London Winchester Chester Carlisle Chichester Dr. Juxton Dr. Curle Dr. Bridgman Dr. Potter Dr. Duppar Parcite paucorum crimen diffundere in omnes Not for love unto the persons of the Bishops but for Honour to our Religion although the times of late have been somewhat darkened yet let not us make the day blacker in report then it is in truth In the last place I observe a promise in general words That Learning shall be rather advanced then discouraged Sed quid verba audio cum facta videam Great rewards do beget great endeavours and certainly Sir when the great Bason and Ewer are taken out of the Lottery you shall have few adventures for small Plate and Spoons only If any Man could cut the Moon out all into little Stars although we might still have the same Moon or as much in small pieces yet we shall want both light and influence To hold out the Golden Ball of Honour and of Profit is both policy and honesty and will be Operative upon the best natures and the most Pious Minds But Mr. Speaker if I observe aright Learning I mean Religious Learning in this Remonstrance is for one half thereof utterly unthought on And because I hear often Speech of one half but seldome mention of the other give me leave I beseech you in this Theam a little to enlarge my self if your Remonstrance once pass it will be too late I fear to enter this Plea It is I dare say the unanimous wish the concurrent sence of this whole House to go such a way as may best settle and secure an able learned and fully sufficient Ministery among us This ability this sufficiency must be of two several sorts It is one thing to be able to Preach and to fill the Pulpit well it is another ability to confute the perverse Adversaries of truth and to stand in that breach The first of these Tit. 1.9 gives you the wholsome food of sound Doctrine the other maintains it for you and defends it from such Harpies as would devour or else polute it 1 Tit. 9 10. Verse 11. Both of these are supremely necessary for us and for our Religion Both are of Divine Institution The Holy Apostle requireth both Both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First to Preach That he be able with sound Doctrine to exhort and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to convince the gainsayers For saith he there are many deceivers whose Mouths must be stopt Now Sir to my purpose these double Abilities these several sufficiencies may perhaps sometime meet together in one and the same man but seldome very seldome so seldome that you scarce can find a very few among thousands rightly qualified in both Nor is this so much infelicity of our or any times as it is generally the incapacity of Man who cannot easily raise himself up to double Excellencies Knowledge in Religion doth extend it self into so large so vast a Sphear that many for hast do cut cross the Diameter and find weight enough in half their work very few do or can travel the whole Circle round Some one in an Age perhaps may be found who as Sir Francis Drake about the Terrestrial Globe may have travelled the Celestial Orbe of Theological Learning both for controversal and for instructive Divinity The incomparable Primate of Ireland deserves first to be named Bishop Morton whom I mentioned before is another Reverend Worthy and hath Highly deserved of our Church in both capacities Jewel of Pious Memory another Bishop never to be forgotten Some few others I could name able and active both for Pulpit and the Pen. As Mr. Reading Mr. Abbot But Sir these be Rarae aves there are very few of them The Reason is evident For whil'st one Man doth chiefly intend the Pulpit Exercises he is thereby disabled for Polemick Discourses and whil'st another indulgeth to himself the faculty of his Pen he thereby renders himself the weaker for the Pulpit Some Men aiming at Eminency in both have proved but mean proficients in either For it is a Rule and a sure one Pluribus intentus minor est ad singula Now Sir such a way such a temper of Church-Government and of Church-Revenue I must wish as may best secure unto us both both for preaching to us at home and for convincing such as are abroad Let me be always sure of some Champions in our Israel such as may be ready and able to Fight the Lord's Battel against the Philistims of Rome the Socinians of the North the Arminians and Semi-Pelagians of the West and generally against Hereticks and Atheists evey where God increase the number of his Laborers within his Vineyard such as may Plentifully and Powerfully preach Faith and good Life among us But never let us want some of these Watchmen also about our Israel such as may from the Everlasting Hills so the Scriptures are called watch for us and descry the common Enemy
Instructions were read in haec verba YOV shall be careful to Express to the Commissioners of Scotland His Majesties Gracious Acceptance Instructions to the Commissioners appointed to treat with the Scots Commissioners concerning assistance for Ireland and the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for their readiness to assist this Kingdom against the Rebels of Ireland You shall receive the Answer of the Parliament and State of Scotland concerning the 5000 Men which we formerly desired might be sent from thence into Ireland and upon what Conditions of Imprest Mony for raising of them and Wages for their Entertainment or otherwise how they shall be sent Furnish'd and Transported for His Majesties Service and the assistance of this Kingdom against the Rebellious Irish And you shall by the best Ways and Means you can Expedite the Raising and Sending over of these Men. These Instructions the House agreed to but because it was conceived they were short in one particular the Lords thought fit this Aâ—dition following should be made unto them viz. You shall from time to time before you grow to any perfect agreement give an account of what is propounded in this Treaty unto His Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament and receive their Directions before you come to any binding Conclusion Which was accordingly the next day Voted in the Commons House to be added to the said Commissioners Instructions The Lord Steward delivered in a Petition from Huntingdon-shire touching Episcopacy which was in these Words To the Right Honorable The Huntingdon-shire Petition for Episcopacy c. delivered Decemb 8. 1641. the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament The Humble Petition and Remonstrance of the County of Huntingdon for the continuance of the Church-Government and Divine Service or Book of Common Prayer Sheweth THat whereas many Attempts have been practised and divers Petitions from several Counties and other Places within this Kingdom framed and Penned in a close and subtile Manner to import more then is at first descernable by any ordinary Eye or that was imparted to those who signed the same have carried about to most Places against the present Form and Frame of Church-Government and Divine Service or Common Prayer and the Hands of many Persons of ordinary Quality solicited to the same with Pretence to be presented to the Honorable Assembly in Parliament and under colour of removing some Innovations lately crept into the Church and Worship of God and reforming some Abuses in the Ecclesiastical Courts which we conceiving and fearing not so much to aim at the taking away of the said Innovations and Reformation of Abuses as tending to an absolute Innovation of Church Government and Subversion of that Order and Form of Divine Service which hath happily continued among us ever since the Reformation of Religion out of a tender and zealous regard hereunto We have thought it our Duty not only to disavow all such Petitions but also to manifest our Publick Affections and Desires to continue the Form of Divine Service and Common Prayers and the present Government of the Church as the same have been continued ever since the first Reformation and stand so established by the Laws and Statutes of this Kingdom For when We consider That the Form of Divine Service expressed and contained in the Book of Common Prayer was with great Care Piety and Sincerity revised and reduced from all former Corruptions and Romish Superstitions by those holy and selected Instruments of the Reformation of Religion within this Church and was by them restored to its first purity according as it was instituted and practised in the Primitive Times standeth Confirmed Established and Injoyned by Act of Parliament and Royal Injunction and hath ever since had the general Approbation of the Godly and a publick Use and continuance within this Church And that Bishops were instituted and have had their being and continuance ever since the first Planting of Christian Religion among us and the rest of the Christian World that they were the Lights and glorious Lamps of God's Church that so many of them sowed the Seeds of Christian Religion in their Bloods which they willingly pouered out therefore that by them Christianity was rescued and preserved from utter extirpation in the fierce and most cruel Persecutions of Pagan Emperors that to them we owe the Redemption of the purity of the Gospel and the Reformation of the Religion we now profess from Romish Corruption that many of them for the propagation of that Truth became glorious Martyrs leaving unto us an holy Example and an honorable Remembrance of their Faith and Christian Fortitude that divers of them lately and yet living with us have been so great Assertors and Champions of our Religion against the common Enemy of Rome and that their Government hath been so Ancient so long Approved and so often Established by the Laws and Statutes of this Kingdom and as yet nothing in their Doctrine generally taught dissonant from the Word of God or the Articles Established by Law and that most of them are of singular Learning and Piety In this Case to call the Form of Divine Service and Common Prayers Erronious Popish Superstitious Idolatrous and call the Government by Bishops a perpetual Vassalage and intolerable Bondage and at the first Step and before the Parties concerned be heard to pray the present removal of them or the utter Dissolution and Extirpation of them their Courts and their Officers as Antichristian and Diabolical we cannot conceive to savor or relish of Piety Justice and Charity nor can we joyn with them herein but rather humbly pray a Reformation of the Abuses and Punishment of the Offenders but not the Ruin or Abolition of the Innocent Now on the contrary when We consider the Tenor of such Writings as in the Name of Petition are spread among the Common People the Contents of many printed Pamphlets swarming at London and over all Countries the Sermons preached publickly in Pulpits and other private Places and the bitter Invectives divulged and commonly spoken by many disaffected Persons all of them shewing an extreme averseness and dislike of the present Government of the Church and Divine Service or Common Prayers dangerously exciting a Disobedience to the established Form of Government and Church Service their several Intimations of the desire of the Power of the Keys and that their Congregations may be independent and may execute Ecclesiastical Censures within themselves whereby many Sects and several and contrary Opinions will soon grow and arise whereby great Divisions and horrible Factions will soon insue thereupon to the Breach of that Union which is the sacred Bond and Preservation of the Common Peace of Church and State their peremptory desires and bold assuming to themselves the Liberty of Conscience to introduce into the Church whatsoever they Affect and to refuse and oppose all things which themselves shall dislike and what they dislike must not only to themselves but also to all others be Scandalous
for the present being not very welcome These People notwithstanding the rebuke which Sir Thomas Aston had met with for a Petition of this Nature yet in the midst of these wicked Times durst be honest and publickly avow themselves so which was far more The Petition as I find it in a Collection of Petitions printed afterwards by his Majesties Command at York to let the World see that a very considerable Part of the Nation was utterly against the pretended Reformation was as follows To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty and to the Right Honorable the Lords and the Honorable the House of Commons Assembled in Parliament The Humble Petition of divers of the Nobility Justices Gentry Ministers Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the County Palatine of Chester whose Names are contained in the Schedule Annexed YOur Petitioners with all Cheerfulness and Contentation The Cheshire Petition for the Common Prayer and suppression of Schismaticks c. affying in the happy settlement of the Distractions both of Church and State by his Majesties pious Care and the prudent and religious Indeavors of this Honorable Assembly and with due Humility and Obedience submitting to the unanimous Conclusions thereof yet conceive themselves bound in Duty Humbly to represent to your mature Considerations That the present Disorders of many Turbulent and Ill-disposed Spirits are such as give not only Occasion of present discontent to your Petitioners but seem to import some ill event without early prevention The pure Seed of our Faith the Doctrine of the Reformed Protestant Religion Established by so many Acts of Parliament and so harmoniously concurring with the Confessions of all other Reformed Churches being tainted with the Tares of divers Sects and Schismes lately sprung up amongst Vs Our Pious Laudable and Ancient Form of Divine Service composed by the Holy Martyrs and worthy Instruments of Reformation Established by the prudent Sages of State your religious Predecessors honored by the Approbation of many learned Foreign Divines subscribed by the Ministry of the whole Kingdom and with such general Content received by all the Laity that scarce any Family or Person that can read but are furnished with the Books of Common Prayer in the conscionable Vse whereof many Christian Hearts have found unspeakable Joy and Comfort wherein the famous Church of England our dear Mother hath just Cause to Glory and may She long flourish in the Practise of so blessed a Liturgy * * This the Reader will see presently in a Petition by Dr. Burgess c. of this Day Yet it is now not only depraved by many of those who should teach Conformity to Established Laws but in Contempt thereof in many Places wholly neglected All these dayly practised with Confidence without Punishment to the great dejection of many sound Protestants and occasioning so great insultation and rejoycing in some Separatists * * The true temper of the Separatists and Schismaticks from their first original to this Day as they not only seem to portend but menace some great Alteration and not containing themselves within the Bounds of Civil-Government do commit many tumultuous if not Sacrilegious Violences both by Day and Night upon divers Churches Therefore your Petitioners being all very apprehensive of the dangerous Consequences of Innovation and much scandalized at the present Disorders Do all unanimously Pray That there be admitted no Innovation of Doctrine or Liturgy that Holy Publick Service being so fast rooted by a long setled continuance in this Church that in Our Opinion and Judgments it cannot be altered unless by the Advice and Consent of some National Synod without an universal Discontent and that some speedy Course be taken to suppress such Schismaticks and Separatists whose factious Spirits do evidently indanger the Peace both of Church and State And Your Petitioners shall ever Pray c. Signed by Lords Knights Justices of the Peace and Esquires 94 By Gentlemen of Quality 440 By Divines 86 By Free-holders and others in all 8936 In all 9556 And in regard their Piety and Loyalty deserves a place in the Records of time and that in these Petitions the Reader will see the Temper and Genius of these Seditious and Turbulent Sectaries and Schismaticks the very Pests of Church and State the main Occasioners Managers Promoters Contrivers Encouragers Supporters and Conductors of this most Execrable Rebellion from its first Original till its last fatal Period most accurately pointed out in the just and too modest complaints of these Petitions for the Times and Persons would not bear truth unless apparelled in the most submissive Garb and Posture I will here subjoyn Sir Thomas Ashton's Petition which was presented to the Lords and for which he received a smart rebuke and narrowly escaped a Prison which I should have done in its proper place had this Collection of Petitions then come to my hands The Petition was as follows To the High and Honorable Court of Parliament The Nobility Knights Gentry Minsters Freeholders and Inhabitants of the County Palatine of Chester whose Names are Subscribed in several Schedules hereunto Annexed Humbly Shew THat whereas divers Petitions have lately been carried about this County against the present Form of Church Government The Cheshire Petition delivered to the House of Lords by Sir Thomas Ashton and the hands of many Persons of ordinary Quality sollicited to the same with pretence to be presented to this Honourable Assembly which we conceive not so much to aim at Reformation as absolute Innovation of Government and such as must give a great advantage to the Adversaries of our Religion We held it our Duty to disavow them all and humbly pray That we incur no mis-censure if any such Clamours have without our privity assumed the Name of the County We as others are sensible of the common Grievances of the Kingdom and have just cause to rejoyce at and acknowledge with thankfulness the pious Care which is already taken for the suppressing of the Growth of Popery the better to supply able Ministers and the removing of all Innovation and we doubt not but in your great Wisdoms you will regulate the Rigor of the Ecclesiastical Courts to suit with the Temper of our Laws and the Nature of Free-men Yet when we consider That Bishops were instituted in the time of the Apostles that they were the great Lights of the Church in all the first General Councils that so many of them sowed the Seeds of Religion in their Bloods and rescued Christianity from utter Extirpation in the Primitive Heathen Persecutions That to them we ow the Redemption of the purity of the Gospel we now profess from Romish Corruption that many of them for the propagation of the Truth became such Glorious Martyrs that divers of them lately and yet living with us have been so great Assertors of our Religion against the Common Enemy of Rome and that their Government hath been so long approved so oft Established by the Common and Statute Laws of
Mr. Nathanael Fiennes Sir John Clotworthy and Mr. John Pym Members of the House of Commons were present upon a Discourse of some Plots that should be done in this Kingdom or in Scotland the Earl of Newport should say If there be such a Plot yet here are his Wife and Children insinuating the same to signifie that the Person of her Majesty and her Children should be seized upon And whereas Your Majesty upon Friday last was pleased to demand of the Earl of Newport whether his Lordship heard any Debate at Kensington about seizing upon the Queen and her Children which when his Lordship had denied with many and deep Asseverations Your Majesty replied again That he was to tell Your Majesty no more then you knew already and therefore should consider well what he should Answer and his Lordship denying it the second time Your Majesty parting from him replied you were sorry for his ill Memory seeming thereby to give Credit to that Information which Information and Report tend not only to the great scandal of the Members of both Houses of Parliament before named but express an endeavor to stir up Jealousies and work a Division between Your Majesty and the Parliament It is therefore the humble and instant desire of the Lords and Commons in this Parliament That Your Majesty will be pleased to declare who was the Reporter or Reporters of those Words pretended to be spoken at Kensington by the Earl of Newport And that Your Majesty will be pleased likewise to move her Majesty to discover who acquainted her therewith And this as Your greatest and most faithful Council they advise Your Majesty to perform the Exigency of the Affairs of both Kingdoms being such as necessarily require a sudden Remedy which cannot expect any possibility of success without a right Vnderstanding between Your Majesty and the Parliament the only way for effecting hereof is by the present discovery and removal of ill Counsellors and false Informers which to our great Grief we have by Experience found to be too frequent and active in these Dangerous Times After the Reading whereof it was Ordered That this House agrees that this Petition be presented to the King And the Lord Admiral Earl of Bath and Earl of Holland were appointed to wait on the King to know when the Select Committees of both Houses shall attend him to present the aforesaid Petition Who being returned brought Answer That His Majesty hath appointed them to attend him for this purpose to morrow in the Afternoon at One of the Clock at White-Hall The Lord Chamberlain signified to this House Message from the King to the Lords concerning Volunteers for Ireland That the King had commanded him to let the Parliament know that His Majesty will furnish 10000 English Volunteers if the House of Commons will undertake to pay them Upon a Debate this day the Reason of which the Reader will meet hereafter it was Resolved upon the Question That this Parliament is at this present a free Parliament In the Commons House Mr. Pym Reported an Order from the Committee of the Navy in these Words It is this day Ordered by the Commons House of Parliament Order of the Commons touching the Navy That the Committee for the Navy where Sir John Culpeper has the Chair shall Examine why the 55000 l. Ordered in August last by both Houses for supply of the Navy out of the last Bill of Tonnage and Poundage hath not been accordingly performed and having found out the Obstructions therein shall present the same to this House with all convenient speed together with their Opinions what is fittest to be done thereupon and they are further to Examine what Monies are likely to come in upon the present Bill of Tonnage and Poundage during the time it is granted and to report it to this House That the Ordinary and Extraordinary Charge of the Navy for the Year 1642 may be provided for out of the same It is further Ordered That in case the Mony arising out of the last Bill of Tonnage and Poundage shall not be found sufficient to discharge the abovesaid Sum of 55000 l. that then what shall be wanting thereof shall be forthwith paid to the Treasurers of the Navy out of the Monies coming in upon the present Bill of Tonnage and Poundage It is also Ordered That the Sum of 2058 l. 10 s. shall be paid out of the Monies payable by virtue of the aforesaid Bill to the Officers of the Ordnance for the Expences in their Office for the setting out of the last Summers Fleet according to the Engagement of this House It is further the Opinion of the Committee that in the Case of Sir Henry Vane junior concerning the Office of the Treasurer of the Navy That this House do declare that they will take that into Consideration when they shall consider of the passing the next Bill for the Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage This Order being read was Voted and upon the Question Assented unto It may be remembred what flourishing Speeches Mr. Speaker had formerly made to the King upon the tendring of the Bills for Tonnage and Poundage to his Majesty for the Royal Assent which yet by this Order appear to have been such meer Complements that the King was not so much as a Trustee for the Publick but the Money raised in his Name and by his Authority was to be wholly managed by their Order And Sir Henry Vane for the kindness done them in the Earl of Strafford's Case must be sure to be remembred for a beneficial Office as in truth if in any thing they acted generously and wisely it was in obliging their Friends by Rewards and discouraging their Enemies by punishments the two Methods which Govern the World and which all great Men and great Undertakers have ever by Experience found to be the certain Supporters of their Designs and Enterprizes The Tumults began now to be so horrible Insolent by the Countenance they received from the Faction of the House of Commons Wednesday Decemb. 29. and particularly from their great Patron Pym who publickly at a Conference said God forbid the House of Commons should proceed in any way to dishearten people to obtain their just desires that they not only ran by Troops down to Westminster to cry No Bishop but as they passed by White-Hall they cried They would have no Porter's Lodge but would come to speak to the King themselves without Controul and at their own Discretion The House of Lords hereupon sent for the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex to attend their Lordships Tumults who being called in and being asked Why they have not observed the King's Writ in suppressing and preventing of Tumults and Routs They Answered That the Justices of the Peace for Middlesex opened the Writ and granted out Warrants to the Constables who sent Guards to the Houses of Parliament and upon this they were Questioned by the House of Commons and the Guards were dismissed
against the will of the Subject and he doubts not but the Parliament would give What Twelve Subsidies and your Lordships very well remember Twelve were propounded but I beseech you observe the coherence of all the Parliament must be called they must be tryed if they deny there is necessity and this necessity is a Warrant for the King to proceed so that my Lord of Strafford must be judged to be either a Prophet or to have this design beforehand in his thoughts Now the Parliament being broken before answer to the Demand given he vents his Counsel in the Three and twentieth Article and how far it is proved your Lordships have heard Now comes the Bullion to be seized the Copper-money to be advised and now comes he to tell the King that the Aldermen of London must be put to Fine and Ransome and laid by the heels and no good would be done till some of them be hanged so you hear his advice I beseech your Lordships observe what success this advice took Four Aldermen were instantly committed and then the Counsel of the Three and twentieth Article is fomented First He foments the War then there is a necessity the defection of the Parliament must set the King loose from rules of Government and now see whether the occasion of the War the calling of the Parliament the dissolving of it be not adequate to what he propounded to himself namely to set up an Arbitrary Government Your Lordships remember how fresh my Lord of Bristol's memory is touching my Lord of Strafford's opinion upon the dissolution of the Parliament how he declared unto my Lord of Bristol instantly within three or four dayes after That the King was not to be mastered by the frowardness of his people or rather of some particular persons and your Lordships remember Sir George Wentworths words spoken the very day of dissolving the Parliament which may be very well applyed as a concurrent proof to his intentions of bringing the Army into England He was my Lord 's own Brother that knew much of his Counsel and his words are That the English Nation would never be well till they were conquered over again So my Lords put all together if he declared his own intentions if actions in executing this Tyrannical and Arbitrary Power if Counsels of as dangerous consequence in as high a strain as can be be not a sufficient Evidence to prove an intention and desire to subvert the Law I know not what can prove such an interpretation and now I refer it to your Lordships judgments whether here be not a good proof of the Article laid to his Charge My Lords in the Seven and Twentieth Article he is charged with levying of War upon the King's People by forcing them in Yorkshire to pay Money to prove they were so forced you have heard by two Witnesses that Sergeant-Major Yaworth by Musquetiers four together in the Town and one by one out of the Town did compel them to pay the fortnights contribution else they were to serve in person That he did this by Warrant is likewise confessed by Sir William Pennyman and whether this were an authority derived from or commanded by my Lord of Strafford that is the question and my Lords it is plainly proved that it was commanded by my Lord of Strafford for Sir William Pennyman himself being examined alledged that the Warrant was made in pursuance of the relation and direction made by my Lord of Strafford Your Lordships heard what my Lord of Strafford did say before-hand as is proved by two Witnesses Sir William Ingram and Mr. Cholmley that this Money should be paid or levyed on the Subjects Goods Then his Declaration to Sir William Pennyman in pursuance of which he made his Warrant that it was the assent of the Lords of the great Council that this Money should be levyed and taking all together whether it fixes it not upon him to be the Author and Instrument it rests in your judgments in point of Fact and so I suppose the Seven and twentieth Article rests on him and so I shall conclude the Evidence produced on the behalf of the Commons And now give me leave to put your Lordships in mind of some Evidences offered by my Lord Strafford himself in his Answer and in the passages of his Defence for his clearing and justification but tending directly to his condemnation I will enter upon some passages he mentioned to day and often before When he is charged with invading the Estates of the Peers of the Kingdom of Ireland and determining them upon Paper Petitions in an Arbitrary way your Lordships have heard him speak it before and repeat it this day That he did it out of Compassion for the more expeditious proceeding on behalf of the poor against these mighty But then my Lords I beseech you compare some other part of his Proceedings Your Lordships remember the business of the Flax which concerns the poor wholly and universally and if compassion had been the rule and direction of his Actions towards the poor surely this would have been a just cause to have commiserated them in this case but he exercised his power over them and over them wholly and over them universally and therefore it shews it is not his compassion to the poor nor respect to the rich or mighty that will any way restrain or obstruct his ways to his own Will And therefore you may see what truth there is in his answer by comparing one part of the Charge with another when the business of the Flax brought that calamity upon the King's Subjects that Thousands of them perished for lack of Bread and dyed in Ditches Secondly Your Lordships have often heard him use a Rhetorical insinuation wondring that he should be charged with words and they strained so high as to be made Treason to question his Life and Posterity though the words might be spoken unadvisedly or in discourse or by chance Your Lordships remember the Fifth Article touching his proceedings against my Lord Mountnorris where words were spoken in an ordinary discourse at dinner and slight ones God knows of no consequence at all such as another man would scarce have hearkened after and yet my Lord extends them to the taking away of my Lord Mountnorris his life gets a Sentence of Death against him and that against Law with a high hand in such a manner as I think your Lordships have not heard the like and therefore I beseech you compare one part of his Answer with another and see how ready he is to make use of any thing that may excuse himself and yet when he comes to act his power you see his exercise of it You have heard how he magnifies his Zeal for advancing the King's Benefit and Revenue and his care of his Service and would shelter and protect himself under it to justifie an exorbitant action but if your Lordships call to mind the business of the Customs for Tobacco which in truth
were the King 's right and due and a great profit was thereby advanced and he trusted to advance it The King must loose of his former Rents in the case of Custom and received a small Rent in the case of Tobacco my Lord himself in the mean time imbursing such vast summs of Money where is then the discharge of his Trust where is his care to advance the King's Rents to increase his Revenue Compare that part of his Answer with this and see what credit is to be given to his affirmation My Lords throughout the passages of his discourse he insinuates and never more than this day with the Peers of the Realm magnifying them almost to Idolatry and yet my Lords when he was in his Kingdom in Ireland and had power over them what respect shewed he then to the Peers of the Kingdom when he judged some to death trampled upon others in misery committed them to prison and seized on their Estates where then was the Peerage he now magnifies And to shew it was an insinuation for his own advantage you may remember when there was an unlawful Act to be committed that is the levying of Money in the North What regard had he then to the Peers of the Kingdom when he comes to justifie and boulster up High-Treason it self under the name and authority of the great Council where most of the Peers of the Realm then were and so by this time I know what credit your Lordships give to his words spoken when he lies under your Mercy and Power but what do I speak of the Peers of the Kingdom and his using of them My Lords he spared not his Soveraign His Majesty in His whole Defence for being charged with offences of a high nature he justifies those offences under the pretence and under the authority of His Majesty our Gracious King and Soveraign even Murther it self in the Case of Denwitt and my Lord Mountnorris Treason it self in the Fifteenth Article by a Command in Ireland and in the Seven and twentieth by a pretended authority from His Majesty in the face of His people he justifies my Lord Mountnorris his sentence by a Letter from his Majesty Denwit's Sentence by a Commission from his Majesty and he read three or four clauses to that purpose My Lords my Lord of Strafford doth very well know and if he doth not know it I have a Witness to produceagainst him which I will not examine but refer it to his own Conscience that is The Petition of Right that the King's Servants are to serve him according to Law and no otherwise he very well knew if an unlawful act be committed especially to a degree of Treason and Murder the King's Authority and Warrant produced is no justification at all So then my Lords to mention the King's name to justifie an unlawful act in that way can do him no good and his own understanding knows it may do the King harm if we had not so Gracious a King that no such thing can do harm unto But my Lords to produce the King's Warrant to justifie his actions under his Patent and Command what is it else but so far as in him lies in the face of his people to raise a cloud and exhale a vapour To interpose betwixt the King and his Subjects whereby the splendor of his Glory and Justice cannot be discovered to his people My Lords what is it else when the people make complaint against the Ministers that should execute Justice of their oppression and slavery and bondage For the Minister when he is questioned to justifie this under the King's Authority what is it I say but as much as in that Minister lies to six this offence to fasten this oppression upon the King himself to make it to be believed that the occasion of these their groans proceeded from his Sacred Majesty yet God be thanked the strength of that Sun is powerful enough to dispel these vapours and to disperse the cloud that he would have raised but in the mean time my Lord is nothing to be excused My Lords he may pretend zeal to the King's Service and affection to His Honour but give me leave not to believe it since when he is questioned by all the King's people and in the face of his people and offences laid to his charge which himself now confesses to be against Law he should justifie it under the King's authority that savours not of a good servant I will say no more My Lords he is charged with exercising a tyrannical power over the King's people and in his Defence your Lordships have often heard and I may not omit it that he shelters himself under the protection of the King's Prerogative though he be charged with Tyranny of the highest nature that may be see then how foul and malignant an aspect this hath My Lords what is it else but to endeavour as much as in him lies to infuse into the King's heart an apprehension that his Prerogative is so bottomless a Gulf so unlimited a Power as is not to be comprehended within the Rules of Law or within the bounds of Government for else why should he mention the Prerogative when he is charged to exceed the Law What is it else but as far as in him lies to make the people believe for I may not forget the words he hath used by his magnifying of the Prerogative that it hath a special stamp of Divinity on it and that the other part of the Government that God pleases to put into the King's hands had not that stamp upon it as if any thing done by one was to be justified by authority derived from Heaven but the other not These expressions your Lordships remember and I may not omit to put your Lordships in mind of them and I can expound them no otherwise than as much as in him lies to make the Subject believe and apprehend that which is the buckler and defence of his protection to be the two-edged sword of his destruction according to the Doctrine he Preached and that that which is the Sanctuary of their Liberty is the Snare and Engine of their Slavery And thus he hath cast a bone of contention as much as in him lay betwixt King and People to make the Subjects loath that glorious Flower of his Crown by fixing a jealousie in them that it may be a means of their Bondage and Slavery But there is so much Piety and Goodness in the King's Heart that I hope upon fair understanding there will be no such occasion but no thanks to the party that so much advanced the Prerogative in the case and condition he stands in to justify that which is laid to his Charge of High Treason My Lords I beseech you give me leave there is no greater safety to King and People than to have the Throne incircled with good Counsellors and no greater danger to both than to have it encompassed with wicked and dangerous ones and yet I
place of sitting and the chiefest part of the power I say the chiefest part I do not say the greatest part of power The power it was more eminent in him but it was virtually residing and domesticant in the plurality of his Assessors These Assessors were the Presbyters the Elders of the Church of whom Holy Ignatius a Father so primitive that he was Disciple to Saint John the Apostle and by some thought to be that very Child whilst he was a Child whom our blessed Saviour took and set before his Disciples whereof you read in three of the Evangelists Matth. 18.2 Mark 9.26 Luke 9.27 If Simon Zelotes were the last as some affirm This Ignatius I say in his Epistle to the Trallians doth call these Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Councellors and Co-Assessors of the Bishop Here was in this Age and yet this Father died a Bishop and a Martyr before the last Apostle went to Heaven here was a Fellowship yet such a Fellowship as destroyed not presidency and in another Epistle that to the Magnesians you have such a presidency as doth admit also of a Fellowship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Bishop being President the very Name and Office there as in the place of God and the Presbyters as a Senate of the Apostles I forbear to dilate upon this Episcopacy But I will be bold Ponere ob oculos to set him before your Eyes I will give him you even by way of demonstration Master Hide your self are now in this great Committee Mr. Speaker is in the House The Bishop of our Congregation You are in your selves but Fellow-Members of the same House with us returned hither as we also are to sit on these Benches with us until by our Election and by common suffrage you are Incathedrated then you have and it is fit and necessary that you should have a Precedency before us and a Presidency over us Notwithstanding this you are not diversified into a several distinct order from us you must not swell with that conceit you are still the same Member of the same House you were though raised to a painful and careful degree among us and above us This Bishop had as your self have here potestatem directivam but not Correctivam Correction in our House doth dwell in the General Vote You know the power you have â—s Limited and circumscribed by them who gave it you are no Dictator to prescribe us our Laws but must gather our Votes and then your pronouncing doth fix our not your single own Orders Neither you here Master Speaker in the House can Degrade any one of us from these Seats nor can you silence us in the due liberty of our Speech Truly Sir as yet advised I do heartily wish we had in every Shire of England a Bishop such and so regulated for Church Government within that Sphear as Master Speaker is bounded in and Limited by the Rules and Cancels of this House That were indeed a well tempered and a blessed Reformation whereby our times might be approximant and conformant to the Apostolical and Pure primitive Church But this I fear is magis optandum quám sperandum yet it being the cause of God who can then dispair This happiness I mean living under Episcopal Presidency not under a domineering Prelacy this is too high above our reach yet strong Prayers and Hearty endeavours may pull the Blessing down upon us In the mean time wo is our Churches portion for our Bishop President is lost and grown a Stranger to us and in his room is crept in and stept up a Lordly Prelate made proud with pomp and ease who neglecting the best part of his Office in Gods Vine-yard instead of supporting the weak and binding up the broken forrageth the Vines and drives away other Labourers The Vines indeed have both Grapes and Leaves and Religious Acts both Substance and Circumstance but the Gardener is much to blame who gives more charge to the Work-men of the Leaves then of the Fruit. This rough enforcement of late to that which is not the better part is an Episcopacy that turns all our Melody into a Threnody This makes many Poor Pious Christian Souls to Sing the Songs of Sion in a strange Land Psal 137. and 4. This Bishop will have no Assessors or if any so formally admitted and so awed as good have none no Senate no Consultation no Presbytery or common Suffrage but Elates himself up into usurped Titles and incompatible Power and sublimes it self by assuming a Soleship both in Orders and Censures Religion and Reason and Primitive Example are all loud against this Episcopacy This too elate subliming of one can not stand without a too mean demission I may say debasing of many other of the same order Nay this Bishop not content with Ecclesiastick Pride alone will swell also with ambition and Offices Secular Truly Sir you have done exceeding well to Vote away this Bishop for of this Bishop and of this alone I must understand the Vote you have passed until I be better instructed For your Vote is against the present Episcopacy and for the present you can hardly find any other Episcopacy but this an Authority how ever by some of them better exercised yet too solely entrusted to them all Away then with this Lordly domineerer who playes the Monarch perhaps the Tyrant in a Diocess of him it is of whom I read Episcopalis dignitas papalem fastum redolet This kind of Episcopacy it smels rank of the Papacy nor shall you ever be able utterly and absolutely to extirpate Popery unless you root out this Soleship of Episcopacy To conclude in short and plain English I am for abolishing of our present Episcopacy Both Diocesses and Diocesan as now they are But I am withal at the same time for Restauration of the pure Primitive Episcopal Presidency Cut off the usurped adjuncts of our present Episcopacy reduce the ancient Episcopacy such as it was in puris spiritualibus Both may be done with the same hand and I think in a shorter Bill then is offered now by way of addition Down then with our Prelatical Hierarchy or Hierarchical Prelacy such as now we have most of it consisting in Temporal adjuncts only the Diana and the Idol of Proud and Lazy Church-men This do but eâ lege on this condition that with the same hand in the same Bill we do gently raise again even from under the ruins of that Babel â—â—ch an Episcopacy such a Presidency as is venerable in its Antiquity and Purity and most behooveful for the Peace of our Christendom This is the way of Reforming and thus by yielding to the present Storm and throwing that over-board which is adventitious borrowed and undue Peace may be brought home unto our Church again the best of that building and the truth of Ancient Episcopacy may be preserved otherwise we hazard all This would be glorious for us and for our Religion and the glory thereof will
be the greater because it redounds unto the God of glory My Motion is that those Sheets last presented to you may be laid by and that we may proceed to reduce again the old Original Episcopacy If this Gentleman had thoroughly consulted the Church History he would have found both that Episcopacy was ever accounted a Distinct Order from and above Presbytery and that the most Primitive Bishops exercised the same Jurisdiction and Power in the Church even over Presbyters themselves as the present English Bishops did and for their Temporal Baronies and Lordships it was never esteemed any ways Essential to the Office but only a Concomitant Adjunct which by the Fundamental Constitution of the Government by the Kings annexing Temporal Baronies to their Spiritual Office rendred them one of the three Estates of the Realm And indeed it was this Temporal Honor and their Secular Estates Lands and Tenements which raised the envy of some and the Covetousness of others against not only the Persons but the Order it self Sir Benjamin Rudyard also spake as follows Mr. Hide WE are now upon a very great Business Sir Benjamin Rudyard's Speech concerning Bishops Deans and Chapters at a Committee of the whole House June 21. 1641. so great indeed as it requires our soundest our saddest consideration our best judgment for the present our utmost foresight for the future But Sir one thing doth exceedingly trouble me it turns me round about it makes my whole Reason vertiginous which is that so many do believe against the wisdom of all Ages that now there can be no Reformation without destruction as if every sick Body must be presently knockt in the Head as past hope of Cure Religion was first and best planted in Cities God did spread his Net where most might be caught Cities had Bishops and Presbyters were the Seminaries out of which were sent Labourers by the Bishops to propagate and cultivate the Gospel The Clergy then lived wholly upon the Freewill-Offering and Bounty of the People Afterwards when Kings and States grew to be Christians the outward settlement of the Church grew up with them They Erected Bishopricks Founded Cathedral Churches Endowed them with large Possessions Landlords built Parish Churches gleab'd them with some portion of Land for which they have still a Right of Presentation I do confess That some of our Bishops have had Ambitious Dangerous Aims and have so still that in their Government there are very great Enormities But I am not of their Opinion who believe that there is an Innate ill Quality in Episcopacy like a Specifical Property which is a Refuge not a Reason I hope there is not Original Sin in Episcopacy and though there were yet may the Calling be as well Reformed as the Person Regenerated Bishops have governed the Church for 1500 years without interruption And no man will say but that God hath saved Souls in all those times under their Government Let them be reduc'd according to the usage of Ancient Churches in the best times so restâ—â—â—â—d as they may not be able hereafter to shame the Calling I love not those that hate to be Reformed and do therefore think them worthy of the more strict the more close Reformation We have often complained That Bishops are too absolute too singular Although Cathedral Churches are now for the most part but Receptacles of Drones and Non-Residents yet some good Men may be found or placed there to be Assessors with the Bishops to assist them in Actions of moment in Causes of Importance there is maintenance already provided for them If either in Bishopricks or Cathedral Churches there be too much some may be pared off to relieve them that have too little If yet more may be spared it may be employed to the setting up of a Preaching Ministry through the whole Kingdom And untill this be done although we are Christians yet are we not a Christian State There are some places in England that are not in Christendom the people are so ignorant they live so without God in the World for which Parliaments are to answer both to God and Man Let us look to it for it lies like one of the Burdens of the Prophet Isaiah heavy and flat upon Parliaments I have often seriously considered with my self what strong concurrent Motives and Causes did meet together in that time when Abbies and Monasteries were overthrown Certainly God's hand was the greatest for he was most offended The profane Superstitions the abominable Idolatries the filthy nefandous wickedness of their Lives did stink in God's Noistrils did call down for Vengeance for Reformation A good Party of Religions Men were Zealous Instruments in that great work as likewise many Covetous Ambitious Persons gaping for fat Morsels did lustily drive it on But Mr. Hide there was a principal Parliamentary motive which did facilitate the rest for it was propounded in Parliament that the Accession of Abby-Lands would so inrich the Crown as the people should never be put to pay Subsidies again This was plausible both to Court and Countrey Besides with the Over-plus there should be maintained a standing Army of Forty Thousand Men for a perpetual defence of the Kingdom This was Safety at home Terrour and Honour abroad The Parliament would make all sure Gods part Religion by his blessing hath been reasonably well preserved but it hath been saved as by fire for the rest is consumed and vanished the people have payed Subsidies ever since and we are now in no very good Case to pay an Army Let us beware Mr. Hide that we do not look with a worldly carnal evil Eye upon Church Lands let us clear our Sight search our Hearts that we may have unmixt and sincere Ends without the least thought of saving of our own Purses Church Lands will still be fittest to maintain Church Men by a proportionable and orderly distribution We are very strict and curious to uphold our own Propriety and there is great reason for it Are the Clergy only a sort of Men who have no Propriety at all in that which is called theirs I am sure they are Englishmen they are Subjects If we pull down Bishopricks and pull down Cathedral Churches in a short time we must be forced 〈◊〉 pull Colledges too for Scholars will live and dye there as in Cells if there be not considerable Preferment to invite them abroad And the example we are making now will be an easie Temptation to the less pressing necessities of future times This is the next way to bring in Barbarism to make the Clergy an unlearned contemptible Vocation not to be desired but by the basest of the People and then where shall we find men able to convince an Adversary A Clergy-men ought to have a far greater proportion to live upon than any other Man of an equal Condition He is not bred to multiply Three-pences it becomes him not to live Mechanically and sordidly he must be given to Hospitality I do know my self a