War against the Personal commands of the King though accompanied with His presence is not a levying of War against the King but a levying War against His Laws and Authority which they have power to declare is levying of War against the King Treason cannot be committed against His Person otherwise then as He was intrusted They have power to judge whether He discharge His trust or not that if they should follow the highest precedents of other Parliaments paterns there would be no cause to complain of want of modesty or duty in them and that it belonged onely to them to Judge of the Law r 27 of May The King by His Proclamation forbids all His Subjects and Trained bands of the Kingdom to Rise March or Muster But the Parliament on the same day Commanded all Sheriffs Justices of Peace Constables within one hundred and fifty miles of York to seize and make stay of all Arms and Ammunition going thither And Declaring the said Proclamation to be void in Law s command all men to Rise Muster and March and not to Muster or March by any other Authority or Commission and the Sheriffs of all Counties the morrow after commanded with the posse Comitatus to suppresse any of the Kings Subjects that should be drawn thither by His command secure and seize upon the Magazines of the Counties protected all that were Delinquents against Him make all to be Delinquents that attended him and put out of the House of Peers nine Lords at once for obeying the Kings summons and going to Him t 3. June 1642. The King summoning the Ministery Gentry and Free-holders of the County of York declared to them the reasons of providing himself a guard and u that he had no intention to make a War and the morrow after forbad the Lord Willough by of Parham to Muster and Trayn the County of Lincoln who under colour of an Ordinance of Parliament for the Militia had begun to do it x 10 June 1642. The Parliament by a Declaration signifying That the King intended to make a War against His Parliament invited the Citizens of London and all others well affected as they pleased to miscall them within 80 miles of the City to bring money or plate into the Guild Hall London and to subscribe for Men Horses and Arms to maintain the Protestant Religion the Kings Person and Authority free course of Justice Laws of the Land and priviledges of Parliament and the morrow after send 19. propositions to the King That the great affairs of the Kingdom and Militia may be managed by consent and approbation of Parliament all the great officers of Estate Privy Councel Ambassadors and Ministers of State and Judges be chosen by them that the Government Education and Marriage of the Kings Children be by their consent and approbation and all the Forts and Castles of the Kingdom put under the Command and Custody of such as they should approve of and that no Peers to be made hereafter should sit or vote in Parliament without the consent of Parliament y with several other demands which if the King should have granted would at once in effect not only have undone and put His Subjects out of His protection but have deposed both himself and his posterity and then they would proceed to regulate His Revenue and deliver up the Town of Hull into such hands as the King by consent and approbation of Parliament should appoint But the King having the same day before those goodly demands came to his hands being a greater breach of His Royal Priviledges then His demanding of the five Members and Kimbolton if it had not been Lawful for him so to do could be of theirs z granted a Commission of array for the County of Lecester to the Earl of Huntington and by a letter sent along with it directed it for the present onely to Muster and Array the Trained bands a And 13. June 1642. Declared to the Lords attending Him at York That He would not engage them in any War against the Parliament unless it were for His necessary defence whereupon the Lord keeper Littleton who a little before had either been affrighted or seduced by the Parliament to vote their new Militia The Duke of Richmond Marquis Hartford Earl of Salisbury Lord Gray of Ruthen now Earl of Kent and divers Earls and Barons engaged not to obey any Order or Ordinance concerning the Militia which had not the Royal assent to it 14 June 1642. Being informed b That the Parliament endeavoured to borrow great sums of money of the City of London and that there was great labour used to perswade His Subjects to furnish horse and money upon pretence of providing a guard for the Parliament By His Letter to the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Sheriffs of London disavowing any purpose of making a War declared That He had not the least thought of raising or using of forces unless He should be compelled to do it for His own defence forbiddeth therefore the lending of money or raising of horses Within two days after the Lord Keeper Duke of Richmond Marquis Hartford Earl of Salisbury Lord Gray of Ruthen with 17 Earls and 14. Barons the Lord Chief-Justice Bancks and sundry others of eminent quality and reputation attest His Majesties Declaration and profession that He had no intention to make a War but abhorred it and c That they perceived no Councels or preparations tending to any such design and send it with His Majesties Declaration to the Parliament In the mean time the Committee of Parliament appointed to make the propositions to the City of London for the raising of horse viz. 15 June 1642. Made report to the House of Commons That the Citizens did very cheerfully accept the same there being for indeed there had been some design and resolution a year before concerning the melting of plate to raise monies already great store of plate and monies brought into Guild-Hall for that purpose and an Ordinance of Parliament was made for the Earl of Warwick to be Lord Admiral and keep the Navy though the King had commanded him upon pain of Treason to deliver up the Ships to Him And the Lord Brook sent down into Warwich-shire to settle the Militia 17 June 1642. A Committee of both Houses was appointed to go to the City of London to inquire what store of Horse Monies and Plate were already raised upon the Propositions 18 June 1642. The King by His Proclamation Disclaiming any intention to make War against His Parliament forbiddeth all levies of Forces without His Majesties expresse pleasure signified under His Great Seal And 20 June 1642. Informing all His Subjects by His Proclamation of the Lawfulness of His Commissions of Array d That besides many other Warrants and Authorities of the Law Judge Hutton and Judge Crooke in their arguments against the Ship-money agreed them to be Lawful and the Earl of Essex himself had in the
him If he would not grant it they would settle and dispose it without him And the morrow after Resolve upon the Question That the Kingdom be forthwith put in a posture of Defence in such a way as was already agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament and Order the Earl of Northumberland Lord High-Admiral to Rig and send to Sea His Majesties Navy and notwithstanding that the King 4 March 1641. by His Letter directed to the Lord Keeper Littleton had signified that He would wholly desist from any proceedings against the five Members and Kimbolton Sir John Hotham a Member of the House of Commons who before the King had accused the five Members and Kimbolton k had by Order of Parliament seized upon the Town of Hull the onely fortified place of strength in the Kingdom and made a Garison of it summoned and forced in many of the trained Soldiers of the County of York to help him to guard it Eighth of March 1641. Before the King could get to York it was Voted That whatsoever the two Houses of Parliament should Vote or Declare to be Law the People were bound to obey And when not long after the King offered to go in person to suppresse the Irish Rebellion That was Voted to be against the Law and an encouragement to the Rebels and they Declared that whosoever should assist him in his Voyage thither should be taken for an enemy to the Common-weale And 15 of March 1641. Resolved upon the Question That the several Commissions granted under the great Seal to the Lieutenants of the several Counties were illegal and void and that whosoever should execute any power over the Militia by colour of any such Commission without consent of both Houses of Parliament should be accounted a disturber of the peace of the Kingdom l April 1642. Sir John Hotham seizeth the Kings Magazine at Hull and when the King went but with a small attendance to demand an entrance into the Town denies him though he had then no Order to do it Notwithstanding all which the 28 of April 1642. they Vote That what he had done was in obedience to the commands of both Houses of Parliament and that the Kings proclaiming him to be a Traytor was a high breath of Priviledge of Parliament And Ordered All Sheriffs and Difficers to assist their Committees sent down with those their Votes to Sir John Hotham In the mean time the Pulpits flame with seditious invectives against the King and incitements to Rebellion and the People running headlong into it had all maner of countenance and encouragement unto it but those Ministers that preached Obedience and sought to prevent it were sure to be imprisoned and put out of their places for it Sir Henry Ludlow could be heard to say in the House of Commons m That the King was not worthy to Reign in England And Henry s Marten That the Kingly Office waâ— forfeitable and the happiness of the Kingdom did not depend upon him and his Progeny And though the King demanded justice of them were neither punished nor put out of the House nor so much as questioned or blamed for it The Militia the principal part of the Kings regality without which it was impossible either to be a King or to govern and the sword which God had given him and his Ancestors for more then a thousand years together had enjoyed and none in the Barons wars nor any Rebellion of the Kingdom since the very being or essence of it durst ever heretofore presume to ask for must now be wrestled for and taken away from him The Commissions of Array being the old legal way by which the Kings of England had a power to raise and levy men for the defence of themselves and the Kingdom Voted to be illegal The passage at Sea defended against him and his Navy kept from him by the Earl of Warwick whilest the King all this while contenting himself to be meerly passive and only busying himself in giving answers to some Parliament Messages Declarations to wooe and intreat them out of this distemper cannot be proved to have done any one action like a war or to have so much as an intention to do it unless they can make his demanding an entrance into Hull with about twenty of His followers unarmed in His company and undertaking to return and leave the Governor in possession of it to be otherwise then it ought to be 5. of May 1642. The King being informed n That Sir John Hotham sent out Warrants to Constables to raise the Trained bands of York-shire writes His Letter to the Sheriff of that Country to forbid the Trained bands and commands them to repair to their dwelling houses 12. of May 1642. Perceiving himself every where endangered and a most horrid Rebellion framing against Him and Sir John Hotham so near Him at Hull as within a dayes journey of Him moves the o Country of York for a Troop of horse consisting of the prime Gentry of that Country and a Regiment of the Trained bands of foot to be for a guard unto Him caused the oath of Allegiance to be administred unto them But the Parliament thereupon Vote p That it appeared the King seduced by wicked Councel intended to make a war against them and till then if their own Votes should be true must acquite Him from any thing more then an intention as they call it to do it And that whosoever should assist him are Lraytors by the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom The Earl of Essex Lord-Chamberlain of the Kings houshold and all other of the Kings houshold servants forbid to go to him and the Kings putting some of them out and others in their places Voted to be an injury to the Parliament Messengers were sent for the apprehending some Earls and Barons about Him and some of His Bed-Chamber as if they had been Felons The Lord Keepers going to Him with the Great-Seal when He sent for him Voted To be a breach of Priviledge and pursued with a Warrant directed to all Mayors and Bayliffs to apprehend him Caused the Kings Rents and Revenues to be brought in to them and forbid any to be paid Him Many of His Officers and Servants put out of their places for being Loyal unto Him and those that were ill affected to Him put in their rooms and many of His own Servants tempted and procured by rewards and maintenance to tarry with them and be false and active against Him The twenty sixth day of May 1642. A Declaration is sent to the King but printed and published before he could receive it That q Whatsoever they should Vote is not by Law to be questioned either by the King or Subjects No precedent can limit or bound their proceedings A Parliament may dispose of any thing wherein the King or People have any right The Soveraign power resides in both Houses of Parliament The King hath no Negative voice The levying of
beginning of this Parliament accepted of one for the County of York Gave his People to understand That He had awarded the like Commissions into all the Counties of England and Dominion of Wales to provide for and secure them in a legal way lest under a pretence of danger and want of Authority from His Majesty to put them into a Military posture they should be drawn and engaged in any opposition against Him or His just Authority But 21 June 1642. e The Lords and Commons in Parliament Declaring The design of their Propositions of raising horse and moneys was to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Kings Authority and Person and that the Forces already attending His Majesty and His preparations at first coloured under the pretence of a guard being not so great a guard as they themselves had constantly for 6. moneths before did evidently appear to be intended for some great and extraordinary disign so as at this time also they do not charge the King with any maner of action of War or any thing done in a way or course of War against them and gave just cause of fear and jealousie to the Parliament being never yet by any Law of God or man accounted to be a sufficient cause or ground for Subjects to make a War against their Soveraign did forbid all Mayors Sheriffs Bayliffs and other Officers to publish His Majesties said Letter to the City of London And declare that if He should use any force for the recovery of Hull or suppressing of their Ordinance for the Militia it should be held a levying War against the Parliament and all this done before His Majesty had granted any Commission for the levying or raising of a man and lest the King should have any maner or provision of War to defend himself when their Army or Sir John Hotham should come to assault Him Powder and Armes were every where seized on and Cutlers Gun-smiths Sadlers and all Warlike Trades ordered not to send any to York but to give a weekly account what was made or sold by them And an Order made the 24. day of June 1642. That the Horses which should be sent in for the Service of the Parliament when they came to the number of 60. should be trained and so still as the number increased 4. July 1642. The King by His Letter under His signe Manual commanded all the Judges of England in their circuits f to use all means to suppresse Popery Riots and unlawful assemblies and to give the People to understand His Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Laws of the Kingdom and not to govern by any Arbitrary way and that if any should give the King or them to understand of any thing wherein they held themselves grieved and desired a just reformation He would speedily give them such an answer as they should have cause to thank Him for His Justice and favour But the same day a Declaration was published by both Houses of Parliament commanding g That no Sheriff Mayor Bayliff Parson Vicar Curate or other Sir Richard Gurney the Lord Mayor of London not many dayes before having been imprisoned for proclaiming the Kings Proclamation against the bringing in of Plate c. should publish or Proclaim any Proclamation Declaration or other Paper in the Kings Name which should be contrary to any Order Ordinance or Declaration of both Houses of Parliament or the proceedings thereof and Order h That in case any forces should be brought out of one County into another to disturb the Peace thereof they should be suppressed by the Trained bands and Voluntiers of the adjacent Counties Shortly after Sir John Hotham fortifieth the Town of Hull whilest the King is at York i seizeth on a Ship coming to Him with provisions for His houshold takes Mr. Ashburnham one of the Kings Servants prisoner intercepts Letters sent from the Queen to the King and drowneth part of the Countrey round about the Town k which the Parliament allows of and promise satisfaction to the owners 5 July 1642. They Order a subscription of Plate and Horse to be made in every Countey and list the Horse under Commanders and the morrow after Order 2000. men should be sent to relieve Sir John Hotham in case the King should besiege him to which purpose Drums were beat up in London and the adjacent parts to Hull The Earl of Warwick Ordered to send Ships to Humber to his assistance instructions drawn up to be sent to the Deputy-Lieutenants of the several Counties to tender the Propositions for the raising of Horses Plate and Money Mr. Hastings and divers of the Kings Commissioners of Array impeached for supposed high Crimes and misdemeanours and a Committee of five Lords and ten of the House of Commons ordered to meet every morning for the laying out of ten thousand pounds of the Guild-hall moneys for the buying of 700. Horse and that 10000. Foot to be raised in London and the Countrey be imployed by direction of the Parliament and the Lord Brook is furnished with 6. pieces of Ordinance out of the Tower of London to fortifie the Castle of Warwick And 9. July 1642. Order That in case the Earl of Northampton should come into that County with a Commission of Array they should raise the Militia to suppresse him And that the Common Councel of London should consider of a way for the speedy raising of the 10000. Foot and that they should be listed and put in pay within four dayes after 11. July 1642. l The King sends to the Parliament to cause the Town of Hull to be delivered unto Him and desires to have their answer by the 15. of that moneth and as then had used no force against it But m the morrow after before that message could come unto them they resolve upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised for the defence of the Kings Person and both Houses of Parliament and n those who have obeyed their Orders Commands in preserving the true Religion the Laws Liberties and the Peace of the Kingdom and that they would live and dye with the Earl of Essex whom they nominate General in that Cause 12. July 1642. Declare That they will protect all that shall be imployed in their assistance and Militia And 16. July 1642. Petition the King o to forbear any preparations or actions of War and to dismisse His extraordinary guards to come nearer to them and hearken to their advice but before that Petition could be answered wherein the King offered when the Town of Hull should be delivered to Him He would no longer have an Army before it and should be assured that the same pretence which took Hull from him may not put a Garrison into Newcastle into which after the Parliaments surprise of Hull He was inforced to place a Governour and a small Garrison He would also remove that Garrison and so as His Magizine and Navy
might be delivered unto Him all Armies and Levies made by the Parliament laid down the pretended Ordinance for the Militia disavowed and the Parliament adjourned to a secure place He would lay down Armes and repair to them and desired all differences might be freely debated in a Parliamentary way whereby the Law might recover its due reverence the Subject his just Liberty Parliaments their full vigour and estimation and the whole Kingdom a blessed Peace and prosperity and requiring their answer by the 27. of that July promised till then not to make any attempt of force upon Hull they had Armed their General with power against Him given him a Commission to kill and slay all that should oppose him in the execution of it and chosen their General of the Horse 8. August 1642. Upon information That some of the Town of Portsmouth had revolted to Collonel Goring being but sent thither with a message from the King and Declared for His Majesty Order Forces to be sent thither speedily to beleaguer it by Land and the Earl of Warwick to send thither 5. Ships of the Navy to prevent any Forraign forces coming to their assistance and upon Intelligence that the Earl of Northampton appeared with great strength at Banbury to hinder the Lord Brooks carrying the pieces of Ordinance to Warwick Ordered 5000. Horse and Foot to be sent to assist Him 9. August 1642. Upon information That the Marquis of Hartford and divers others were in Somerset-shire demanding obedience to the Kings Commission of Array and to have the Magazine of the County to be delivered unto them Gave power to the Earl of Essex their Lord-General the Lord Brook and others to apprehend the Marquis of Hartford and Earl of Northampton and their complices and to kill and slay all that should oppose them And the day following gave the Earl of Stamford a Commission to raise forces for the suppressing of any that should attempt for the King in Leicester-shire or the adjacent Counties And on the eleventh of August 1642. Upon the Kings Proclamation two dayes before Declaring the Earl of Essex and all that should adhere unto him in the levying of Forces and not come in and yield to His Majesty within 6. dayes to be Traytors p vote the said Proclamation to be against the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom Declare their resolutions to maintain and assist the Earl of Essex and resolve to spend no more time in Declarations and Petitions but to endeavour by raising of Forces to suppress the Kings Party Though all that the Kings Loyal Subjects did at that time for Him was but to execute the Commission of Array in the old legal way of the Militia and within a day or two after Ordered the Earl of Essex their Lord General to set forth with his Army of Horse upon the Monday following but not so much as an answer would be afforded to the Kings message sent from Hull where whilest He with patience and hope forbore any action or attempt of force according to His promise Sir John Hotham sallied out in the night and murdered many of His fellow Subjects 12. August 1642. The King though he might well understand the great leavies of Men and Armes ready to march against Him by a Declaration published to all His Subjects assures them as in the presence of God That all the Acts passed by him in this Parliament should be as equally observed as those which most of all concerned His own interest and rights and that His quarrel was not against the Parliament but particular men and therefore desired That the Lord Kimbolton Mr. Hollis Sir Henry Ludlow Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr. Strode Mr. Martin Mr. Hampden Alderman Pennington and Capt. Venne might be delivered into the hands of Iustice to be tried by their Peeres according to the known Laws of the Land and against the Earles of Essex Warwick Stamford Lord Brook Sir John Hotham Major General Skippon and those who should exercise the Militia by vertue of the Ordinance He would cause Indictments to be drawn of High Treason upon the Statute of 25. Edw. 3. and if they submit to trial and plead the Ordinance would rest satisfied if they should be acquited But when this produced as little effect as all other endeavours He had used for peace He that saw the Hydra in the mud and slime of Sedition in its Embryo birth and growth and finds him now erected ready to devour him must now though very unwilling to cast off His beloved Robe of Peace forsake an abused patience and believe no more in the hopes of other remedies which had so often deceived Him but if He will give any account to the Watch-man of Israel of the People committed to his Charge or to the People of his protection of them or any maner of satisfaction to his own judgement and discretion betake himselfe to the sword which God had intrusted Him with and therefore makes the best use He could of those few friends were about Him and with the money which the Queen had not long before borrowed and the small supplies He had obtained of His servants and friends about Him who pawned and engaged their Plate Jewels and Lands for Him with those Lords and Gentlemen that willingly offered to bear him company in His troubles provides what men arms He could in his way towards Nottingham where He intended to set up His Standard But the Parliament about the 23. of August 1642. having received some information that He intended to set up His Standard at Nottingham Declare q That now it appears to all the world that there is good ground of their fears and jealousies which if ever there had been any as there was no cause at all of any more then that some of them meaning to murder or ruine Him they were often afraid He should take notice of it and seek to defend himself there was by their own confession till this time no manifest or certain ground appearing that He intended to defend himself against the Parliament and therefore Order That all that shall suffer in their Estates by any forces raised by the King without consent of Parliament shall have full reparation of their damages out of the Estates of the Actors and out of the Estates of all such Persons in any part of the Kingdom who should persist to serve the King in this War against the Parliament and That it should be Lawful for any number of persons to ioyn and defend themselves and that the Earl of Essex their General should grant out Commissions for levying and conducting forces into the Northern parts And Sir John Hotham the Governor of Hull assist them and Command also the Sheriffs of the County of York and the adjacent Counties with the power of the Counties and Trained bands to aide them and to seize upon all that shall execute the Commission of Array for His Majesty who thus sufficiently beset by those that intended what since
day before to murther him but before he went out of the field sent Sir William Le-neve Clarencieux King at Arms to Warwick whither the Earl of Essex was fled with a Proclamation of Pardon to all that would lay down arms which though they scornfully received and the Herald threatned to be hanged if he did not depart the sooner cannot perswade him from sending a Declaration or Message to the Parliament to offer them all that could be requested by Subjects but all the use they made of it was to make the City of London believe they were in greater danger then ever if they lent them not more moneys and recruited the Earl of Essex his broken Army and to cousen and put the people on the more to seek their own misery a day of thanksgiving was publiquely kept for the great Victory obtained against the King And Stephen Marshal a Factious bloody minister though he confessed he was so carried on in the crowd of those that fled from the battel as he knew not where he was till he came to a Market Town which was some miles from Edge-hill where the Battel was fought preaches to the people too little believing the Word of God and too much believing him That to his knowledge there was not above 200. men lost on the Parliaments side that he picked up bullets in his black Velvet cap and that a very small supply would now serve to reduce the King and bring Him to His Parliament And here ye may see Janus Temple wide open though the doors of it were not lift off the hinges or broken open at once but pickt open by those either knew not the misery of War or knowing it will prove to be the more guilty promoters of it That we may the better therefore find out though the matter of Fact already represented may be evidence enough of it self who it was that let out the fury and rage of War upon us we shall consider CHAP. III. Whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppress or punish a Rebellion of the People be tyed to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a War if it were made between equals WAr where it is made by any rules of justice between equals is to be for necessity where the determining of controversies cannot otherwise be obtained or when between two Princes of equal power it cannot be had because they have no superiour A Rebel therefore cannot properly be called an enemy for Hostis nomen notat aequalitatem and when any such arms are born against Rebels it is not to be called a War but an exercise of jurisdiction upon traiterous and dis-loyal persons y atque est ratio manifesta saith Albericus Gentilis qui enim jure judex est superior non jure cogitur ad subeundas partes partis aequalis non est bellum cum latronibus praedonibus aut piratis quanquam magnos habeant exercitus proinde nec ulla cum illis belli jura saith z Besoldus The Romans who were so exact and curious in their publique denouncing of War and sending Ambassadors before they made War against any other Nation did not do it in cases of rebellion and defection and therefore a Fidenatibus Campanis non denunciant Romani And Cicero that was of opinion that nullum bellum justum haberi videtur nisi nunciatum nisi indictum nisi repetitis rebus stood not upon those solemnities in the Cataline conspiracy for the rules of justifying a War against an enemy or equals as demanding restitution denunciation and the like are not requisite in that of punishing of Rebels b Pompey justifies the war maintained by the Senate against Caesar not then their Soveraign with neque enim vocari praelia justa decet c. Cicero did not think it convenient to send Ambassadors to Anthony nor intreat him by fair words but that it was meet to enforce him by Arms to raise his siege from Mutina for he said c They had not to do with Hannibal an enemy to the Common-wealth but with a Rebellious Citizen The resisting of the Kings Authority when the Sheriff of a County goes with the posse Comitatus to execute it was never yet so much as called a War but Rebellion insurrection or commotion were the best terms which were bestowed upon it For such attempts are not called wars but robberies of which the Law taketh no other care of but to punish them And the haste that all our Kings and Princes in England have made in suppressing Rebellions as that of the Barons Wars by Henry the 3. and his sending his son the Prince to besiege Warren Earl of Surrey in his Castle of Rygate for affronting the Kings Justices saying That he would hold his Lands by the Sword That which Ri. 2. made to suppresse Wat. Tiler H. 6. Jack Cade H. 8. Ket and the Norfolk Rebels and Queen Eliz. to suppress the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland may tell us that they understood it no otherwise then all the Kings and Magistrates of the World have ever practised it by the d Laws of England if Englishmen that are Traytors go into France and confederate with Aliens or Frenchmen and come afterwards and make a War in England and be taken prisoners the strangers may be ransomed but not the English for they were the Kings Subjects and are to be reckoned as Traytors not strangers And the Parliaments own advise to the King to suppress the Irish Rebels that ploughed but with their own Heyfer and pretended as they did to defend their Religion Laws and Liberties and the opinion also of Mr. President Bradshaw as Sir John Owen called him in his late sentence given against the Earls of Cambridge Holland and Norwich Lord Capel and Sir John Owen whom he mistakenly God and the Law knows would make to be the subjects of their worser fellow subjects may be enough toturn the question out of doors But lest all this should not be thought sufficient to satisfie those who can like nothing but what there is Scripture for we shall a little turn over the leaves of that Sacred Volume and see what is to be found therein concerning this matter Moses who was the meekest Magistrate in the World and better acquainted with Him that made the fifth Commandment then these that now pretend Revelations against it thought fit to suppress the Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abiram as soon as he could and for no greater offence then a desire to be co-ordinate with him procured them to be buried alive with all that appertained unto them When Absalon had Rebelled against his father David and it was told him e That the hearts of the men of Israel were after him David a man after Gods own heart without any Message of Peace or Declaration sent unto his dear son Absalon or offering half or any part of his Kingdom to him sent three several armies
to pursue and give him battail When Sheba the son of Bichri blew a Trumpet and said f We have no part in David every man to his Tent O Israel and thereupon every man of Israel followed after him and forsook their King David who knew that Moses would not make a War upon the Amorites though he had Gods commandment for it without offers of Peace and messengers sent first unto them said to Amasa Assemble me the men of Judah within three dayes and when he tarried longer said unto him Take thou thy Lords servants and pursue after him lest he get him fenced Cities and escape us For they that would take heed of Cockatrices have ever used to kill them in the shell And g diligenti cuique Imperatori ac magistratui danda est opera saith Bodin ut non tam seditiones tollere quam praeoccupare studeant For sedition saith he once kindled like a spark of fire blown by popular fury may sooner fire a whole City then be extinguished Et tales igitur pestes opprimere derepente necesse est Princes and Soveraigns who are bound to protect and defend their Subjects are not to stand still and suffer one to oppress another and themselves to be undone by it afterwards But put the case that the Parliament could have been called â— Parliament when they had driven away the King which is the head and life of it or could have been said to have been two Houses of Parliament when there was not at that time above a third part of the House of Peers nor the half of the House of Commons remaining in them and what those few did in their absence was either forced by a Faction of their own or a party of Seditious Londoners for indeed the War rightly considered was not betwixt the Parliament and the King but a War made by a Factious and Seditious part of the Parliament against the King and the major part of the Parliament and had been as it never was nor could be by the Laws and constitution of the Kingdom co-ordinate and equal with the King and joint tenants of the Kingdom it would have been necessary to make the War as just as they could and to have done all that had been in order to it and therefore we hope they which pretend so much to the Justice of the Kingdom will not be offended to have the Justice of their War something examined CHAP. IV. Suppose the War to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it PLerique h saith learned Grotius tres statuunt bellorum justas causas defensionem recuperationem punitionem Three causes are usually alleaged by Princes or States to justifie wars viz. in the defence or recovery of their own or for punishment for a wrong done For any defence the Parliament might pretend a necessity of The King neither assaulted them nor used any violence to them when they first of all granted out their Propositions and Commissions of War unless they can turn their jealousies into a Creed and make the Kings demanding the five Members and Kimbolton being done by warrant of the Law of the Land and the Records and precedents of their own houses appear to be an assaulting of them Or if any reasonable man knew but how to make that to be an assault or a necessary cause of War for them to revenge it the Kings waving and relinquishing of his charge afterwards against them might have certainly been enough to have taken away the cause of it if there had been any howsoever a War made onely to revenge a bare demand or request of a thing was neither so much as forced or a second time demanded of them but was totally laid aside and retracted can never be accounted just As for the recovery of things lost or taken away the Parliament it self had nothing taken from them for both they and the people were so far from being losers at that time by the King as i the Remonstrance of the House of Commons made to the people 15. December 1641. of the Kings errors as they pleased to call them in the government but indeed the errors rather of his Ministers and themselves also in busying him with brawles and quarrels and denying to give him fitting supplies k mentions how much and how many beneficial Laws the King had granted them And so the Parliament and people being no losers and the King never denying them any thing which could in honour or conscience be granted them That part of the justifying of a War will no way also belong to them But if the punishment for offences and injuries past if they could be so properly called being a third cause of justifying a War could be but imagined to be a cause to justifie the Parliaments War against the King Yet they were to remember another Rule or Law of War l Ne nimis veteres causae accersantur That they do not pick quarrels by raking up past grievances and that it be not propter leviusculas injurias or for trifles For when the King who if he had been no more then co-ordinate with them had called them to counsel to advise him followed their advice in every thing he could finde any reason for taken away all grievances made a large provision to prevent them for the future by granting the Triennial Parliament and so large an amends for every thing they could but tell how to complain of there was so little left to the people and the Parliament to quarrel for as they were much behind in thankfulness for what they had got of him already Or if any other causes or provocations should be imagined as mis-using the Parliaments Messengers or the like we know the King unless it were by his patience and often Messages for Peace was guilty of no provocations but on the contrary though he had all maner of scorns and reproaches cast upon him and his Messengers evil intreated by them could never be brought to return or retaliate it to any of theirs But nothing as yet serving to excuse them it will not be amiss to examine the Causes as they are set down by themselves to justifie their war and so we may well suppose there are no other A War against the King for safety of His own Person was needless and then it comes within that rule of War and Law of Nations Ne leves sint causae belli not to make a War unnecessary for the King would look to that himself and as they were His Subjects they as well as every honest Subject were bound to defend and assist Him but not whether he would or no and in such a way of defence as would tend to His ruine rather then His safety For surely should any stranger of another Kingdom or Nation have casually passed by Edge-hill when the Kings and the Parliaments Armies were in
forefathers nor ever understood to be taken from them much less for their ayrie innovated pretences rather than priviledges which have since eaten up all the peoples Laws and Liberties as well as a good part of their lives and estates with it and are now become to be every thing which their representatives will and arbitrary power have a mind to make it who have so driven away their old legal priviledges by setting up illegal and fantastique Priviledges as they are pleased to call them in stead of them as there is nothing now left of the Parliament like a Parliament neither matter nor form nor any thing at all remaining of it For the upper and lower houses have driven away and fought against the King who was their Head the lower after that have driven away the upper and fourty-five of the House of Commons whereof eleven are great Officers and Commanders in the Army have after that imprisoned and driven away four hundred of their fellow Members And from a degenerate and distempered piece of a Parliament brought themselves to be but a representative or journey-men voters to a Councel of War of their own mercenary and mechanique Army and may sit another eight years before ever they shall be able to finde a reason to satisfie any man that is not a fool or a mad-man or a fellow Sharer in the spoiles of an abused and deluded Nation Why the Kings demanding of the five Members and Kimbolton by undeniable warrant of the Laws of the Land and the Records and precedents of their own houses upon a charge or accusation of Treason for endeavouring amongst other pieces of Treason to alter the Government and subvert the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom which the Parliament and they themselves which were accused have more then once declared to be Treason should be taken to be so great a breach of priviledge in the King their Soveraign when the forcing and over-awing the houses of Parliament by the Army their servants and hirelings demanding the eleven Members and imprisoning and banishing some of them upon imaginary and fantastical offences committed against themselves or they could not tell whom shall be reckoned to be no breach at all of priviledge and the forcing of the Houses by the same Army within a year afterwards by setting guards upon them violently pulling two of the Members of the House of Commons out of the House and imprisoning them and 39. of their fellow Members all night in an Alehouse and leading them afterwards to several prisons with guards set upon them as if they had been common malefactors can be called mercies and deliverances and a purging and taking away rotten Members out of the House of Commons But now that we can finde nothing to make a defensive or Lawful nor so much as a necessary war on the Parliaments part for causa belli o saith Besoldus correspondere debet damno periculo the Parliament fears and jealousies were not of weight enough to put the people into a misery far beyond the utmost of what their fears and jealousies suggested to them did amount unto we shall do well to examine by the rules and laws of war and Nations the ways and means they used in it p Injustum censetur bellum si non ejus penes quem est Majestas authoritate moveatur a War cannot be just if it be not made by a Lawful authority Armorum delatio prohibitio ad Principem spectat q It belongs to the Prince to raise or forbid Armes and the Records of the Parliament which we take to be a better sense of the House then their own purposes can inform them that the Prelates Earls Barons and Commonalty of the Realm did in the seventh year of the reign of King Edw. the first declare to the King r That it belongeth and his part is through his Royal Signory straightly to defend force of Armour and all other force against his Peace when it shall please him and to punish them which shall do the contrary according to the Laws and usages of the Realm and that thereunto they were bound to aid their Soveraign Lord the King at all seasons when need shall be How much ado then will they have to make a War against their Soveraign to be lawful or if by any warrant of Laws Divine or Humane they could but tell how to absolve themselves from their oathes of Supremacy Allegiance and their very many protestations and acknowledgements of subjection to the King finde a Supream Authority to be in the people at the same time they swore an Allegiance and obedience to the King and at the same time they not onely stiled themselves but all those they represented to be his subjects Or how will they be able to produce a warrant from the people their now pretended Soveraignes till they shall be able sufficiently to enslave them to authorize them to make a War to undo them when they elected them but to consent to such things as should be treated of by the King and his Lords for the defence of the King and his Kingdom Or how could a tenth part of the people give warrant to them to fight against the King and the other nine parts of the people Or can that be a good warrant when some of them were cheated and the other by plunderings and sequestrations forced to yield to it Or could the pretence of a war for defence of the Kings Person and to maintain the Religion Laws and Liberties of the people be a warrant to the Parliament which never sought any thing for the King and people but to take away the Soveraignty from the one and the Liberties of the other to do every thing was contrary unto it But if that could have legitimated their actions as it never did or will be able By the rules of Justice in the practise of War and Nations s si bellum geratur sine denunciatione in captivos tanquam latrones animad verti possit It is a thievery rather than a War not to denounce or give notice of it beforehand and in this also the Parliament was faulty for they took Hull and Portsmouth and the Kings Navy and Magazine from him when He hoped better things of them and sent out their Armies and the Earl of Essex against Him whilest He was in treaty with them and offered all that He could for to have a peace with them t Bellum item impium injustumque sit si modus debitus non observetur A War is unjust if there be not a due way of proceedings held in it which especially consisteth in not hurting the Innocent Church-men Husbandmen weak or impotent People as old men women and children and in this also they will fall short of an excuse For how full is every Town and Village of the truth as well as the complaints of the unchristian usage of old and sick people women and children beaten wounded or
the Money Arms Ammunition and strength of the Kingdom in their hands and multitudes of deluded people to assist them and so hunted and pursued him from place to place as it was come to be a saying and a by-word among the apprentices and new levied men at London they would go a King-catching and were not likely therefore to be guilty of so much patience as the King who was so much in love with Peace and so thirsted after it as that and his often sending Messages and Propositions for it would not permit him to make use of any victories or advantages which God had given him But twice suffered the Earl of Essex to attempt to force Him from Oxford and Sir Thomas Fairfax once to beleager Him when He had power enough to have made London or the associate Counties the seat of the War and it would be something strange that He who when He had raised forces against His Scottish Rebels and found himself in the head of so gallant an Army as He had much ado to keep them from fighting and His enemies so ridiculously weak as He might have subdued them but with looking upon them but a fortnight longer could not be perswaded to draw a sword against them would now begin an offensive war without any power or strength at all against those that had before-hand ingrossed it Or what policy or wisdom could it be in Him to begin a War without Money or Men or Arms to go through with it Or to refuse the assistance of His Catholique Subjects and Forreign friends and forces or to spend so much time in Messages and offers of Peace to give them time and ability to disarm Him and arm themselves If He had not utterly abhorred a War and as cordially affected peace as He offered fair enough for it Or can any man think that the King did begin the War when what he did was but to preserve His Regality and the Militia and protection of His people which the Parliament in express terms as well as by Petitioning for it acknowledged to be His own being but that which every private man that had but money or friends would not neglect to do Did He any more in seeking to preserve His Regality then to defend and keep himself from a breach of trust they sought to make him break Or could there be a greater perjury or breach of trust in the Kingly Office then to put the sword which God had given him into the hands of mad-men or fools or such as would kill and slay and undo their fellow Subjects with it or to deliver up the protection of His people into the hands of a few of their ambitious fellow subjects who did as much break their own trust to those they represented in asking of it as the King would have done if He had granted it Or why shall it not be accounted an inculpata tutela in the King to preserve and defend that by a War which the Laws of God and Man His Coronation Oath Honour and Conscience and a duty to himself His Posterity as well as to His people would not permit Him to stand still and suffer to be taken away from Him But if the King by any maner of construction could be blamed or censured for denying to grant the Militia which was the first pretence of beginning of the War by those that sought to take it from him for till the besieging of Hull the 16. of July 1642. after many other affronts and attempts of as high a nature put upon Him the most malicious interpretation of the matter of Fact cannot find Him so much at all to have defended himself as to have done any one act of War or so much as like it who shall be in the fault for all that was done after when he offered to condescend to all that might be profitable for His people in the matter of Religion Laws and Liberties Was it not a just cause of War to defend himself and his people against those who would notwithstanding all He could do offer make a War against Him because He would not contrary to His Oath Magna Charta and so many other Laws which He had sworn to observe betray or deliver up his people into their hands to be governed or rather undone by a greater latitude of Arbitrary power then the great Turk or Crim Tartar ever exercised upon their enslaved people and put the education and marriage of his own Children out of his power which was never sought to be taken out of the hand of any father which was not a fool or a madman nor yielded to by any would have the Credit to be accounted otherwise or because he would not denude himself of the power of conferring honours or vilifie or discredit his great and lesser Seals and the Authority of them from which many mens Estates and Honours and the whole current of the Justice of the Kingdom had their Original or perjure himself by abolishing Episcopacy which Magna Charta and some dozens of other Laws bound him to preserve Or if that be not enough to justifie him in his own defence had he not cause enough to deny and they little enough to ask Liberty of Conscience and practise to Anabaptists Blasphemers of God deniers of the Trinity Scriptures and Deity of Christ when the Parliament themselves had taken a Covenant to root them out and made as many of the people as they could force to take it with them Or had He not cause enough to deny to set up the Presbyterian authority which would not only have taken away his own authority but have done the like also with the Laws and Liberties of the Nation and the ruling part of that which they now call the Parliament did utterly abhor Or if all that could not make the war which he made to be defensive lawfull had He not cause enough to deny and they none at all to ask that He should by Act of Parliament consent to make all those to be Traitors that took His part their Blood and Posterities attainted and their Estates forfeited when as some of the Parliaments own Members were heard to say when those Propositions were sent unto him That if he yielded unto them He was the unworthiest man living and not fit to be a King For certainly if the Laws of God and man and the understanding of all mankind be not changed there was never a juster more defensive unwilling and necessitated War then that of the Kings part since man came out of Paradise And if such a War should not be lawful after so many provocations and necessities for the defence of himself his people so many after generations which this War of the Parliament and the curse of it is like to ruine and leave in slavery under what censure and opinion may that of i Abrahams with Chederlaomer the King of Elam and Tidal King of the Nations be when he fought with
them to rescue his Brother Lot and his goods and was blessed by Melchisedec the Priest of the most high God for doing of it Or if the k War which the Tribes of Israel made against the Tribe of Benjamin and the men of Gibeah for committing lewdness and folly in Israel that of l David to rescue his wives that were carried away captive by the Amalekites or m to fetch home the Ark of God from the Philistines that which n Ahab made with Benhadad the king of Syria who was not half so Tyrannical in his Propositions as the Parliament were approved of in sacred Story or that which was made by Judas Maccabeus and his Brethren to rescue the decayed Estate of the people of the Jews or that which was used to be made by the heathen pro aris focis were never yet so much as suspected to be unlawful How shall this of the kings be condemned that had as much as Abraham David Ahab against Benhadad o Judas Maccabeus and the tribes of Israel or those heathens that made it pro aris focis put them all together to warrant it Or by what reason or Law is any man by the Laws of England excused for killing a man in his own defence when he is necessitated to it or for killing theeves that come to assault or rob him in his House or Castle If the King shall be hunted from his House through all the parts and corners of his Kingdom for his Life and not only for his Life but his Honour and not only for his Life and Honour but his Conscience and yet must never draw his sword or seek to defend himself or have any body else to do it for him Or how have all the Kings Princes and Magistrates of the world hitherto governed and defended themselves and their people or shall ever be able to give an account of the people committed to their charge if they may not be at liberty to make a Legal use of the sword power and reason which God hath given them Or how can those State riddles like those of Sphinx only made to destroy men withal that they fought for the King and Parliament as is alledged in many of their Orders and Declarations and that the war on the Kings part was a Rebellion raised against the King and Parliament as is expressed in the p Ordinance of Parliament for association of the Counties of Pembroke Cardigan and Caermarthen be ever understood by any rules of sense or reason if he had been as he was not on the offensive part of the war and had begun it against them Or how the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Fairfax could as there was Law and reason enough to perswade them to it believe that the war made by the King against the Scots wherein they served and took command under him was lawful and that a War in his own defence against the forces of the Parliament wherein they were shortly after successively one after the other Generals and Commanders against him should be unlawful or that they which seised the Town and Magazine of Hull and first began the war against the King who only defended himself and the people committed to his charge can possibly be understood to have done it in their own defence or that what they did could in the means and way which they used or took unto it and the sad and dire effects and consequences of it receive any other interpretation then that they began made a war against the King upon a colour only and pretence that they made it for him But if any shall be so in love with the sense of the House of Commons as to be out of their own senses and think that though there be no maner of evidence or proof to be had for love or money that the Parliament were constrained to defend themselves by a war yet the Kings admitting of the Preamble of the Parliaments Propositions presented to him at the Isle of Wight that the Parliament was necessitated to take up Arms in their just and lawful defence makes him who must needs be best acquainted with his own actions to be so clearly guilty of all the blood that hath been shed in these wars as it puts to silence all that can be now alledged or said in his behalf They that made the preamble and placed it in limine and the threshold of the Treaty on purpose to catch and insnare him for either he must have denied it at the very beginning and entrance into the Treaty and leave his Kingdoms and people to wallow in the blood and misery which their Parliament Idols had brought them to have all the blame laid upon him for hindring a Peace which he had so much longed and laboured for or put himself and all his Loyal Subjects that helped to defend him under the burden of those Sins and Shames which the Parliament themselves had all the right to can tell their undone and deluded Proselytes how much the King stuck at it how unwilling he was to break off the Treaty and was unwilling to wrong his own Innocency and that when the Parliament Commissioners had not any thing either in Law Truth Reason or Argument to perswade him to yield unto it but laid it only as a case of necessity before him though there was no such preamble at the Treaties of Oxford and Uxbridg nor any such necessity at those times insisted upon that unless he would take the guilt upon himself his two Houses of Parliament and the People had engaged with them must necessarily be guilty of Treason and could not have any security from the guilt and punishment of it The King bemoaning himself and people that must be thus shut out from any hopes of peace intreated some expedient or medium might be found out to reconcile the differences But Cains sins being greater then could be forgiven him unless Abel can be brought to say he killed Cain they that could afterward finde an expedient for 21. of their great Councel of State that refused to subscribe to the lawfulness of murdering the King after it was done could finde none at all for the King to purchase a Peace for the people though many kinds of ways and expedients as allowing Him to make a preamble to his own propositions that the war made by Him was made in his own defence or the like might have been easily contrived and thought upon For the truth was the Independent party desired no Peace at all the Presbyterian desired it only to get into their hands the Kings Power Authority lay the guilt of all the blood they had shed for it upon Him both of them were so well content to have Him allow of the preamble as the latter thought himself safe and out of controversie if the King took the blood upon Him and the former that it would prove no small advantage or colour to
regal Authority to the great and difficult work of Reformation and purging the Church The Lord Fairfax and his general Councel of Officers in their Remonstrance of the 16. November 1648. made to the Parliament did call the putting down of Monarchy and the establishing of their unjust ends the publique interest originally contended for on the Parliament part and the Declaration and Votes of those that call themselves the Commons of England in Parliament assembled 15. January 1648. Affirm the bringing of Delinquents to punishment which if any who had assisted the King had been Delinquents is certainly a part of the Kingly office and were never refused to be brought to a due and legal tryal to be one of the pretended causes of making this War And in another place thereof acknowledges the rooting out of Episcopacy and bringing Delinquents to punishment to be the onely motives which induced them to undertake this War Wherefore though our Achans will neither confess nor be brought to punishment till the wrath and never failing judgment of God shall bring them and their sons and their daughters and their successes and the asses that follow them to be consumed in the field of Achor the Fig-leaves which they have patched together to palliate and hide their nakedness cannot keep out the eyes and understanding of a ruined Nation bleeding under the burden of their iniquity but whether ever confessed or never it will be as plain as the most infallible demonstration that they were never necessitated to make a War but were so far from the Justification of a defensive War as that they were altogether in the offensive For beside all that which hath been said to prove them guilty of the blood and misery of this Nation who can think or be believed if he should be so mad as to say it That they were forced to make a war for that which was none of their own or for Laws and Liberties when they did not want them and might have had as much addition made unto them as the good of the Nation and right reason could have desired or that they were constrained to make a War because he would not un-King or un-man himself and give away his Negative voice and undertaking by his Oath to do justice to his people and protect and defend them quit his Militia and put himself out of all power to do it or because he would not leave the care education and marriage of his children which every man that is not hors du sens sans raison out of his vvits or a very great stranger to the most ordinary and common parts of understanding was never yet denied or were enforced to make a War to take away tenures in Capite which was a principal flower of the Kings Crown or for a Reformation of Religion which was already the envy and ambition of the best of the Reformed Churches or to commit sacriledge or abolish Episcopacy which at the least was of Apostolical institution or to preserve the Statute of 25. E. 3. concerning what was Treason when they themselves committed most of the Treasons were mentioned in it and more then their fore-fathers and the makers of that Statute ever thought on But that we may do all the right we can to those which have done so much wrong and the better carry on our judgements to a certain conclusion of that which God and all good and just men know to be true enough it will not we hope be impertinent in this our search and disquisition of the truth to proceed to the enquiry CHAP. V. Whether the Parliament in their pretended Magistracy have not taken lesser occasions to punish or provide against Insurrections Treasons and Rebellions as they are pleased to call them ALl in the Neighbourhood of their proceedings that know but any thing of them can tell it The Parliament have not been wanting to their own preservations and purposes in the exercise of the greatest Jealousie Vigilancy Terror and Authority over those they could but get within their pretended Jurisdiction witness Edward Archer who was whipt and punished almost to death for speaking but his ill wishes to the Earl of Essex when he was marching out of London with their Army against the King the Imprisonment of their own Members for speaking against the Sence and Cabal of the House of Commons men and women old and young shut up under Decks ready to be stifled a ship-board upon suspicion that they affected the King hanging of the two Bristoll Merchants Mr. Bourchier and Mr. Yeomans for an endeavour to deliver up Bristol putting Colonel Essex out of the Governmen of that Town upon suspicion of favouring the enterprise hanging of Master Tompkins and Master Chaloner for a purpose to force the delivery up of some factious men to Justice banishing Master Waller an eminent member of the House of Commons for the contrivance of it searching the Houses of Forraign Embassadors and intercepting and opening their Letters Beheading Sir Alexander Cary for an intention to deliver up Plymouth and Sir John Hotham who adventured first of all to set up their authority and was magnified and almost adored for it for an intention only to deliver up Hull to the King executing of his Son for joyning with his Father in it hanging Master Kniveton one of the Kings Messengers but for bringing his Majesties Proclamation to London for the adjourning of the Tearm being a greater misusage then Davids messengers received from King Ammon imprisoning starving undoing of any that durst but own the King or write any thing for or in his behalf or send or bring any message from him or his party or that did but give any aid or assistance to him to which their Oaths and Consciences and the Covenant which they themselves took and forced upon the people did oblige them shooting and cannonading of the Queen when she came but to aid her husband and chasing and shooting after her at sea a year after when she was going back into France from him sequestring wives and mothers that did but relieve their husbands and childrens wants when they returned out of the Kings service putting thousands of Orthodox Ministers out of their benefices and livelyhoods for using the Common-Prayer-Book preaching true Doctrine and obedience to the King or praying for him at the same time when they pretended liberty of conscience and preservation of Religion voting the Prince a Traitor for wishing well or being in company with his Father for he was too young to do any thing else for him and making or rather supposing charges of high Treason against those that either fought for the King or counselled him how to defend himself in obeying the known Laws wch they themselves made the world believe they made some part of the war for ordering all to die without mercy that did but harbor the King when he fled in a disguise before their Armies condemning men by a Court martial after the War
accusers themselves were only guilty of When Bradshaw himself like the Jews High Priest confessing a truth against his will in the words which he gave in stead of reason for murthering the King against the will and good liking of more then 9. parts in every â—0 of the people of England could make his Masters that call themselves the Parliament of England to be no better then the Tribuni plebis of Rome and the Ephori of Sparta the former of which for manifold mischiefs and inconveniences were abrogated and laid aside and never more thought fit to be used and the latter not being half so bad as our new State Gipsies killed and made away to restore the people again to their Liberties But the opinion and judgement of the Learned Lord Chief Justice Popham who then little thought his grand-child Collonel Popham should joyn with those that sat with their Hats on their heads and directed the murther of their Soveraign and if he were now living would sure enough have hanged him for it and those other learned Judges in the case and Tryal of the Earl of Essex in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth That b an intent to hurt the Soveraign Prince as well as the Act of it was Treason And that the Laws of England do interpret every act of Rebellion or Treason to aim at the death or deposing the Prince For that Rebels by their good will never suffer that King or Prince to live or Reign that understands their purposes and may revenge them agreeable to that of the Civil Law That they that go about to give Law to their Prince will never suffer him to recover Authority to punish it and the opinion of Mr. St. John the late Kings Sollicitor General in his argument against the Earl of Strafford at a conference in a Committee of both Houses of Parliament That the intending advising or declaring of a War is Treason of compassing the Kings death that an endeavour to subvert the fundamental Laws and Government of England and introduce a Tyrannical Government against Law is Treason that an intention to alter Laws or Government is Treason that the insurrection of Wat Tiler and some of the Commons in the Reign of King R. 2. though varnished and coloured over with an oath quod Regi Communibus fidelitatem servarent That they would be true and faithful to the King and Commonalty was in Parliament declared to be Treason and that a machination or plotting a War is a compassing the death of the King as that which necessarily tends to the destruction both of the King and of the people That it is Treason to counterfeit the great Seal and that the exciting of people to take Arms and throw down all the inclosures of the Kingdom though nothing was done in pursuance thereof was in Easter Term 39. Eliz. resolved by all the Iudges of England to be a war intended against the Queen are now written in the blood of the King those many iterated complaints of the King in several of His Declarations published to the people in the midst of the Parliaments greatest pretences and promises that they intended to take away His life and ruine Him are now gone beyond suspicion and every man may know the meaning of their Canoneers levelling at the King with perspective glasses at Copredy bridge the acquitting of Pym the In-keeper who said he would wash his hands in the Kings Heart Blood stifling of 15. or 16. several indictments for treasonable words Rolfe rewarded for his purpose to kill him and the prosecutors checqued and some of them imprisoned for it For the Sun in the Firmament and the four great quarters of the Earth and the Shapes and Lineaments of man are not so universally known seen or spoken of as this will be most certain to the present as well as after ages The end hath now verified the beginning and Quod primum suit in intentione ultimo loco agitur Seven years hypocritical Promises and Practises seven years Pretences and seven years mistaken preaching and pratling have now brought us all to this conclusion as well as Confusion The blood of old England is let out by a greater witchcraft and cousenage then that of Medea when she set Pelias daughters to let out his old blood that young might come in the place of it the Cedars of Lebanon are devoured and the Trees have made the Bramble King and are like to speed as well with it as the Frogs did with the Stork that devoured them they have not only slain the King who was their Father but like Nero ript up the belly of the Common-Wealth which was their Mother The light of Israel is put out and the King Laws Religion and Liberties of the people murdered an action so horrid and a sin of so great a magnitude and complication as if we shall ask the days that are past and enquire from the one end of the Earth to the other there will not be found any wickedness like to this great wickedness or hath been heard like it The Seavern Thames Trent and Humber four of the greatest Rivers of the Kingdom with all their lesser running streams of the Island in their continual courses and those huge heaps of water in the Ocean and girdle of it in their restless agitations will never be able to scour and wash away the guilt and stain of it though all the rain which the clouds shall ever bring forth and impart to this Nation and the tears of those that bewail the loss of a King of so eminent graces and perfection shall be added to it Quis cladem illius diei quis funera fando Explicet aut possit lachrymis aequare dolores Gens antiqua ruit multos dominata per Annos FINIS a Order 3. Jan. 1641. b Camden Annals Eliz. 99. 103. c Ibidem p. 391. 394 395. d Vide the vote in Mr. Viccars book entituled God in the Mount p. 78. e Collect. of Parl. and Decl. and Kings Mess. and Decl. p. 50. f Ibid. 51. g Ibid. 52. h Ibid. 53. i Ibid. 77. 78. k Vide the Petition of some Holderness men to the King 6 July 1642. l Ibid. 153. m Ibid. 550. n Ibid. 169. 170. o Collect. Par. Decl. 183. p Ibid. 259. q Ibid. p. 297. 298. r Ibid. 301. s Ibid. 305. t Ibid. 328. u Ibid. 333. x Ibid. 339. 340. 342. y Collect. of Parl. Mess. and Declar. 307 308 309. z Ibid. 346 348. a Ibid. 349. 350. b Ibid. 350. c Ibid. 356 357. d Collect. Par. Decl. 373 374. e Ibid. 376. f Ibid. 442. g Ibid. 449. h Ibid. 450. i Ibid. 453 k Ibid. 459. l Ibid. 452. m Ibid. 457. n Ibid. 457. o Ibid. 465. 483. p Ibid. 509. q Ibid. 573 574 575 576. r Vide the Kings Declaration printed at Oxford and ordered to be read in Churches and Chappels Cokes 1. part Institutes 65. 11. H. 7. 18 19. H 7. 1. Collect. Kings Messages 579. s Ibid. 583. t Ibid. 585. u Ibid. 586. x Ibid. 614. y Alber. Gentil 223. z Besoldus in dissert. de jure Belli 77. 78. a Albert Gent. 23. b Lucan lib. 2. c Cicero Philippic. 5. d Per Prisot e 2 Sam. 15. f 2 Sam. 20. g Bodin pag. 736. h H. Grotius de jure pacis belli i Collect. of Mess Remonst and Decl. 15. k Ibid. 45. 50. 52. 55. 67. 98. 91. 94. 103. 104. 106. 109. 110. 114. 127. 255. 327. 353. 442. 472. 562. 580. 484. 686. l Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 58. m 32. Hen. 6. n 18 Eliz. o Besoldus dissert. philog pa 88. p C. an quid culpatur 23. q Dn. D. Bocer de bello cap. 5. Besoldus de juribus Majestatis cap. 6. r 7. Ed. 1. s Facius axiom 35. t Besoldus dissert. philolog 88. u Besoldus Ibid. 95. x Dn. Picart observat. decad 10. code Facius axiom bell 10. y Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 83. z Cic. 1â— de offi a Jov. lib. 1. b Polydor. 13. 20. c Albericus Gentilis cap. 3. d Jerom. ep. 47. e Cicero pro milone f Baldus 3. consid. 485. confid 5. g Alberic Genti lib. 1. 25. h Bald. 5. Cons. p. 439. i Genes 14. k Judges 20. l 1 Sam. 30. m 2 Sam. 6. n 1 Reg. 20. o 1 Mac. 3. v. 43. p 8. June 1644. q {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ca. 28. r History of the Marquis Montrosse his actions in Scotland Collect. Kings Messages and Answers a Weavers Funeral Monuments pa. 605. b Camdens Annals Eliz. pa. 798.
VERITAS INCONCUSSA OR A most certain Truth asserted THAT KING CHARLES THE FIRST Was no MAN OF BLOOD But a MARTYR For His People Together with a sad and impartial enquiry whether the King or Parliament began the War which hath so much ruined and undone the Kingdom of England and who was in the defensive part of it By FABIAN PHILIPPS Esq Exoritur aliquod majus è magno malum Nondum ruentis Ilii fatum stetit SENEC Tragoed in Troade Act. 3. LONDON Printed by Richard Hodgkinson in the Year 1649. and reprinted by Thomas Newcomb and are to be Sold by William Place at Grayes-Inn-Gate 1660. Though CHARLES be added to their heaps of slain They cannot prove that Abel murder'd Cain He dy'd a Martyr for his Peoples good Vote what they can they 're guilty of his blood But their 's the sin His the eternall Glory And Truth commends to Time his lasting Story TO THE KING' 's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY Most Gracious Soveraign IT having been the Cardo quaestionis or too much a question betwixt your Royal Father and His Parliament to whom the sin of our late Civil Wars and miseries with the bloody and horrid consequences thereof did belong though without question He was no way guilty of it but was a Martyr and sufferer in it and the guilt and profit of that great and crying sin being so inlaid and riveted in the promoters thereof as it was not only by time and successes which are not seldom the encouragers and supporters of it become to be the interest of a great part of that Faction or people but to be miscalled Piety Religion good affection and Godliness it self and yet sticks as a Leprosie to those and their seed that were more wicked then the covetous but unbloody Gehazi and if God of his mercy do not cleanse them from it will transmit it with an impenitency to boote which we do not finde entailed upon Gehazi's to their posterities The ensuing vindication of your Royal Father that he was not the Contriver Author and Beginner of that War which hath so undone and Harassed these three Nations was for the most part written by me a little before His Martyrdom and finished and published about the moneth of April 1649. in the midst of a fiery persecution and ruining of all that did but act or write or do any thing on His behalf and now re-printed and come abroad again may if publiquely owned under your Majesties gracious Patronage after Your happy restauration and the peoples sense and sight of their sin and follies be more instrumental in the conviction converting of many of those misguided zelots or thriving sinners then it was or could be before they had tasted and been so long acquainted with miseries and release them out of the prisons of that self-conceitedness and opiniastretè wherein Satan hath cunningly lodged and imprisoned their deluded Souls making them believe that they are in the Church way to Heaven when as without a timely repentance they are but going down to the place of everlasting burnings and is now the more necessary for that no longer ago then in April last a printed and publique Address was as impudently as wickedly made by a Seditious party calling themselves the most faithful friends and servants in the Common-cause to the Lord General Monck and the Officers of the Army under his Command to perswade them upon false and mistaken grounds out of their Loyalty by telling them That though it were possible that they should forget the publique Interest and their own yet certainly God would not all the injuries and oppressions done by that Family which pretends to the Government of these Nations to His Church and people in these and other Nations And though the Inscription of Exit Tyrannus which was fixed over the place where the Statue of the late King formerly stood at the Exchange hath been blotted out by the Rabble yet it was written with the Pen of a Diamond in the hearts of many thousands and will be so hereafter in the Adamantine Roles of Fame and History And that one of the great Incendiaries and Capital Offenders could very lately and since the Parliaments voting of him to be excepted desire and make means for a Pardon but being put to shew his repentance by a publique retractation in order to the obtaining of your Majesties favor would rather be without it then forsake his former opinions and that there are too many amongst those many that made acclamations and seemed to rejoyce in Your Majesties return to Your Throne and most ancient and undoubted Rights who have not changed their Spots but counterfeiting Loyalty to get blessings they never deserved can outdo a Proteus or the greatest of Dissemblers and onely keep their vomit to make a Cordial of when they shall but espy an opportunity to lick it up again and think themselves as infallible as they fancied the Spirit to be which deluded them To convert whom if possible and those too too many who have exceeded the gain-sayings of Korah Dathan and Abiram been greater gainers by it and to lead them into the right way and guard as well as I could Piissimi Regis Cineres the ashes and memory of my late Soveraign from the violation scandals and injuries which those who are rightly called Phanaticks are never a weary to put and cast upon them hath been and is the design aswell as the duty of him who having not come in only at the eleventh hour but laboured all that he could in the other part of the morning or day in the vineyard of Loyalty shall never cease to be a lover and servant of that Truth and Reason which enjoyns it And Your MAJESTIES Loyal and Obedient Subject FABIAN PHILIPPS TO HENRY BELL A PRINTER Arrogating to himself to be the Author of this Book HENRY BELL YOu might have contented your self with that unjust and now too common liberty taken by some Printers and Booksellers in abusing of Authors Readers and People by a false imposition of names and many counterfeit pieces and selling of one thing for another which in the want and absence of the good and Kingly Government of England and a Court of Star-Chamber which in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr had limited the Printers in the City of London not to exceed the number of twenty two of which who were then named are now only left alive our late unruly and licencious Times allowed you for in our formerly well-ordered dayes of a peaceable subjection to a most gracious King Books were as in most other Kingdoms of Europe to be licenced before they could be printed and the Printers and Stationers knew not at least durst not put in practise those grand Cheates which of late too many of them have put upon the people nor did use as many tricks in their Trades as the devil could invent or provide for them by printing and publishing books manuscripts
and broken pieces or fragments of manuscripts under the name of some worthy men that were long before dead or were meer strangers to them to make them sell the better insomuch as old books are usually set forth with new Titles and the Titles of unsaleable books changed and altered a part of one book and a part of another clapt together under the name of an Author which had no acquaintance at all with them several old Pamphlets bound together under a new Title of one of them to carry of the other and deceive the heedless or hasty buyer which with many other deceipts not here enumerated for it must be onely some Renegado knavish Printer or Stationer that can discover all of them are no better then forgeries and cheatings which are almost weekly dressed and sent abroad by them or by the means of some who at pityfull rates are hired to be their Epistle makers and Title contrivers and deserve a mark to be set upon them for Spurious and illegitimate And not have done that which you or he which confederated with you for you said there was a Citizen which went a share with you have adventured to do unto me whilest the second edition of this book was almost finished by printing of it and calling it your own thereby exceeding them all in villany for though your servant confessed that you had onely printed this book by a book formerly printed and that your self acknowledged to me and Mr. Newcomb the Printer that you were not the Author of it and understood not Latine and that other men of your trade can tell as well as your self that you understood so little of English as that you were formerly onely a Press-man and had not abilities enough to be a COMPOSITER yet you could have the impudence in the printing and publishing of my book which two Eminent and Learned Gentlemen now His Majesties servants in the Court of England can attest to have been a fruit and effect of my Loyalty in the beginning of the year 1649. when you would not have been so forward to have stollen the danger and hazard of the Author and Printer to leave out half the Title and make some additional title of your own or some other mans composing and dedicate it to his Majesty as a mite of your loyalty and say that it was written in the midst of his and our sufferings wheras it was in the very beginning of his now Majesties Reign and finished within few weeks after his Royal Fathers death And though you as if your conscience had forbid you directly to own that which was none of yours did onely subscribe your self W. H. B. and to make the book and the price the bigger had bound up with it a Lift very often before printed of the Names of the late Kings Tryers and the thirty five witnesses which swore against Him and some Orders made in that business yet adding to that also a short History as you call it of His now Royal Majesty Charles the Second you are found in the beginning thereof to use these words Having I hope sufficiently cleared His late Royal Majesty from that execrable sin of Blood guiltiness And the History beginning with what you or some other for you have picked and taken out of other mens works and relations when you came to mention the Kings escape out of England after Worcester fight by the help of Mrs. Jane Lane you have stollen out of Mr. James Davies the Author of the History of our gracious Soveraign King Charles the Second from the later end of page 177. unto the beginning of 185. more then seven whole pages with scarce four or five words difference which might be only the Errata's of the Press by which your abuse of me in taking from me that which was mine own and of His Majesty in dedicating that unto Him which was none of your own and your falsities and ill dealing with me you have as all men may perceive inforced me to bestow this Epistle upon you wherein doing my self right I shall do you no wrong to give notice to the world how much you have gone beyond your last what a Lurcher a Kite and Filcher of other mens labours you are and seeing you cannot be taken to be like the mad man of Argos who would make it his business to go every day to the Haven and when he saw any ships come in rejoyce very much and call them his own but rather to be like one of the Spirits as in detestation they are called who steal away children to sell them away to forreign plantations and will needs act again the part of Aesops Crow in the fable who making himself very gallant with the feathers of other Birds was by them at last dispoiled left a ridiculousnaked Squob You may now measure your shadow and see how much bigger this your doughty exploit hath made it and are only to thank your self for being thus exposed to a naked view and if you be capable of any blushing or credit may be ashamed of it and forbear to walk any more in the sinful paths of those men of your Trade who being to Schollers and men of learning like those foul and Ravenous birds the Harpies do by such or the like Tricks so abuse pollute and stain all kind of learning as no man knows how to write or any man how to buy without being grossely abused or cheated and he which is or hath been the careful and painful Author of a book be it never so good or profitable for the Common-wealth of learning shall be in danger to have it transposed or owned when and by whomsoever a naughty and jugling Printer or Stationer pleaseth which calls for a speedy remedy as well as punishment in part whereof you and your fellow Gipsies may receive this animadversion until a more smart and legal one may be provided for you THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS CHAP. I. WHo first of all raised the fears and jealousies pag. 6 CHAP. II. THe proceedings betwixt the King and Parliament from the Tumultuous and Seditious coming of some people to the Parliament and White-hall until the 13. of September 1642. being 18. days after the King had set up His Standard at Nottingham 13 CHAP. III. WHether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppress or punish a Rebellion of the people be tyed to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a war if it were made between equals 83 CHAP. IV. SUppose the War to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it 93 CHAP. V. WHether the Parliament in their pretended Magistracy have not taken lesser occasions to punish or provide against Insurrections Treasons and Rebellions as they are pleased to call them 177 CHAP. VI WHo most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it 186 CHAP. VII VVHo laboured to shorten the War and who to lengthen
it 192 CHAP. VIII VVHether the conditions offered by the King would not have been more profitable if they had been accepted and what the people have got instead of them 205 ERRATA Which escaped the Press PAg. 120. l. 15. read their for they p. 118. l. 20. Saxon for Sixon p. 122. l. 22. interfere a. KING CHARLES The first No Man of Blood BUT A Martyr for his People THat there hath been now almost seven years spent in Civil Wars abundance of Blood-shed and more Ruine and Misery brought upon the Kingdom by it then all the several Changes Conquests and Civil Wars it hath endured from the time of Brute or the first Inhabitants of it every mans woful experience some onely excepted who have been gainers by it will easily assent unto No mervail therefore that many of those who if all they alledge for themselves that they were not the cause of it could be granted to be true might either have hindred or lessened it would now put the blame of so horrid a business from themselves and lay it upon any they can perswade to bear it And that the Conquerours who would binde their Kings in Chains and their Princes with fetters of Iron and think they have a Commission from Heaven to do it the guilt of it being necessarily either to be charged upon the Conquerors or conquered are not willing to have their triumphant Chayres and the glories as they are made believe that hang upon their shoulders defiled with it but do all they can to load their Captives with it But howsoever though the successe and power of an Army hath frighted it so far out of question as to charge it upon the King and take away his life for it by making those that must of necessity be guilty of the fact if He should have been as in all reason He ought to have been acquited of it the onely Judges of him It may well become the judgement and conscience of every man that will be but either a good Subject or a Christian not to lend out his Soul and Salvation so much on trust as to take those that are parties and the most ignorant sort of mens words for it but to enter into a most serious examination of the matter of Fact it self and by tracing out the footsteps of Truth see what a conclusion may be drawn out of it In pursuance whereof for I hope the original of this Sea of blood will not prove so unsearchable as the head of Nile we shall enquire who first of all raised the Feares and Jealousies Secondly represent set down the truth of the matter of Fact and proceedings betwixt the King and Parliament from the tumultuous and seditious coming of the People to the Parliament and Whitehall until the 25. Aug. 1642. when he set up his Standard at Nottingham and from the setting up of his Standard until the 13 Septemb. 1642. when the Parliament by their many acts of hostility and a negative and churlish answer to his propositions might well have put him out of hope of any good to be obtained from them by messages of Peace sent unto them Thirdly whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppresse or punish a rebellion of the People be tied to those rules are necessary to the justifying of a war if it were made between equals Fourthly suppose the war to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it Fifthly whether the Parliament in their pretended magistracy have not taken lesser occasions to punish or provide against insurrections treasons and rebellions as they are pleased to call them Sixthly who most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it Seventhly who laboured to shorten the War and who to lengthen it Eightly whether the Conditions proffered by the King would not have been more profitable for the People if they had been accepted and what the Kingdom and People have got in stead of it CHAP. I. Who first of all Raised the Fears and Jealousies THe desiring of a guard for the Parliament because of a tale rather then a plot That the Earl of Crawford had a purpose to take away the Marquis of Hamiltons life in Scotland the refusing of a legal guard offered by the King and His protestation to be as careful of their safety as of the safety of His Wife and Children The dream of a Taylor lying in a ditch in Finsbury fields of this and the other good Lord and Common-wealths-men to be taken away The training of horses under ground and a plague-plaister or rather a clout taken from a galled horse-back sent into the House of Commons to Mr. Pym A designe of the Inhabitants of Covent-Garden to murther the City of London News from France Italy Spain and Denmark of Armies ready to come for England and a supposition or feaverish fancy That the King intended to introduce Popery and alter Religion and take away the Laws and Liberties of the people and many other the like seditious delusions the People so much as their misery will give them leave have now found out the way to laugh at either came from the Parliament party or were cherished and turned into advantages by them For they had found the way and lost nothing by it to be ever jealous of the King And whilest he did all he could to shew them that there was no cause for it they who were jealous without a cause could be so cunning as to make all the haste they could to weaken Him and strengthen themselves by such kind of artifices But He that could not choose but take notice that there were secret ties and combinations betwixt his English and Scottish subjects the latter of whom the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Fairfax themselves understood to be no better then Rebels and therefore served in places of Command in His Majesties Army against them That Sir Arthur Haselrig had brought in a Bill in Parliament to take the Militia by Sea and Land away from him saw himself not long after by a printed Remonstrance or Declaration made to the People of all they could but imagine to be errours in his government arraigned and little lesse then deposed The Bishops and divers great Lords driven from the Parliament by Tumults Was inforced to keep his gates at White-hall shut and procure divers Captains and Commanders to lodge there and to allow them a table to be a guard for him and had been fully informed of many Trayterous Speeches used by some seditious mechaniques of London as that It was pitty He should raigne and that The Prince would make a better King was yet so far from being jealous or solicitous to defend himself by the sword and power which God had intrusted him with as when he had need and reason enough to do it he still granted them that he might not seem to deny what might but seem to be for the good
killed upon no provocation women and maids ravished and their fingers cut off for their rings old Best of Canterbury hanged up by the privities others tortured and had burning matches tied to their fingers to make them confess where their money was women and children and sick and aged persons starved for want of the sustenance they had taken from them husbandmen had their corn and hay spoiled in the fields and barns their sheep cattel and provisions devoured houses ruined or burnt and their horses that should help to plough and do other works of husbandry taken away in so much as some were inforced to blinde and put out their horses eyes that they might not be taken from them Churches that escaped defacing prophaned and made Stables or Gaoles or Victualing or Bawdy houses Monuments defaced and Sepulchers opened as were those of the Saxon Kings at Winchester and the Priests and Ministers not so much as suffered to weep betwixt the Porch and the Altar but their benefices and livelyhoods taken from them by Wolves put in the Shepherds places had their bookes burned and all their means and maintenance plundred from them and those that were newtrals and medled on neither side but lived as quietly as they could either totally undone or cast in prison not for that they did them any hurt but because they might do it and if they were not imprisoned their Lands Money or goods were sure to be in the fault and taken away from them u Ut bellum illaesa conscientia geratur necesse est ut adsit intentio bona There ought to be a good intention to make the War conscionable which in this appears to fail also For the Charge against the five Members is now as true as it was then they meant to ruine the King and they have done it and to alter the Government and subvert the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and they have done a great part of it and as fast as they can are pulling down the remainder x Quaerere debemus victoriam rationibus honestis ne salutem quidem turpibus We ought to pursue victory and the just ends of War by honest and lawful means and not to do soul and dishonest things to procure our safety from which they made fears and jealousies which the Parliament made use of to usher in their pretences their faining of victories and scandaling the King and his actions not to insist upon their buying the Kings servants and secrets Battels Towns and Garrisons and making too many Judases of all that were about him will hardly be able to free them or if they could the making use of men and money intended for the support of Ireland and leaving them wallowing in their blood for seven yeares together whilst they were ruining their King that would have helped them violating of their oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy which many of their members had taken six or seven times over breaking their oathes taken in their Protestation and Nationall Covenant and not so few as one hundred solemn promises and undertakings in their severall Petitions Remonstrances and Declarations forcing the People to take the Protestation and Covenant and compel them as soon as they had taken it to break them and by cousening and forcing them into Rebellions and perjuries cheat them out of their Religion Loyalty Laws and Liberties will be sure enough to condemn them and if the great Turk carrying the Covenant which Ladâ—staus the unfortunate King of Hungary was perswaded to break with him as an ensigne of publique detestation in the battel wherein he slew him invoked the God of the Christians to help him to revenge so great a treachery there will be more reason now for all that are but Christians or but pretend to any morality to carry in their banner the pourtraict of the Kings bleeding head as it was cut from His shoulders and make War in revenge of the masterpiece and totum aggregatum of all maner of wickedness and perfidiousness who besides all their own and the peoples oaths taken to defend him when those they called Delinquents some few onely which were specially named and excepted for obeying the known Laws of the Land as well as their Oaths and Consciences were never questioned for their lives but suffered to compound for their Estates would not suffer the King that was neither a Delinquent or Excepted Person to enjoy either His Life or Estate though to save his people and keep them from killing one another He had yielded himself and became a Prisoner upon the publique faiâ—h of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland Pax aequa non est recusanda licet victoriae spes adsit y saith Besoldus A good or fitting Peace is not to be refused though the victory were certain And in this also the Parliament will be as far to seek for a justification as in the other For in stead of offering any thing which was likely to bring it they caused men and women in the first year of their War to be killed because they did but petition them to accept of a Peace and in the third and fourth year of their War plundred and robbed others that petitioned them but to hearken to it and put out of office and made all as Delinquents in the seventh year of their War that did but petition them for a Treaty with the King and refused all the Kings many very many Messages for Peace not onely when He was at the highest of His success in the war but when he was at the lowest and a prisoner to them and conjured them as they would answer at the dreadful day of Judgement to pity the bleeding conditions of His Kingdoms and people and send propositions of Peace unto Him and quarters and half years and more then a whole year together after the battel of Naseby insomuch as their fellow Rebels the Scotch Commissioners did heavily complain of it were at several times trifled away and spent before any propositions could be made ready though those which they sent to Oxford Uxbridge Newcastle and Hampton-Court were but substantially and materially the same with their nineteen Propositions which they made unto the King before the Earl of Essex was made their General and in all the Treaties made Propositions for themselves and the Soveraignty and great offices and places of the Kingdom but would neither for Gods sake or their Kings sake or their Oaths or Consciences sake or the Peoples sake or Peace sake which the people petitioned and hungred and thirsted for alter or abate one Iota or tittle of them but were so unwilling to have any Peace at all as six or seven Messengers or Trumpeters could come from the King before they could be at leisure or so manerly as to answer one of them but this or that Message from the King was received and read and laid by till a week or when they would after and the Kings Commissioners in the Treaties must
forget their due titles of Earls Lords or Knights because the King had made them so since the beginning of the War or else there must be neither Treaty nor Peace At Uxbridge the time of the Treaty limited for 20. days and at Newcastle for 10. and though the King and His Commissioners at Uxbridge almost petitioned for a cessation in the interim of that Treaty as they had done before in that which was at Oxford it could not be granted nor have a few days added to it and if the King could in Honor and Conscience have granted all the other parts of the Propositions must grant them an Act not onely to confiscate the Estates of His Friends and those that took Arms to save his Life and Estate but to take away their Lives also and not only that but to condemn them of high Treason and attaint their blood when they fought against them which were onely guilty of it a thing so unfitting unusually stood upon as it was never asked in any treaty or pacification among the civilized or more barbarous heathen and amounts to more then Adonibezeks causing the thumbs and great toes of his captive Kings to be cut off and making them to gather the crumbs from under his table or Benhadads demand of Ahabs silver and gold his wives and children and whatsoever else was pleasant in his eyes which the elders and people of Israel perswaded Ahab not to consent unto but was a thing purposely contrived and stood upon to hinder a Peace and was not to be asked or granted by any that could but entitle themselves to the least part of reason or humanity a demand Bajazet would not leave his Iron cage to yield unto a thing nature it self would abhor and the worst of villains and reprobates rather lose their lives then yield to would never be demanded by any but a Devil nor granted by any but his Equals And if their desiring of a War more then a peace and to keep the King out of his own had not been the only cause of such unnatural and barbarous propositions it may well be wondred why they that have made to themselves for we cannot believe they have found any law or warrant to ground it upon a power to take away the Kings life upon a colour or pretence of an unread as well as unheard of piece of Justice should need to strive so hard with the King to give them a power to do that which they are now so busie to do of themselves and as if they had been afraid all this would not be enough to keep the doores of Janus or the Devil open for fear lest the King should trouble them with any more offers or Messages for peace a vote must be made in February 1647. that it should be treason in any man to bring or receive any more Messages from him without consent of Parliament But suppose that which is not that the Parliament could have but found any thing but somewhat like a cause or justification of a war against their Soveraign for notwithstanding all their hypocritical pretences so it was at first intended and so it hath proved to be ever since to whom their Masters the people we mean as to the House of Commons had sent them to consult with not to make a War against him they might have remembred that saying of Cicero if they had found nothing in the book of God and their own consciences to perswade them to it That z duo sunt genera decertandi unum per disceptationem alterum per vim ad hoc confugiendum non est si uti superiori licebit There are other ways to come by pretended rights then by a War and we ought never to make use of a War which is the worst of all remedies if we may obtain it by a better Hen. 2. King of England was made a Judge betwixt the Kings of Castile and Navarre a The Rebellious Barons of England in the raign of King Hen. 3. referred their controversies to the decision of the King of France and his Parliament at Paris And the blood of this Kingdom which ran so plentifully in those unhappy differences was by that means only stopped Charles b the 4. Emperor was made a Judge of the differences betwixt the English and the French Kings For as Albericus Gentilis saith well c Intelligendum est eos qui diffugiunt genus hoc decertandi per disceptationem ad alterum quod est per vim currunt ilico eos a justitia ab humanitate a probis exemplis refugere ruere in arma volentes qui subire judicium nullius velint They that rush into a War without assaying all other just means of deciding the controversie for which it is made and will judge onely according to their own will and opinion do turn their backs to Justice Humanity and all good Examples And in that also the Parliament will be found faulty For the French King and the States of the United Provinces did by more then one Request and Embassy severally and earnestly mediate to make an accord betwixt the King and His Parliament and desired to have all things in difference left to their arbitrement but their Ambassadors returned home again with a report how much they found the King inclined to it how satisfactorily he had offered and how much the Parliament was averse to their interposition and altogether refused it But we have tarried long enough among the Parliament partie from thence therefore for it is time to leave the company of so much wickedness we shall remove to the Kings party and yet that may cause a Sequestration and examine for a fuller satisfaction of that which by the rule of contraries is clear enough already if he were not on the defensive and more justifiable part of the business The King as He was defensor protector subditorum suorum and sworn to see the Law executed had not the sword nor his authority committed to him in vain And if he had no maner of just cause of fear either in His own Person or authority or no cause given him in re laesae Majestatis the imprisoning of His Subjects and plundring and taking away their Estates from them long before He had either armed himself or had wherewithal to do it had been cause as sufficient as to cause a Hue and Cry to be made after a fellon or raise the posse Comitatus to bring Him to Justice and might by the same reason do it in the case of more and by the same reason he might do it by the help of one nothing can hinder but by the same reason he might do it by the help of more When Nathan came to David with a parable and told him of the rich man that had taken the poor mans onely Sheep he that understood well enough the duty of a King was exceeding wroth against the man and said As sure
as the Lord liveth this man shall surely dye And can any man think that the King when He saw so much Sedition and Treason among the People countenanced and cherished Tumults grow up into outrages outrages to parties and Warlike assemblies propositions made to bring in Horse and Money to maintain an Army against Him and many of His Subjects daily imprisoned sequestred undone or killed can be blamed if he had a great deal sooner gone about to defend both himself and His people For who d saith St. Jerom. did ever rest quietly sleeping near a viper lex una perpetua salutem omni ratione defendere haec ratio doctis necessitas Barbaris mos gentibus feris natura ipsa prescripsit haec non scripta sed nata lex saith e Tully that great master of morality Reason Necessity Custom and Nature it self have made self-preservation to be warrantable Nemo exponere se debet periculis obviam offensioni eundum non modo quae est in actu sed quae est in potentia ad actum justus metus justum facit bellum say the Civil Laws and where there was not nuda cogitatio or a bare intention onely to ruine the King but so much over and over again acted as might well occasion more then a fear and apprehension in him of what hath since been brought to pass against him no man certainly without much blindness or partiality can think it to be a fault in Him to seek to defend himself when the Parliament did not only long before He raised any forces to defend himself but at the same time when He was doing of it make the people believe His Person was in so much danger as they must needs take up Arms to defend Him And how much more warrantable then must it be in the Kings case when it was not onely an endeavour to defend himself but all those that have been since slain and undone and ruined for want of power enough to do it Defence is by the civil Lawyers said to be either necessary profitable or honest f Nec distingui vult Baldus sive se sua suosve defendat sive prope sive posita longe A man is said to defend himself when it is but his own Goods Estate or People whether near or further of Necessaria defensio ejus est factum ad necessariam defensionem contra quem veniat armatus inimicus ejus contra quem inimicus se paravit It must needs be a necessary defence against whom an armed enemy is either marching or preparing Utilis defensio quum nos movemus bellum verentes ne ipsi bello petamur When we make a War to prevent or be before hand when War or mischief is threatned or likely to come upon us For as Nicephorus the Historian saith He that will live out of danger must occurrere malis impendentibus autevertere nec est cunctandum aut expectandum c. meet and take away growing evils and turn them another way and not to delay and be slack in it Honesta defensio quae citra metum ullum periculi nostri nulla utilitate quaesita tantum in gratiam aliorum suscipitur g When for no fear of danger to our selves and for no consideration of profit to our selves but meerly in favour or help of others the War is undertaken Wherefore certainly when the King may be justly said to tarry too long before he made the second and third kinds of defences either to prevent the danger and fury of a War against himself or to help those that suffered and were undone in seeking to defend him and was so over much in love with Peace as he utterly lost it and could never again recover it and was so much mistaken in the Love and Religion of His Subjects and Parliament promises and the seeming impossibilities of such horrid proceedings against Him as all His three Kingdoms were in a flame of war and strong Combinations made by two of them and the Pulpits every where flaming Seditious exhortations against Him His Navy Magazines Ports Revenues Mint strongest Towns and Places seised on Armies marching against Him and He only and a few friends and followers pend up in a corner had an enemy and a strong Town at His back ready every day to surprize Him and several Armies marching and in action before and round about Him before He granted out any Commission for War or had or could make any preparation for it and had so many to help and defend besides himself It would be too much injury and too great a violence to all maner of reason and understanding to deny Him a Justification upon the first sort of defences if the second would not reach it for the first cannot by any interpretation go without it For h haec est necessitas saith Baldus quae bellum justificat quum in extremo loco ad bellum confugitur Or if with Grotius we look upon it another way and make the Justice of War to consist First in defensione Secondly in recuperatione rerum Thirdly in punitione The King before ever He went to demand Hull or before ever he desired a guard of the County of York had cause enough and enough to do it and it would be hard if a great deal less then that should not be able to deliver Him from the censure or blame of an offensive or unnecessary War When that which was made by David upon the Children of Ammon and that of the late glorious King of Sweden against the Emperor of Germany the former for misusing the latter for encroaching upon Him and not receiving His Ambassadors found warrant and necessity enough to do it But what could the King do more in His endeavours and waiting for a Peace or less in His preparations or making of a War when the least or one of the hundred provocations or causes we dare say plainly here set down in the matter of fact hath hitherto among the wisest Princes and Common-wealths in the World been reputed a just and warrantable cause of war Homicide by the Laws of England shall be excused with a se defendendo when the assaulted hath but simply defended himself or retired in his own defence so far till by some Water or Wall he be hindred from going any further Death and destruction marching towards the King Hull fortified and kept behind him and all maner of necessities compassing him in on every side could then do no less then rouse him up to make his own defence and he must be as much without his sences as care of his own preservation if he should not then think it to be high time to make ready to defend himself and necessity enough to excuse him for any thing should be done in order to it The Parliament and he as this case stood could not be both at one and the same time in the defensive part for they had all
take away his life if he should confess himself guilty of it by allowing of the preamble In this unparallel'd demand never before stood upon by Subjects to their Prince or Conquerors to their Captives Nero himself was so far short of as though he had cunning enough when he set Rome on fire to lay the fault upon the Christians he had not Villany enough to torture and seek to draw them to a confession that they had done it The King therefore after Protestation that He could not without a manifest injury to the Truth and a violation of His Honour and Conscience take upon Him a guilt which could no way be charged upon Him or those that appeared in His defence was yet for Peace sake and His peoples sake content to say It will be a great self-denial to take this supposition of a guilt upon my self and a Christian virtue to undergo any affliction that may be for the good of my People and I am confident those that have adventured so much for me will be content to share with me for so good a purpose in the suffering for it I shall therefore Conditionally consent to the Preamble so as there follow a conclusion upon the whole matter in Treaty and Propositions betwixt us otherwise it is but sub modo and conditional as it is always to be understood in this Treaty that nothing agreed in part betwixt us shall be binding unless there be a conclusion upon the whole And here let the Truth be judge if the King did not abundantly endeavor to save His people and if the Parliament had not need of a justification when they used all maner of force and shifts to have the King take the fault upon Him Wherefore they that shall consider that the King was a close prisoner robbed and bereaved of all that He had but His Honour and Conscience and a great measure of knowledge and understanding and the hearts of His Loyal Subjects was debarred of all friends and comforts penned up and used with all maner of hardship and extremities and every day like to be murdered that conditions adimpleri debent priusquam sequatur effectus and are but inserted or added in casum incertum qui potest tendere ad esse aut non esse and depend on subsequences or following effects which not happening or coming to be performed according to the intent of the conditions makes them to vanish and expire as if that no such matter at all had been acknowledged or expressed in them That Cook his accuser who when he comes to be hanged for it will never be able to prove that the people substistuted or gave him warrant for to accuse Him And Bradshaw who sat higher in the pageant of Justice and the rest of his fellow-murderers took the Kings conditional consenting to the Preamble to be so little for their purpose as they never so much as mentioned it must not only acquit him of any Confession or guilt to be inferred from his conditional yielding to that Ambuscado Preamble but dissolve into wonder and admiration that He who in His Royal Meditations and Conference with death upon the Parliaments Votes of non addresse and his closer imprisonment at Carisbrooke-Castle had clearness of Conscience enough to say for as for his judgement we hope it cannot be suspected when Mr. Caril the Independent and Mr. Vines a Presbyterian Minister could say He was a second Solomon and the Parliaments Commissioners at the Isle of Wight reported him to be the master of the greatest wisdom and understanding That He had q the feast of a good conscience and the brazen wall of a judicious integrity conscience doubted not but His Innocency would finde God to be His Protector rejoyced in the comfort of imitating Christs example in suffering for Righteousnesse sake and thanked God He could pray for them that God would not impute His Blood to them further then to convince them what need they had of Christs blood to wash their souls from the guilt of shedding His And was afterwards in the face and view of Death and His murderers when such a Prince and such a Christian cannot be thought to dissemble heard to say upon the Scaffold He never did begin a War with the two houses of Parliament and called God to His witness to whom He was shortly to make an account He never intended to incroach upon their Priviledges but they began upon Him It was the Militia they began upon though they confest it was His and that any that would look into the date of their Commissions and His might clearly see that they began these unhappy troubles and hoped God would clear Him of it Could be so much more then a man and so great a Protector of His people as not onely to be content to be robbed and despoiled of all that He had for their sakes but to save the lives liberties estates of His people when there was no other way to do it deliver up himself so as a Peace and Agreement might have followed upon the Treaty to the unjust Censure of Robbing and Spoiling those that had robbed and undone Him But now that we have hunted this Parliament Proteus through all his disguises of Parliament priviledges and pretences and are lamentably assured that a great accursed thing is committed in our Israel and that the anger of the Lord is kindled against us it may be labour well bestowed though here is sure enough already said and proved that the King was in the defensive and justifiable part of the War to send into Achans tent and search and see what is there to be found concerning this matter and there we finde that the Lord Brooke and his Complices had not long before the King had summoned them to that which is now called the Parliament settled and conveyed their Estates to prevent any dangers which might happen upon their intended enterprises Peard the pragmatique Parliament man was heard to say a little before this holy War began to break out That the Government of the Kingdom would within a year or two be altered A little before the second Scottish invasion r Hinderson the Scotch firebrand confesses that the Covenanters of both Kingdoms were unanimously agreed to bring the King to their lure before they laid down Arms the joynt Declaration of both Kingdoms in January 1643. professes they will never say down Arms till the pretended Reformation be accomplished many Declarations and Remonstrances of the Parliament if they may be so called and the Army mention the original power and Soveraignty to be in the people the common Rights and Freedom of the Nation and the opportunities God had put into their hands An Ordinance of Parliament 20. October 1645. concerning rules and directions for Tryers and Judges of the ability of Elders declares it was the wonderful providence of God in calling them which He never did by force of Arms Hypocrisie Treason Rebellion and usurping of
vvas ended and Shooting them to Death but for vvords or intentions And if this and many things more which might be said of it be not enough what means so many Sequestrations and the bleating and lowing of mens Sheep and Oxen taken away from them since the War was ended but for words spoken either for the King or against them husbands and fathers undone for what their wives or children did without their privity the Maior of London divers Aldermen Imprisoned but upon a suspicion of joyning with the Scots or acting in pursuance of the Covenant which they forced them to take or else would have undone them for refusing of it Garrisons and Armies with Free-quartering and Taxes kept up and the people like sheep devoured to maintain them so much complaining in our streets and the taking away from some all their lands from others what they pleased and enforced many thousands to compound for their lands estates for joyning with the Kings forces or for being forced to send provisions to them when they took up Arms some in pursuance of the Covenant and others of them to deliver the King out of prison causing the Souldiers not only to cut and kill divers of the County of Surrey in the very act of petitioning the Parliament for a Treaty of Peace with the King and Sequester many of them for putting their hands unto it with disabling the Citizens of London for bearing any Office in the Citty or Common-wealth for but putting their hands to the Petition for the Treaty though Cromwell himself had not long before set on some to petition for it and the ruine and undoing of two parts of three in the Kingdome very many of whom did nothing actually in the Wars but were only sacrified to their pretended reasons and jealousies of State do sufficiently proclaim and reâ—…ain the vvoful Registers to after generations of this lamentable assertion If the King could have gotten but so much leave of his mercy and tender-heartedness to his people as to have used but the five hundreth part of the Parliaments jealousies sharp and merciless authority in the managing of this war so much of his Kingdomes and people had not been undone and ruined nor the Parliament put to so much labour to coyne faults and scandals against him nor to wrest the Laws to Non-sense and the Scriptures to Blasphemy to justifie their most horrid act of Murdering him but for seeking to preserve the Laws and Liberties of his people who are now cleerly cheated out of them And here our miseries tels us we must leave them and in the next place shall remember for indeed it is so plain it needs no enquiry CHAP. VI Who most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it THe abundant satisfaction wch the King had offered them from his first summoning of the late Parliament to their dissolving of themselves by dissolving Him who gave them all their Life and Being that which he did and all which he would have done So many Declarations Answers and Messages penned by himself intending as much as his words could signifie and were believed and understood by all at that time that were not interessed or engaged against him and by many of the eagrest of them also that had no hand or lookt to have any profit in the murthering of him for a Tryal of a King without either Warrant or Colour of Scripture or the Laws of the Kingdome or the consent of the major part of the people if that could have authorized it cannot nay will not by all the world and after ages be otherwise interpreted unless we shall say Ravillae might have justified his killing of Henry the Fourth of France if he had but had the wit to have framed or fancied a Supreme Court of Justice and have Sentenced him before he had done it will be as Pillars and lasting Monuments of this Truth The King was the only desirer of Peace and laboured and tugged harder for it then ever Prince or King Heathen or Christian since Almighty God did his first dayes work did ever do with Superiors Equals or Subjects and it will be no wrong certainly to David whose sufferings are so much remembred in all Christian Churches complayning so bitterly That he sought peace with those that refused it and in the mean time prepared for War against him Yo say the King did suffer more and offer more and oftner for peace then ever he did for any thing is extant or appearing to us for surely so many messages of peace as one and twenty in two years space from the 5 of December 1645. to the 25. of December 1647. sent to the Parliament after so many affronts and discouragements must needs excuse him that offered all could be imagined to be for the good and safety of his people and condemn those that not only from time to time refused it but adhered so much to their first intentions as all the blood and ruine of the people could not perswade them to depart with the least punctillio of it though the King before the Isle of Wight Treaty offered so much for the Olive-Branch as to part with the Militia for the terme of his life and in a manner to un-King himself and was afterwards content to do all that his Coronation Oath Honour and Conscience could possibly permit him to do and to purchase a peace for his people would have perswaded his Innocence to have born the shame reproach of what his enemies were only guilty of in so much as the Lord Say himself and most of his ever craving never safe enough Disciples confessed that the King had offered so much as nothing more could be demanded of him They therefore that can but tell how to divide or put a difference betwixt white and black night and day and the plainest contraries must needs also acknowledg That the King offered all and the Parliment refused all the King was willing to part almost with every thing and the Parliament would never part with any thing the King was willing for the good of his people to give away almost every thing of his own but the Parliament would never yeild to part with any thing was not their own And thus may the account be quickly cast up between the King and that Parliament who would have saved and kept the people from misery and who was most unwilling to make an end of it But that we may not too hastily give the Sentence and try the business as they use to do at the Council of War or the new invented way of Justice sitting with their wil or the Sword only in one hand and no Ballance at all in the other We shall in the next place examine CHAP. VII Who laboured to Shorten the War and who to Lengthen it THe odds vvas so great betvvixt what the Parliament laboured to get and the King to keep as that vvhich swayes the balance in most mens actions vvill
great part of them either by Rebellion or an accursed Newtrality helped to ruine him and when he knew whatsoever Conditions or Propositions he should be forced to yield unto would by the Law of God as well as the Civil and Common Law the Laws of Nature and Nations and the dictates of every common mans reason and apprehension have been void in the very making of them and could not have reached to his posterity and that if he would but have surrendred up his people and gone along with their new masters in their Arbitrary and Tyrannical government as some of His last words upon the Scaffold plainly intimate and sided with 20. or 30. of the Faction and delivered up the Sheep to the Wolves he might no doubt have had a good part of the Fleece to his own share or but have pleased himself with revenge delivered up a people to Slavery who were at so much expence of Treasure and Blood and their own Souls to bring their Soveraign to it might have worn the title of a King and played the wanton with Sardanapalus in the company and delight of women pleased his palate with Vitellius his pride if he had any with Bassianus his cruelty if he could ever have been guilty of it with Commodus and with Childerick the lazy King of France in a Chariot deck't with garlands whilst others governed for him been at certain times of the year onely exhibited to the people and like the Minotaure of Creete wallowed in the labyrinth of Parliament priviledges and devoured his people did notwithstanding refuse to do any thing that might help himself either to purchase his own quiet or so great a Liberty and would neither for any good which might come to himself or any evil that might be cast upon him and his posterity be perswaded or threatned from the protection of His People who if He had not taken more care for them then they did for themselves must if He had yielded to all the Parliament Propositions for then they might have imagined mischief by a Law have from time to time been engaged in any War that their task-masters had a mind to put them upon must have been excised plundred sequestred ruined and undone sworn and forsworn constrayned to swear to do a thing to day and the next day swear not at all to do it The son set to kill his Father and brothers forced to fight one against another and have all their holy-dayes turned to thanks-giving days that they are undone or fasting dayes that they may be undone soon enough And if at any time that thing they call a Parliament should think it fit to make a directory to the Alchoran and to order every man to turn Turk and the King as their Henry Scobel or Town Cleark but subscribe it their Spiritual as well as their Temporal Estate and their Souls as well as their Bodies must be voted and forced to it And now let the People that have tasted too much of such a kind of happiness and are like to continue in it as long as their misery-makers can by any help of the Devil or his angels hold them to it consider whether they or their forefathers though some have thought themselves to have wit enough to adventure to call them fools were the wiser whether they that setled the government and were contented with it or they that pulled it in pieces and whether the tearing up of the fundamental Laws of Monarchy Peerage Parliament and Magna Charta ever since the day the King was murthered for defending of them which every one but themselves desired to uphold be not enough besides the Scottish combination and the plots to ruine Monarchy and the King His posterity before they had so far engaged themselves in it to inform them if nothing else had been demonstrated unto them That the King did all He could to preserve the Laws Religion and Liberties of the people which divers pieces of His coyn will help to perpetuate the truth as well as the memory of and the Parliament all they could to destroy them And that as He actually endeavoured to defend them so they have as actually undone and destroyed them And let the greatest search of History that can be made or time it self be Judge if ever any War was more made in the defensive or upon juster grounds or greater necessities or if ever any King before fought for the Liberties of those He was to govern and for Laws to restrain himself withall or if it were possible for him to suffer so much in any mans opinion as to have it thought to be unlawful or that He was a murderer of His people for seeking to protect them How shall any King or Magistrate be able to bear or use the sword when they themselves shall be in continual danger to be beaten with it King Edward the 2. of England was not murdered for the blood that was shed in the Barons wars though some of them had drawn their swords but in performance of his fathers will to take away his favorite Gaveston from him King Rich. 2. in those many devised Articles charged against him was not deposed for the blood was shed in Wat Tilers Commotion nor Hen. 6. publiquely accused for that of Jack Cades rebellion and the most bloody differences of the White and Red Roses nor Queen Elizabeth for all that was spilt in reducing Ireland when her favorite the Earl of Essex made it to be the more by his practises with Tyrone nor for the blood of Hacket who pretended to be Christ nor of Penry and other Sectaries lesser Incendiaries then Burton Bastwick their disciples for disturbing the Common-wealth the great Henry of France was not endeavoured by his Catholick Subjects to be brought to trial for shedding so much of their blood to reduce them to his obedience nor by his Protestant Subjects after he was turned Catholique for spending so much of their blood to another purpose then they intended it Nor have the stout-hearted Germans though many of them great and almost free Princes in their late peace and accord made betwixt the Swedes and the Emperor thought it any way reasonable or necessary to demand reparation for those millions of men women and children houses and estates which were ruined and spoiled by a 30. years war to reduce the Bohemians and Prince Elector Palatine to their obedience For what rules or bounds shall be put to every mans particular fancy or corrupted interest if they shall be at Liberty to question and call to account the authority which God hath placed over them Shall the son condemn or punish the father for his own disobedience the Wife her Husband for her own act of Adultery or the Servant the Master for his own unfaithfulness or can there be any thing in the reason or understanding of man to perswade him to think that the King was justly accused for the shedding of His Subjects blood which the
be argument enough to conclude They vvere more likely to loose by a peace then a vvar therefore the more vvilling to continue it And if their own interests vvould not put them so far upon it their vain glory and ambition vvould be forvvard enough to persvvade them to it and if not that the success of their arms or miscalled Providence vvould make them look as experience tels us they did upon any tenders of peace as Alexander the Great did upon Darius his offer of halfe his kingdome and if not that their feares and iealousies now growne greater by wronginge of the King then ever they were when they without any cause suspected him could never think it safe to let an inraged Lion into his Den they had so long kept out of it But the King could not fight for his owne but hee must adventure the undoeiug of his owne and could not but know that so much as was lost of his Subjects would be so much lost of a King and therefore doth all hee can to preserve a People who had no minde to preserve themselves and the morniug before he was inforced to fight in his own defence at Edg-hill did not only scnd his Proclamation of Pardon to all except the Earl of Essex wch would lay down their Arms but before hee had gathered up the Bayes which he had there won sends afterwards a like Proclamation of pardon to all those that the day before did all they could to kill him And in all his actions of War afterward behaved himself like a weeping Father defending himself against the strokes and violence of disobedient Children For had the Parliament accepted of his offers before he came to Beverley or besieged Hull he had never set up his Standard at Nottingham or had they loved his people but half so much as he did their Armies had never seen his Banners display'd at Edge-hill Had they hearkned to his many endeavours for peace after that battel and not sought to surround or ruine him when he came so neer as to their very doors to intreat for it they had never been troubled to frame an accusation against him for defending himself at Braynford had his Treaty at Oxford been proceeded in with the same desires of peace he brought to it the blood that was shed at Caversham bridge had been kept for better purposes had he sought his own advantages he had not besieged Glcoester or had he not been so unwilling to put the people in it to the hazard of a storm might have taken it had they not sent their General to assault him at Gloucester whil'st he was as David besieging the strong hold of the Jebusites that with-held it from his obedience and sought to ruine and undoe him as well as his Loyal Subjects he had not fought with them afterwards at Newbury had not his Olive branches been flung in the fire by those he sent them unto he had not been put to defend himself at Cropredy bridge had any thing been able to prevail with the Parliament to pitty their fellow Subjects he had not taken such a tedious and dangerous march to relieve those they would have ruined at Bodmin in Cornwal had the Treaty at Uxbridge taken effect he needed not afterwards have adventured so much to defend himself at Newbury had not the new model'd Army after so many tenders of peace refused by their masters been sent out to destroy him he had not been put to the trouble of taking Leicester for his security and had not he been surrounded and almost surprised by them he might have reserved himself to a better success and advantage then he had at Naseby had his voluntary resigning up of the remainder of his Armies and Garisons been able to perswade any thing with them there had not been so much as a Relique of War left in the Kingdome or could so many messages for peace and so many Petitions of the people for it have made but any impression on the Parliament so many divisions parties and insurrections had not since broken the Harps of the Children of Israel nor had the drums outgone the voice of the Turtle He that could not bring himself to the common actions of War to hang a Spie but when one was hanged before he knew of it was intreating the Governour of Oxford to spare him He that when he had in his power John Lilborne one of the most factious that were against him Wingate and Darley Parliament men Col. Ludlow an actor of that Treason his father had not long before spoken against him and Dr. Bastwick one of the bellows and principal factours of this horrid Rebellion did no more then imprison some of them and giving the rest a legal Tryal shewed them what the Law they made silly people believe they took up arms to maintain would judg of them and suffered them to be exchanged to do what they could afterwards against him He that when he had taken 400. Prentise-boies in the Fight at Brainford did but dismiss and pitty them and when he had compelled the Earl of Essex the Parliaments General at Lestithiel in Cornwal to fly away by Sea in a Cock-boat leave all the Artillery and foot of his Army to his mercy did no more but only disarm them and take an Oath of them never more to serve against him And being then in the hight of his prosperity sent a Message and offer of peace to the Parliament who were low enough at that time if their designes would have given them leave to have received it He that could say He should be more afraid to take away any mans life unjustly then to loose his own was not likely to be guilty of blood-seeking or the sheding of it He that had experience enough how much his Life and Crown were sought for yet to shew them the way to peace and to take off all pretences to hinder it could sheath his own sword and put himself into the hands of those he had so little reason to trust as he knew them to be the great contrivers of the War against him caused the Marquess of Montrosse one of his mighty men of war to disband when he was master of a strong and not long before fortunate Army in Scotland commanded Newarke Oxford Wallingford and Worcester very strong and almost impregnable Towns and Garrisons in England to be delivered up and all acts of hostility by sea and land and all the preparations his friends could make either in forraign parts or at home to cease He that could endure five years Ballading Libelling and preaching against him and such heaps of numberless affronts and injuries of all kinds done unto him and two years imprisonment afterwards yet so long as he enjoyed but the liberty of pen and inke or a messenger to carry it did so tire them with messages and offers of peace as they Voted it to be Treason for any to bring any message from him and