to amuse than inform the Understanding But Elegancies in expression though I am not able to reach them my self I admire in others especially if they run in a smooth Chanel and keep that mediocrity that they overflow not the bank But while I am pleading for Mediocrity I find my self in a Labyrinth betwixt too little Pamphlets our Kings Court and his Kitchen and I know not by what Clue to avoid it They are like two extremes Scylla and Charybdis therefore to pass by and not be indangered by them I will shape my Course in the middle betwixt both and Truth shall be my Gale For I protest without passion I lean to no Faction or side but set down plainly what my Conscience and Knowledg dictates to me Nor do I intend to asperse Noble Families Where is there one as that famous Orator the Lord Verulam said that like a fair Pomegronate hath not some corrupted Cornel And may not that be pickt out from the rest but it must taint them all And how can Truth be known but by the good savour it leaves behind For a good Name is like a precious Oyntment Never any thing of History should be left to Posterity if men may not be spoken of when they are dead And if their Actions be genuinely related there will be an intermixture of Good and Bad professedly allowed according to the good or ill Comportment of the person presented though as I said tenderly to be dealt with for Man is of no Angelical nature But it is easie to daub over the foulest Deformities and make them appear Beautiful For as Ulpian said of the Laws of his time so I say of Historical Relations Nulla veritas ita diserte ulla de re cavere potest ut malitios a calliditas locum fraudi non inveniat But this stirring of the Waters is only to make the Truth less perspicuous when time shall settle them all things will appear clearly Records and publick Actions within Memory cannot sink though the Dregs and muddy water thrown in to trouble them may But I will steer steady and avoid them both hoping to arrive at some happy Port if I can pass the Shallows of Ignorance or Rocks of Prejudice that lie in the Way The Authors PICTURE drawn by Himself AS others print their Pictures I will place My Mind in Frontispiece plain as my Face And every Line that is here drawn shall be To pencil out my Souls Physiognomy Which on a Radiant height is fixt My Brow Frowns not for these Miscarriages below Vnless I mean to limit and confine Th' Almighty Wisdom to conceits of mine Yet have no envious Eyes against the Crown Nor did I strive to pull the Mitre down Both may be good But when Heads swell men say The rest of the poor Members pine away Like Ricket-Bodies upwards over-grown Which is no wholsome Constitution The grave mild Presbyter I could admit And am no Foe to th' Independent yet For I have levell'd my intents to be Subservient unto Reason's Soveraignty And none of these State-Passions e'r shall rise Within my Brain to rule and tyrannize For by Truth 's sacred Lamp which I admire My Zeal is kindled not Fanatick fire But I 'll avoid those vapours whose swoln spight And foaming Poyson would put out this light Vain Fuellers they think who doth not know it Their light 's above't because their walk 's below it Such blazing Lights like Exhalations climb Then fall and their best matter proves but slime For where conceited Goodness finds no want Their Holiness becomes Luxuriant Now my great trouble is that I have shown Other mens faults with so many of my own And all my care shall be to shake off quite The Old Mans load for him whose burthen's light And grow to a full stature till I be Form'd like to Christ or Christ be form'd in me Such Pieces are Grav'n by a Hand Divine For which I 'l give my God this Heart of mine Contemnit linguas vita probanda malas UERA EFIGIES PRUDENTISSIMAE PRINCIPIS ELIZABETHAE ANGLIAE FRANCIAE ET HIBE REGINAE ETc ELIZABETHA REGINA Lo heare her Type who was of Late Spains foile faiths shield queene of state In briefe of women neere was seene So great a Prince so good a queene Are to be sould bi ROger Daniell at the angell in lumbard streete THE LIFE REIGN OF JAMES THE FIRST KING OF Great Britain THE various hand of Time began now to sheath the Sword of War that had been long disputing the Controversie which Religion and Policy that Princes mix together had for many years so fiercely maintained The wearing out of that old but glorious and most happy Piece of Soveraignty the late Queen bating the Spanish Violence and ending with the Irish-Rebellion and submission of Tirone as if the old Genius of iron-handed-Iron-handed-War were departed and a New one Crowned with a Palm of Peace had taken possession of the English Nation Iames the sixth King of Scotland was proclaimed King of England For though Princes that find here a Mortal Felicity love not the noise of a Successor in their life-time yet they are willing for the Peace of their people to have One when they can hear no more of it That which the Queen could not indure from others She was well pleased to express her self and bequeath in her last Will as a Legacy to this then Happy Nation He was thirty six years of Age when he came to the Crown How dangerous the passage had been from his very Infancy to his Middle Age is not only written in many Histories but the untamed and untractable Spirits of most of that Nation are a sufficient Witness and Record The wise Queen found many petty Titles but none of that Power any other Hand that should have reacht for the Crown might a caught a Cloud of Confusion and those Supporters and Props that held up her Greatness loth to submit to Equals made Scaffolds to his Triumphs In the Wane or last Quarter of the late Queen the Court Motions tended by an Oblique Aspect towards this Northern Star and some of her great Council in her Presence would glance at the King of Scots as her Successor which would make her break into Passion saying Was this imputed to Essex as a Crime and is it less in you Yea Cecil himself held his Correspondencies which he was once like to be trapt in For the Queen taking the Air upon Black-Heath by Greenwich a Post summoned her to enquire from what Quarter his business came and hearing from Scotland She staid her Coach to receive the Pacquet but the Secretary Sir Robert Cecil being in the Coach with Her fearful that some of his secret Conveyances might be discovered having an active Wit calls for a knife suddainly to open it lest put offs and delays might beget Suspition and when he came to cut it he told the Queen it looked and smelt ill-favouredly coming out of many nasty Budgets and
or lump That in the state of the Church among People of several languages and lineages there is a Communion of Saints and we are all fellow-Citizens and Naturalizants of the Heavenly Ierusalem and yet divers Ecclesiastical Laws Policies and Hierarchies for the Laws are rather Figura Republicae than Forma rather bonds of Perfection than Intireness That in Ireland Iersey Gâ—rnsey and the Isle of Man our Common Laws are not in force and yet they have the benefit of Naturalization To which it was replyed that these are only Flourishes of Rhetorick for God who is the only Disposer of all his Creatures keeps them in Order and Obedience to Him by a Law which they cannot deviate from unless he withdraws his preserving Hand from them But betwixt Man and Man or Realm and Realm there can be no such Tie or Obligation to hold an Vnity where they have various Laws and various Priviledges And for the immunities given to the Irish for some Ages past they were English Colonies sent there to plant being a great part of them Natives with us of the same blood and stock with whom we are ingrafted by Time and made as it were one Body the better to secure their obedience and hinder any League or Amity with a Foreign Nation But Scotland hath an intire Vnion with the French continued for some hundreds of years that is indissolvable and therefore incompetent yet to the freedoms of England When we have had as much experience of the Friendship of Scotland as of them we shall incline to a more intimate Vnion Besides there is an inequality in the Portunes of the two Nations and by this Commixture there may ensue advantage to them and loss to us To the latter part was answered Beatius est dare quà m accipere And Edward the First among other Commendations of War and Policy none was more celebrated than his purpose and enterprize for the Conquest of Scotland as not bending his Designs to glorious Acquests abroad but solid strength at home which if it had succeded could not but have brought in those inconveniences of the Commixture of a more opulent Kingdom with a less for it is not the yoke either of Laws or Arms that can alter the nature of the Climate or the nature of the Soil neither is it the manner of the Commixture that can alter the nature of the Commixture and therefore if it were good for us then it is good for us now and not to be prized the less because we paid not so dear for it They strive further to prove That the benefit of Naturalization is by Law to as many as have been or shall be born since the Kings coming to the Crown for there is no more than to bring the Ante-nati unto the degree of Post-nati that Men grown may be in no worse case than Children and elder Brothers in no worse condition than younger Brothers That if any object the Law is not so but that the Post-nati are Aliens as the rest it is contrary to the Reason of Law The Wisdom of the Common Laws of England is admirable in distribution of the Benefit and Perfection of the Law according to the several conditions of Persons The Degrees are four two of Aliens and two of Subjects The first Degree is of an Alien born under a King or State that is an Enemy if such an one come into the Kingdom without safe conduct it is at his peril the Law giveth him no protection neither of Body Lands nor Goods so as if he be slain there is no remedy by any appeal at the Parties sute though she were an English Woman though at the Kings sute the Case may be otherwise in regard of the offence to the Peace and Crown The second Degree is of an Alien that is born under Faith and Allegiance of a King or State that is a Friend unto such a Person the Law doth impart a greater benefit and protection concerning things personal transitory and moveable as Goods and Chattels Contracts and the like but not concerning Free-hold and Inheritance and the Reason is because he may be an Enemy though he be not for the State where he was born may enter into Hostility and therefore as the Law hath but a Transitory assurance of him so it rewards him with Transitory benefits The third Degree is of a Subject who having been an Alien is made free by Charter and Denization To such a one the Law doth impart yet a more ample benefit for it gives him a power to purchase Free-hold and Inheritance to his own use and likewise inables his Children born after his Denization to inherit But yet he cannot make Title or convey any Pedigree from any Ancestour Paramount for the Law thinks not good to make him in the same Degree with a Subject born because he was once an Alien and so might have been an Enemy and Affections cannot be so setled by any benefit as when from their Nativity they are inbred and inherent The fourth Degree and the perfect Degree is of such a Person as neither is Enemy nor can be Enemy in time to come nor would have been Enemy at any time past and therefore the Law gives unto him the full benefit of Naturalization Now if these be the true steps and paces of the Law no man can deny but whosoever is born under the Kings obedience never could in aliquo puncto temporis be an Enemy and therefore in reason of Law is Naturalized So though the Scots seem to be in Reason Naturales ipso jure yet it is not superfluous to have it done by Parliament for it will shew the World our love to them and good agreement with them Then they shewed by authority of History and Experience the Inconveniencies that may grow if this Vnion of Naturalization doth not close and bind up the Veins so as to make it one perfect Body For else it may be apt to open and break out again upon all occasions and relapse to the detriment of both Ripping up ancient Stories of the Romans and Latines and the Wars they had meerly for want of this Vnion and never were at quiet till they injoyed it Then between the Peloponnesians and the Spartans the like And from ancient Stories to the Kingdom of Arragon and Castile united in the Persons of Ferdinando and Isabella severed and divided from the rest of Spain in Priviledges and directly in this point of Naturalization or capacity of Inheritance But what came of this A Rebellion grew among them which a Royal Army with difficulty suppressed and they being made one incorporated Body with the rest of Spain perpetuated Peace to Posterity The like example was betwixt Florence and Pisa. And whatsoever Kingdoms and States have been United and that Vnion corroborated by the Bonds of Naturalization you shall never observe them afterward upon any occasion to break or sever again Whereof divers Provinces in France by time annexed to that Crown are
further witnesses So that except they proceed to this Naturalization these Realms will be in continual danger to divide and break again Next they shew the Benefits to be Security and Greatness Surety by stopping up the Postern-gates of our Enemies so that we shall not be so much a temptation to the ambition of Foreigners when their Approaches and Avenues are taken away For having so little success when they had these advantages they will have less comfort when they want them And Greatness by this Vnion must needs follow For having so many Iron-handed men in these three Kingdoms we shall not only pluck Gold from the once poor Spaniards Indian-mines but by our Arms keep in awe the whole Christian World These Arguments prest with gilded Oratory by the Solicitor and his partakers could not prevail though urged with all the power Wit could invent or Hope aim at For being new budded in Court he was one of those that smoothed his way to a full ripeness by liquâ—rish and pleasing passages which he at last attained to being made Lord Chancellor of England But such sweets though delightful at present breed rottenness in the end for he withered and came to nothing as in due time shall be expressed But the King like a great Sea being troubled when such cross-winds are boistrous sent for both Houses of Parliament to White-hall hall the last of March 1607. to calm them where betwixt a Sun-shine of fair Words and a Cloud of Anger he colours over some of the Arguments that had been used and urges others for his best advantage with a plain natural bluntness fit for Kings He tells them the Vnion he desires is of Laws and Persons such a Naturalizing as may make one Body of both Kingdoms that as there is but Vnus Rex so there may be but Vnus Grex Vna Lex His intention is not as some idly alledg to give England the labour and sweat and Scotland the fruit and sweet vainly talking of transplanting Trees out of barren ground into better and lean Cattle out of bad pasture into a more fertile soyl Can any man displant them unless they will Or is Scotland so strong to pull them out of their houses Whereas the waste grounds in Scotland would rather be planted by Swarms of People that cumber the Streets here First He desires that all Hostile Laws should cease being the King of England cannot make War with the King of Scotland Secondly That there should be Community of Commerce he being no Stranger but descended of their ancient Kings and how can he be Natural Liege-Lord to both and they Strangers to one another And shall they that be under the same Allegiance be no freer nor have no better Respect than Frenchmen and Spaniards Thirdly They all agree they are no Aliens and yet will not allow them to be Natural That he was informed by their own Iudges and Lawyers at his first access to the Crown that there was a difference between the Ante and Post-nati of each Kingdom which caused him to publish a Proclamation that the Post-nati were Naturalized by his accession but he confesses Iudges may err so may the Lawyer 's on their side Therefore he admonishes them to beware to disgrace either his Proclamations or the Iudges for so they may disgrace both their King and Laws who have power when the Parliament is ended to try them both for Lands and Lives And for some of them who with their flattering speeches would have the Ante-nati preferred alledging their merit in my service such Discourses have mel in ore fel in corde carrying an outward appearance of love to the Vnion but a contrary resolution in their hearts For the King would have them know it lies within the compass of his Prerogative to prefer whom he pleases to any Dignity Civil or Ecclesiastical But he is so far from prejudicing the English that he is willing to bind himself to reasonable Restrictions Besides it is a special Point of the Kings Prerogative to make Aliens Citizens and in any case wherein the Law is thought not to be clear Rex est Iudex for he is Lex loquens supplying the Law where it wants But this he speaks as knowing what belongs to a King not intending to press it further than may agree with their loves and stand with the conveniency of both Nations The inconveniences supposed to arise from Scotland are pretended to be 1. An evil affection in the Scots to the Vnion 2. That the Vnion is incompetible 3. That the Gain is small or none If this be so Why is there talk of an Vnion For the first They alledg the averseness of the Scots from the Preface and Body of their Act where they decare they will remain an absolute and free Monarchy and not alter the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom And yet in the beginning of this Session of Parliament the opinion was current that Scotland was greedy of this Vnion and pursued it with so much violence that they cared not for the strictness of the Conditions so they might attain the substance and end And yet they now say they are backwards which is a Contradiction for how can they both beg and deny the same thing at one and the same time And by preserving their Fundamental Laws they mean those Laws by which Confusion is avoided and their Kings Succession and Monarchy maintained To which he Declares That he is in descent three hundred years before Christ not meaning as they do their Common Law for the Scots have no Law but that which is Ius Regis And for their desire of continuing a free Monarchy he hopes they mean not he should set Garrisons over them as the Spaniards do over Sicily and Naples And then he tells them That he governs Scotland with his Pen he writes and doth more by a Clerk of the Council than others could do by the Sword And though he knows there are many seditious Persons in that Kingdom that may talk lewdly enough yet none of them ever spake dishonourably of England as they have done of Scotland For if any man speaks any thing uncomely there the Chancellor by his Authority interrupts him but here they have freedom to speak what they list and as long as they list without contradiction Then the King shews what the Laws of Scotland are 1. Those which concern Tenures Wards Liveries Signiories and Lands are drawn out of the Chancery of England brought by Iames the First who was bred up here and differ only in terms The second are Statute Laws to which he hopes they will be no Strangers The third is the Civil Law brought out of France by Iames the Fifth and serve only to supply in such Cases where the Municipal Laws are defective So that he hopes it is no hard matter to unite the People together who are in effect already subject to the same Law And whereas it is Objected that the King of Scotland hath not
a Negative Voice in Parliament but must pass the Laws agreed on by the Lords and Commons He assures them that the form of Parliament there is nothing inclined to Popularity For about twenty days before the Parliament begins Proclamation is made throughout the Kingdom that all Bills to be exhibited that Session be delivered to the Master of the Rolls by a certain day Then they are brought to the King perused and considered by him and only such as he allows are put into the Chancellors hand to be propounded that Parliament and no other And if any man speak of any other Matter than is in this Form first allowed by him the Chancellor tells him that there is no such Bill allowed by the King And when they are past for Laws he ratifies and confirms them first racing out what he doth not approve of And if this be to be called a Negative Voice in Parliament then he hath one For the Vnion betwixt the French and the Scots which makes this Vnion so incompetible he assures them it was a League only made between the Kings not the People For Scotland being solicited by England and France at one Time for a League Offensive and Defensive against each others Enemies There was a great Disputation maintained in favour of England that they being our Neighbours joyned in one Continent a strong and Powerful Nation it would be more Security to the State of Scotland to joyn in Amity with England than with France divided by the Sea where they must abide the hazard of wind and weather and other Accidents that might hinder relief But on the contrary it was alledged in the favour of France That England ever sought to conquer Scotland and therefore there would never be kept any sound Amity Whereas France lying more remote claimed no interest and therefore would be found a more constant and faithful Friend so it was concluded on their Part. But by the Tenour it was ordered to be renewed and confirmed from King to King successively by the mediation of their Ambassadors and therefore merely personal And so it was renewed in the Queen his Mothers time but not by assent in Parliament which it could not have wanted if it had been a League of the People And in the Kings Time when it came to be ratified because it appeared to be in Odium Tertii it was by him left un-renewed in consideration of his Title to the Crown MARIA IACOBI SCOTORVM REGIS FILIA SCOTORVMQVE NVNC REGINA HONORATISS DNê° THOMAS EGERTONUS BARO DE ELLESMER ANGLIAE CANCELLAriê° This urged with asseveration might have wrought much with the Parliament but that they apprehended a great inconvenience in such an Vnion where the Laws and Government are of different natures All were not Romans that were born subjects to the Roman Empire though St. Paul was born one the Centurion was a purchaser For notwithstanding all the former Arguments by the King and his Ministers the Parliament knew that it is true That if Scotland had been Conquered the only way to tie them to obedience were to let them taste the sweets of English Liberties But to let them sit Triumphing upon their own priviledges and roam about among the English Freedoms were to make them straggle too much The Scots would not lessen nor in the least derogate from the dignity of their long continued Monarchy and the English thought they had no reason to come to them to derogate from themselves The Parliament only feared the Kings Power would have such an influence upon the Iudges of the Kingdom that the Scots would be naturalized too soon they were resolved not to be accessary to it which indeed some two years after was confirmed in Calvins case of post-nati reported by the Lord Chief Justice Cook who was fit metal for any stamp Royal and adjudged by him the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere and most of the Judges of the Kingdom in the Exchequer-Chamber though many strong and valid Arguments were brought against it such Power is in the breath of Kings and such soft stuff are Judges made of that they can vary their Precedents and model them into as many shapes as they please And thus this Case stood like a Statue cloathed by the Lord Chief Justice in the vulgar Language when the rest of his Reports spoke an unknown Tongue that the Kingdom might take more particular notice that the Scots were as free in England as themselves yet it fell not out to their wishes But all that could be gotten from the Parliament was That the Laws of hostility that were anciently made betwixt England and Scotland were repealed that the old grudges which caused the Dis-union the War in the members might be taken away And in the said Act they provided That if a natural born subject of England did commit any misdemeanour in Scotland and sly into England he should be tried where he was taken and not carried into Scotland to receive his judgment there Till such time which are the very words of the Act as both Kingdoms shall be made one in Laws and Government which is the thing so much desired as that wherein the full perfection of the blessed Vnion already begun in the Kings Royal person consisteth And further they went not For they found and feared the old enmity would yet a while continue for since the Kings coming into England the loose and uncomposed Borderers that lived upon rapine and spoil seeking new benefits from new changes had broke out and committed many insolencies who though they were suppressed by the Forces of Barwick and Carlile and many of them suffered in it yet custom and habit had bred in them a natural Ferity which could only be restrained by giving freedom to the Laws that within a short time gave bound to that barbarous animosity The Laws made in Scotland to the prejudice of the English were likewise repealed there so that all passages were made smooth on both sides This Session also produced divers good Laws for the benefit of the Common-wealth But this Session brought in no money that is as the blood of the Subject which He as a wise Physician would not strain from them the ordinary way lest the sense of it should bring the more fears and faintings with it but by laying on little Burthens at first he not only inured them to bear greater but made them sweat out some of that humor insensibly though they felt it afterward when they found the weight laid upon their shoulders only as they conceived to daub other mens with bravery For the Kings Bounty was seen by the vulgar eye to overflow in many little Rivulets who knew the golden streams that out-faced the Sun came not from the Norths cold climate but were drained out of the fountains of their labor They could not endure to see their fellow Subjects grow fat by what should be their nourishment Collecting that the King had received three hundred and fifty thousand