CHAP. I. Who first of all Raised the Fears and Jealousies?

THe desiring of a guard for a Parlament 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 legall guard offered by the King; and [Page 4] his Protestation to be as careful of their safety, as 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 Common­wealths men to be taken away; The trayning 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 design 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, & 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 Parlament 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 whil'st 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 hast they could to weaken him, and strengthen themselvs, 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 Scortish Subjects, the latter of whom the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Fair­fax themselves understood to be no better then Rebells, and therefore served in places of Com­mand [Page 5] in his Majesties Army against them: That Sir Arthur Haselrig had brought in a Bill in Parlament to take the Militia by Sea and Land away from him, saw himselfe not long after by a printed Remonstrance or Declaration made to the People of all they could but imagine to be er­rors in his Government, arraigned and little less then deposed: The Bishops and divers great Lords driven from the Parlament by tumults; Was inforced to keep his gates at Whitehall 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 Traiterous Speeches used by some seditious Mechanicks of London, as that it was pity he should Raign, and that The Prince would make a better King; was yet so far from being jealous, or solicitous to defend himselfe 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 of his people) every thing they could reasonably ask of him, or he could but reasonably tell how to part with (though he could not be ignorant, but an ill use might be made of them against himself;) As the putting down of the Star-Chamber, and high Commission Court, the Courts of Honour, and of the North and Welch Marches; Com­missions for the making of Gun-powder, allow­ing them approbation or nomination of the Lievtenant of the Tower, and did all and more then all his predecessors put together, to remove [Page 6] their jealousies. And when that would not do it; He stood still, and saw the game plaid on further; many Tumults raised, many Libells and scan­dalous Pamphlets publickly printed against his person and Government, and when he com­plained of it in Parlament, so little care was ta­ken to redress it, as that the peoples coming to Westminster in a Tumultuous manner, set on, and invited by Pennington and Ven, two of the most active Mechanick Sectaries of the House of Commons, it was excused and called a liberty of Petitioning: And as for the Libells and Pamphlets, the Licensing of Books before they should be printed, and all other restraint of the Printing Press were taken away, and complaints being made against Pamphlets and seditious Books, some of the Members of the house of Commons were heard to say the work would not be done without them; and complaints being also made to Mr. Pym against some wicked men which were ill affected to the Government; He answered, It was not now a time to discourage their friends, but to make use of them: And here being as many Jealousies and fears as could possibly be raised or fancied without a ground on the one side; against all the endeavours could be used on the other side to remove them. We shall in the next place take a view of the mat­ter of Fact that followed upon them, and bring before you.

CHAP. II. The Proceedings betwixt the King and the Parlament from the Tumultuous and Seditious coming of the People to the Parlament and White-Hall till the 13. of September 1642. being 18. days after the King had set up his Stan­dard at Nottingham.

WHen all the King could do to bring the Parlament to a better understanding of him, did, as they were pleased to make their ad­vantage of it, but make them seem to be the more unsatisfied; that they might the better mis-represent him to the People, and petition out of his hands as much power as they could tell how to perswade him to grant them, and that he had proofs enough of what hath been since written in the blood and hearts of his People, that the five Members and Kimbolton intend­ed to root out Him and His Posterity; subvert the Laws and alter the Religion, and Covern­ment of the Kingdom, and had therefore sent his Serjeant at Arms to demand their persons, and Justice to be done upon them, instead of o­bedience to it, an order was made: That every man might rescue them, and apprehend the [Page 8] Serjeant at Arms for doing it; which Parlament Records would blush at. And Queen Elizabeth (who was wont to answer her better composed Parlaments upon lesser occasions with a Cavete ne patientiam Principis laedatis, and caused Par­ry a Doctor of the Civill Laws and a Member Camden Annalls Eliz. 99. 103. of the house of Commons by the judgement and advice of as sage and learned a privy Councill and Judges as any Prince in Christendom ever had, to be hang'd drawn and quartered for Ibidem p. 391. 394. & 395. Treason in the old Palace of Westminster when the Parlament was sitting) would have wondred at. And 4. of January 1641. desiring onely to bring them to a Legall tryall and examination, went in person to demand them, and found that his own peaceable behaviour, and fewer atten­dants (then the two Speakers of the Parlament had afterwards when they brought a whole Army at their heels, to charge and fright away eleven of their fellow members) had all manner of evil constructions put upon it, and that the Houses of Parlament had adjourned into London, and occasioned such a sedition amongst the people, as all the train bands of London must guard them by Land, when there was no need of it, and many Boats and Lighters armed with Sea-men and murdering pieces by water; and that unless he should have adventured the mischief and mur­der hath been since committed upon him, by those which at that time intended as much as they have done since; it was high time to think of his own safety, and of so many others were concerned in it having left London but the day [Page 9] before, (upon a greater cause of fear then the Speakers of both Houses of Parlament in July 1647. to go to the Army) retires with the Prince his Son (whom the Parlament laboured to seize and take into their custody) in his company to­wards York, 8. January 1641. A Committee of the House of Commons sitting in London, re­solved Vide the vote in M. Vicars Book enti­tuled God in the moun. p. 78 upon the question; That the Actions of the City of London, for the defence of the Parla­ment were according to Law, and if any man should arrest or trouble any of them for it, he is de­clared to be an enemy to the Common-wealth. And when the King, to quiet the Parlament, 12. January 1641 was pleased to signifie that for the present he would wave his proceedings against the five Members and Kimbolton, and assures the Parlament that upon all occasions he will be as carefull of their Priviledges as of his Life or his Crown: Yet the next day after, they Collect. of Parl. and Decl. and Kings Mes. and Decl. p. 50. Declared the Lord Digby's coming to Kingstone upon Thames but with a Coach and six horses in it, to be in a Warlike manner, and disturbance of the Common-wealth; and take occasion thereupon to order the Sheriffs of all Counties Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. in England and Wales, with the assistance of the Justices of Peace and trayned bands of the seve­rall Counties to suppress any unlawfull Assem­blies, and to secure the said Counties and all the Magazines in them.

14 January, 1641. The King, by a second Message, professeth to them he never had the least intention of violating the least priviledge of Parlament, and in case any doubt of breach [Page 10] of Priviledges remain; will be willing to clear that, and assert those, by any reasonable way his Parlament shall advise him to: But the design must have been laid by, or miscarried, if that should have been taken for a satisfaction; and therefore to make a quarrell which needed not, they Order the morrow after a Charge and Im­peachment to be made ready against Sir Edward Herbert the Kings Attorney Generall, for bring­ing into the House of Peers the third of that in­stant Ibid. 53. January, by the Kings direction, a Charge or accusation against Kimbolton and the five Members, &c.

In February 1641. Seize upon the Tower of London (the great Magazine and Store-house of the Kingdom) and set some of the train-bands Ibid. 77. & 78. of London, commanded by Major Gene­rall Skippon to guard it.

1. March 1641. Petition for the Militia, and tell him; If he would not grant it, they would settle and dispose of it without him: And the morrow after resolved 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 Parlament: and order the Earl of Northumberland Lord high-Admirall, 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 [Page 11] the King had accused the five Members and Kimbolton, had by Order of Parliament seized Vide the Petition of some Hol­derness men to the King, 6. July, 164 [...]. upon the Town of Hull, the only fortified place of strength in the Kingdom, and made a Gari­son of it) summoned and forced in many of the trayned Souldiers of the County of York to help him to guard it.

And the eight 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 suppress the Irish Rebellion: That was Voted to be against the Law, and an encouragement to the Rebells; and they Declare that whosoever shall assist him in his voyage thi­ther, should be taken for an enemy to the Common-wealth. And 15 of March, 1641. Resolved upon the Question, that the severall Commissi­ons granted under the great Seal to the Lievte­nants of severall Counties were illegall 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 Kindom.

Aprill 1642. Sir John Hotham seizeth the Kings Magazine at Hull, and when the King went with a small attendance to demand an entrance into the Town, denies him; though he Ibid. 153. 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 [Page 12] commands of both Houses of Parliament, and that the Kings proclaiming him to be a Traytor was a high breach of priviledge of Parliament; And Ordered all Sheriffs and Officers 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 manner 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, that the King was not worthy to Reign in England; And Henry Mar­tin, That the Kingly Office was 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 principall 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 le­gall [Page 13] 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 ille­gall. The passage at Sea defended against him, and his Navy kept from him by the Earle of Warwick; whilst the King all this while con­tenting himselfe to be meerly passive, and only busying himself in givinganswers to some Parli­ament Messages and Declarations, and 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, that Sir John Hotham sent out warrants to Con­stables to raise the trained bands of Yorkshire, Ibm. 169. 170. writes his letter to the Sheriff of that County to forbid the trained bands, and commands them to repair to their dwelling houses.

12 Of May 1642. Perceiving himselfe eve­ry where endangered, and a most horrid Rebel­lion framing against him, and Sir John Ho­tham Collect. Par. Decl. 183 so neer him at Hull, as within a days journey of him; he moves the County of York for a troop of Horse, consisting of the prime Gen­try of that County, and a Regiment of the train-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, that it Ibm. 29. [Page 14] appeared, the King seduced by wicked Counsell, intended to make a war against them (and til then if their own Votes should be true must acquitt him from any thing more then an intention, as they call it, to do it) And whosoever should as­sist him are Traitors by the fundamentall Laws of the Kingdom. The Earl of Essex Lord Chamber­lain of the Kings Houshould, and all other of the Kings Houshould 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 of some Earls and Barons about him, and some of his Bed-Chamber, as if they had been Fellons. 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, Bayliffs to ap­prehend him. Cause 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 Loyall 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 sixt day of May 1642. a Decla­ration is sent to the King; but printed and published before he could receive it: That Whatsoever they should Vote, is not by Law to bee questioned, either by the King or Subjects; No Ibidem p. 297. & 298 precedent can limit or bound their proceedings. A [Page 15] Parliament may dispose of any thing wherein the King or peopl have any right. The Soveraign pow­er resides in both Houses of Parlament. The King hath no Negative voyce. The levying of Warre against the personall commands of the King, though accompanied with his presence, is not a le­vying of Warre 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 only to them to judge of the Law.

27 Of May, The King by his Proclamation, forbids all his Subjects and trayned bands of the Ibid. 301. Kingdom to Rise, March, or Muster. But the Parliament, on the same day Command all She­riffs, Justices of the Peace and Constables within one hundred & 50 miles of York, to seize and make stay of all Armes and Amunition going thither: And Declaring the said Proclamation to bee voyd in Law; Command all men to Rise, Must­er, Ibid. 305. 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 suppress any of the Kings Subjects that should be drawn thither by his Command; Secure and seize up­on the Magazines of the Counties. Protect all [Page 16] that are Delinquents against him, make all to be Delinquents that attend him; and censure and put out of the House of Peers, nine Lords at once, for obeying the Kings summons and going to him.

3 June 1642. The King summoning the Mi­nisters, Gentry, and Free-holders of the Coun­ty of York, declared to them the reasons of pro­viding himselfe a guard, and that he had no in­tention to make a War; and the morrow after forbad the Lord Willoughby of Parham to Mu­ster and train the County of Lincolne, who un­der colour of an Ordinance of Parlament, for the Militia, had began to do it.

10. June 1642. The Parlament by a Decla­ration signifying, That the King intended to make a War against his Parlament; invited the Citizens of London, and all others, well affected (as they pleased to miscall them) within eighty miles of the City to bring money and 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 Parlament; and the morrow af­ter send 19 propositions to the King; That the great affairs of the Kingdom and Militia, may be mannaged by consent and approbation of Parlament, all the great Officers of Estate, Pri­vy Councell, Ambassadors, and Ministers of State, and Judges to be chosen by them; that the Government, Education, and Marriage of the Kings Children be by their consent and approba­tion, [Page 17] and all the Forts and Castles of the King­dome 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; with several other demands (which if the King should have granted, would at once in effect, not onely have un­done and put his subjects out of his prote­ction, but have deposed both himself and Collect. of Par. Mes. and Dec. 370. 370. 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 former privi­ledges then his demanding of the five Mem­bers and Kimbolton, it it had not been law­full for him so to doe, could be of theirs) granted a Commission of Array for the County of Leicester to the Earl of Hunting­ton, and by a letter sent along with it, dire­cted Ibm. 346. & 348. it for the present onely to Muster and Array the Trained Bands.

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 Ibid. 349. 350. the L. Keeper Littleton, who a little before had either been affrighted or seduced by the Parliament to vote their new Militia, The Duke of Richmond, Marquess Hartford, Earl [Page 18] 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 had not the Royal assent to it.

And fourteenth of June 1642. Being in­formed, Ibid. 350. That the Parliament endeavoured to borrow great summs 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 doe it for his own defence; and forbid­deth therefore, the lending of money or raising of horses.

And within two dayes after, the Lord Keeper, Duke of Richmond, Marquiss 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, That they perceived no Councels or preparations tending to any such designe Ibid. 356. 357. and sent 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 [Page 19] 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 resolu­lution 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 Parlament was made for the Earl of Warwick to be Lord Admirall, and keep the Navy, though the King had commanded him on pain of treason to deliver up the Ships to him: And the Lord Brook sent down into Warwick-Shire to settle the Militia.

17. June, 1642. Committee of both Houses was appointed to go to the City of London to enquire 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 Parlament forbiddeth all levies of Forces without his Majesties express pleasure signified under his Great Seal.

And 20. June, 1642. Informing all his Subjects, by his Proclamation of the Lawful­ness of his Commissions of Aray; That be­sides Collect. Par. Decl. 373. 374. many other Warrants and Authorities of the Law; Judge Hutton and Judge Crooke in their Arguments against the Ship-money, agreed them to be Lawfull; and the Earle of Essex himself had in the beginning of this Parlament [Page 20] 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 legall way; left under a pretence of danger, and want of Authority from his Majesty to put them into a Military posture they should he drawn and engaged in any opposi­tion against him, or his just Authority.

But 21. June, 1642. The Lords and Com­mons Ibid. 376. in Parlament Declaring The designe 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 Majestie, and his preparations at first coloured under the pre­tence of a guard, (being not so great a guard as they themselvs had constantly for 6 months before) did evidently appear to be intended for some great and extraordinary designe (so as at this time al­so they do not charge the King with any man­ner of action of War, or any thing done in a way or course of war against them) and gave just caufe of fear and jealousie to the Parlament (being never yet by any Law of God or man accounted to be a sufficient cause or ground for Subjects to make 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 [Page 21] the Militia, it should be held a levying Warr against the Parlament; 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 manner of provision of War to defend himself, when their Army or Sir John Hotham should come to assault him; Powder and Armes were every whera 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 of June, 1642. That the Horses which should be sant in for the service os the Parlament, 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 Manuall commanded all the Judges of England in their Circuits, to use all means to suppress Popery, Riots, and un­lawfull assemblies, and to give the people to understand his resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion, and the Laws of the Ibid. 442. 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 shall have cause to thank him for his Justice and favour. But the same day a Declaration was published by both Houses of Parlament, commanding that Ibid. 449. [Page 22] no Sheriff, Mayor, Bayliff, Parson, Vicar, Cu­rate, or other (Sir Richard Gurney the Lord Mayor of London, not many days 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 the houses of Parlament, or the proceed­ings Ibid. 450. thereof; and Order, that in case any force should be brought out of one County into another to disturb the peace thereof, they should be suppressed by the Train Bands, and Voluntiers of the adjacent Counties. Shortly after Sir John Hotham fortifieth the Town of Ibid. 453. Hull, whilst the King is at York, 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 Ibid. 459. part of the Countrey round about the Town; which the Parlament allows of, and promise satisfaction to the owners.

5. July 1642. They order a subscription of Plate and Horse to be made in every County, 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 bear up in London, and the adjacent parts to Hull, The Earl of Warwick Ordered to send Ships to Humber to his assistance, instru­ctions [Page 33] drawn up to be sent to the Deputy-Lievtenants of the severall 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 Country, be imployed by direction of the Parlament; 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 suppress him; And that the Common Counsell 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 days after.

11. July, 1642. The King sends to the Par­lament to cause the Town of Hull to be deli­vered unto him, and desires to have their an­swer by the 15 of that month, and as then had used no force against it: But the morrow Ibid. 452. after before that message could come unto them they resolve upon the Question: That Ibid. 457. an Army shall be forthwith raised for the defence of the Kings person and both houses of Parlament; Ibid. 457. [Page 24] and those who have obeyed their Orders and 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 Generall in that cause.

And 12. July 1642. Declare; that, they will protect all that shal be imployed in their assistance and Militia.

And 16 July 1642. Petition the King to for­bear any preparations or actiōs of War; and to dis­miss Ibid. 465. & 483. his extraordinary guards, to come nearer to them, and hearken to their advice: but before the Petition could be answered, wherein the King offered when the Town of Hull should bee delivered to Him he would no longer have an Army before it, and should be assured that the some pretence which took Hull from him, may not put a Garison into Newcastle, (into which after the Parlaments surprise of Hull, He was infor­ced to place a Governour and a small Garri­son) He would also remove that Garrison, and so (as his Magazine and Navy might be de­livered unto him; all Armies and Levies made by the Parlament laid down, the pretended Ordinance for the Militia disavowed, and the Parlament ad­journed to a secure place he would lay down Arms and repair to them, and desired all differences might be freely debated in a Parlamentary way, whereby the Law might recover its due reverence, the Subject his just Liberty. Parlaments their ful vigour and estimation, and the whole Kingdom a blessed Peace and Prosperity, and requiring their answer by the 27. of that July, promised, til then, [Page 25] not to make any attempt of force upon Hull; 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 Colonell Goring (being but sent thither with a message from the King) and Declared for his Majestie: Order forces to be sent thi­ther speedily to beleaguer it by Land, and the Earle of Warwick to send thither 5. Ships of the Navy to prevent any forraign forces com­ing to their assistance, and upon Intelligence that the Earle of Northampton appeared with great strength at Banbury, to hinder the Lo. Brooks for carrying the picces of Ordnance 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, & to have the Magazine of the Connty to be delivered unto them: Gave power to the Earl of Essex their Lord Generall, 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 Earle of Stamford a Commission to raise forces for the Suppressing of any should attempt for the King in Leicester-shire or the adjacent Coun­ties.

[Page 26] And on the eleventh of August, 1642. Upon the Kings Proclamation, two days 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 six days to be Travtors [...] 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, whilst 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 Angust, 1642. The King, though He might well understand the great leavies of Men and Arms 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; [Page 27] and that his quarrel was not against the Parlia­ment, but particular men; and therefore desired, That the Lord Kimbolton, Mr. Hollis, Sir Hen: Ludlow, Sir Arthur Hasilrig, Mr. Strode, Mr. Martin, Mr. Hampden, Alderman Pen­nington, and Captain Venne, might be deli­vered into the hands of Justice, to be tried by their Peers, according to the known Laws of the Land; and against the Earls of Essex, War­wick, Stamford, Lord Brooks, 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 acquitted. 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 Embrio, 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 had so often deceived Him: but if He will give any account to the Watchman of Israel of the People committed to his charge; or to the people of his protection of them, or any manner of satisfaction to his own judgment and discretion) betake Himself to the Sword which God had intrusted Him with: and therefore makes the best use He [Page 28] 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 and Arm [...] ▪ He could in His way towards Notting ham, 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: That now it appear [...] 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 than that meaning to murder and ru­ine Him, they were often affraid 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 force 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 Kingdome, who should persist to serve the King in this War against the Parliament; and That it should be lawfull for any number of per­sons [Page 29] to joyn and defend themselves; and, That the Earl of Essex, their Generall should grant out Commissions for Levying and conducting for­ces into the Northern parts, And Sir John Hotham the Governour 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 aid them, and to seize upon all that shall execute the Com­mission of Array for his Majestie, who was thus sufficiently beset by those that intended what since they have brought to pass against Him.

25. August, 1642. (being some days after the Earle of Bedford had marched with great forces into the West) that His Subjects might be informed of His danger, and repair to his Succour; setting up his Standard at Notting­ham; being a thing of meer legall necessity; if He would have any at all to come to help Him, and not forfeit and surprise those that by tenure of their Lands or by reason of Of­fices, Fees, or, Annuities enjoyed under Him, were more immediately bound to assist Him.

And yet here He must weep over Jerusalem; and once again intreat the Parlament and His Rebellious Subjects to prevent their own miseries; and therefore sends the Earls of Sonthampton and Dorset to the Parlament to desire a Treaty, [...]ffering to do all on His own part which might advance the Protestant Religion, oppose Popery and Superstition, and secure the Laws and Liberties of His Subjects, and just p [...]iviledges of Parlament: [Page 30] Which after severall scorns put upon those noble Messengers, as denying the Earle of Southampton to come and sit in the House of Peers (as a right by birth and inheritance due to him) and causing the Serjeant at Arms of the House of Commons to go before him with the Macê as they use to do before Delin­quents: They refuse to accept of, unless the King would first take down His Standard, and recall his Declarations and Proclamations against them. To which the King the 5. September, 1642. (notwithstanding the Earl of Bedford had with great forces in the mean time be­sieged the Marquis of Hartford in the Castle of Sherborn in Dorset shire) replying, That he never did Declare, or intended for to Declare both his houses of Parlament to be Traitors, or set up his Standard against them: much less to put them and the Kingdom out of his prote­ction: And utterly protesting against it, before God and the World, offered to recall his De­clarations and Proclamations with all cheerfull­ness the same day that they should revoke their Declarations against those that had assisted him; and desiring a Treaty, and conjuring them to consider the bleeding condition of Ireland, and the danger of England, undertakes to bee ready to grant any thing shall be really good for his Subjects; which being brought by the Lord Falkland, one of his Majesties Secretaries of State, and a Member of the House of Commons, and not long before in a very great esteem with them (all the [Page 31] respect could be afforded him being to stand at the Bar of the House of Commons, and deliver his Message to them) had onely an answer in a printed Declaration of the Lords and Commons returned unto him, That it was Ordered and Declared by the Lords and Commons in Parliament, That the Armes which they have been forced to take up, or shall be forced to take up, for the preservation of the Parliament, Religion, and the Lawes and Liber­ties of the Kingdome, shall not be laid down until his Majesty shall withdraw his protection from such Persons as have been voted by both Houses of Parliament to be Delinquents, or that shall by both Houses of Parliament be voted to be Delin­quents (which after their mad way of voting might have been himself, his Queen, or his Heir apparent) and leave them to the Justice of Parliament according to their demerits, to the end that those great charges and damages where­withal the Commonwealth hath been burthened since his Majesty departed from the Parliament, might be born by the Delinquents and other ma­lignant and dis-affected persons, and that those who by Loans of money or otherwise at their char­ges have assisted the Commonwealth, or shall in like manner hereafter assist the Commonwealth in times of extream danger (and here they would also provide for future friends and quarrels) may be re-paid all summs of money lent for those purposes, and satisfied their charges sustained as out of the estates of the said Delinquents, and of the Malignant and dis-affected Party in this Kingdome.

[Page 32] And to make good their words of 8. Sep­tember 1642. Before their answer could come unto the Kings hands, Ordered certain numbers of horse and foot to be sent to Gar­rison and secure Oxford, and the morrow af­ter (before the King could possibly reply un­to it) their Lord General, the Earl of Essex marched out of London against him with 20000 men, horse and foot, gallantly arm­ed, and a great train of Arti [...]lery to attend him; notwithstanding all which, and thos [...] huge impossibilities every day more and more appeared of obtaining a Peace wit [...] those who were so much afraid to be loser [...] by it, as they never at all intended it.

The King must needs send one messag [...] more unto them, to try if that might no [...] give them some occasion to send Him gentle [...] conditions; and therefore 13. September 1642. (Being the same day they had impea­ched the Lord Strange of High-treason for executing the Kings Commission of Array, and Ordered the propositions for furnishing of horse, plate, and money, to be tendred from house to house, in the Cities of London and Westminster, and to be sent into all the Shires and Counties of England to be tendred for the same purpose, and the names of the refusers to be certified.) Mr. May, one of the Pages to the King, comes to the Lords House in Parlîament, with a Message from Him, bearing date but two dayes before; That al­though He had used all wayes and me anes to pre­vent [Page 35] the present distractions and dangers of the Kingdome, all his labours have been fruitless, that not so much as a Treaty, earnestly desired by him, can be obtained (though he disclaimed all his Proclamations and Declarations, and the ere­cting of his Standard as against his Parliament) unless he should denude himself of all force to de­fend him from a visible strength marching a­gainst him; That now he had nothing left in his power but to express the deep sense he had of the publick misery of the Kingdome, and to ap­ply himself to a necessary defence, wherein he wholly relied upon the providence of God and the affection of his good People, and was so far from put ting them out of his protection, as when the Parliament should desire a Treaty, he would pi­ously remember whose blood is to be spilt in this quarrel, and cheerfully embrace it.

But this must also leave them as it sound them, in their ungodly purposes; for the morrow after being the 14. day of September 1642. Mr. Hampden, one of the sive Members (by this time a Colonel of the Army) brings letters to the House of Commons from the Parliaments Lord General, that he was at Northampton in a very good posture, and that great numbers of the Countrey thereabouts came in daily unto him, and offered to march under him, and that so soon as all his forces that are about London shal come up unto him, which he desires may be hastened, he intend­ed to advance towards his Majesty: and it was the same day voted, That all things seal­ed [Page 34] by the Kings Seal since it was carried a­way by the Lord Keeper Littleton, should be Null, and of no force in the Law, and that a new Seal should be provided.

The King therefore seeing what he must trust to, 19. September 1642. being at Wellington in Shrop-shire in the head of such small forces and friends as he could get toge­ther, (for the Parlament that very day had received letters, That the King but the week before, having a muster at Nottingham, there appeared but about 3000 foot, and 2000. horse, and 1500 dragoona; and tha [...] a great part of his men were not provided with arms) made his Protestation and promise as in the presence of Almighty God, and as He hoped for his blessing and protection, to maintain to the ut­most Ihm. 614. of his power the true reformed Protestant Religion established in the Church of England, and that he desired to govern by the known Laws of the Land, and that the Liberty and property of the Subject should bee preserved with the same care as his own just rights, and to observe invi­olably the Laws consented to by him in this Par­lament, and promised as in the sight of Almigh­ty God, if He would please by his blessing upon that Army raised for his necessary defence, to preserve him from that rebellion, to maintain the just pri­viledges and freedom of Parlament, and govern by the known Laws of the Land. In the mean while, if this time of War, and the necessity and straights he was driven to, should beget any viola­tion of them, he hoped it would be imputed by [Page 35] God and man to the Authors of the War, and not to him who had so earnestly desired and laboured for the peace of the Kingdome, and preservation thereof; and that when He should fail in any of those particulars, He would ex [...]est no aid or re­lief from any man, or protection from Heaven.

And now that the stage of War seems to be made ready, and the Parliament party be­ing the better furnished, had not seldome shewed themselves, and made severall traver­ses over it (for indeed the King having so ma­ny necessities upon him, and so out of power and provision for it, might in that regard only if He had not been so unwilling to have any hurtcome to his people by his own defen­ding of himself, be backward & unwillingly drawn unto it, we may do well to stand by and observe who cometh first to act upon it.

22. Of September 1642. The Earl of Essex writeth from Warwick that he was upon his march after the King and before the 6. of O­ctober following had written to the County of Warwick with all speed to raise their Trai­ned bands and Voluntiers to resist his Forces if they should come that way, and to the three Counties of Northampton, Leicester and Derby to gather head and resist him if he should re­tire into those parts; and by all that can bee judged of a matter of fact, so truly and faith­fully represented, must needs be acknowledg­ed to have great advantages of the King, by the City and Tower of London, Navy, Ship­ping, Armes, Ammunition, the Kings Maga­zine, [Page 34] all the strong. Towns of the Kingdom, most of the Kingdoms plate and money, the Parliaments credit and high esteem, which at that time the people Idolized; the fiery Zeal of a seditious Clergy to preach the peo­ple into a Rebellion, and the people head-longly running into the witchcraft of it: When the King on the other side had little more to help him the [...] the Laws and Religi­on of the Land, which at that time every man began to [...]i [...]construe and pull in pie­ces, had neither men, horse, arms, ammuni­tion, ships, places of strength, nor money, not any of his party or followers, after the Parliament had as it were proclamed a War against him, could come single or in small numbers through any Town or Village, but were either openly assaulted, or secretly be­trayed, no man could adven [...]ure to serve or own him, but must expose himself and his E­state to be ruined either by the Parliament or people, or such as for malice or profit would inform against him. All the gains and pla­ces of preferment were on the Parliaments part, and nothing but losses and misfortunes on the Kings: No man was afraid to goe openly to the Parliaments side, and no man du [...]st openly so much as take acquaintance of his S [...]veraign, but if he had done a quar­ter of [...] which Ziba did to David when he [...] the [...] [...]ves of bread, or old Barzil­l [...], [...] [...] the Gutite, when he went along with him when hi [...] Son Absalom rebelled a­gainst [Page 39] him, They should never have escaped so well as they did, but have been sure to be undone and sequestred for it. So much of the affections of the people had the Parlia­ment cosened and stoln from them, so much profit and preferment had they to perswade it, and so much power to enforce those, that otherwise had not a mind to it, to fight a­gainst him; Who thus every way encom­passed about with dangers, and like a Par­tridge hunted upon the Mountains, march­eth from Shrewsbury towards Banbury, per­swading and picking up what help and assi­stance his better sort of Subjects durst ad­venture to afford him: in the way to which;

On Sunday the 23. of October 1642. (for they thought it better to rob God of his Sabbath, than lose an opportunity of mur­thering their Soveraign) the Earl of Essex and Parliament-Army powring in from all quarters of the Kingdom upon him, had compassed him in on all sides; and before the King could put his men in Battel-Array, (many of whom being young Country fel­lows, had no better armes than clubs and staves in their hands, cut out of the hedges) and put his two young Sons, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, in the guard of a Troop of horse at the further end of the field, and had finished a short prayer, a bul­let of the Earl of Essex's Cannon grazed at his heels as he was kneeling at his prayers on the side of a bank (for Blague, a villain in [Page 38] in the Kings Army, having a great pension allowed him for it, had given notice in what part of the field the King stood, that they might the better know how to shoot at him.) But God having a greater care of his Anoin­ted than of their Rebellious pretences, so or­dered the hands of those that fought for the King, as the Earl of Essex was so loaden with Victories, as he left five of his men, for one of Kings, dead behind him; lost his Bag­gage and Artillery, retired back to Warwick, and left the King to bless God in the field; where he supped with such victuals as the more loyal and better natur'd neighbours sent him, when the worser sort refused to do it, and lying there all night, sent warrants out the next day to the neighbour Parishes to bury the dead; drew off his Ordnance, and marched to Banbury, and yet he could not forget to pity those were at such paines and hazard the day before to murther Him, but before he went out of the field sent Sir Willi­am Le [...]neve Clarencieux, King of Armes to Warwick, whither the Earl of Essex was fled, with a Proclamation of pardon to all that would lay down armes; 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 [Page 39] in greater danger than ever, if they sent them not more moneys, and recruited the Earl of Essex his broken Army; and to cosen 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 Marshall, 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 the 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. II. Whether a Prince or other Magistrate, la­bouring to suppress, or punish a Rebel­lion of the People, be tied to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a War, if it were made between equals.

WAr was first brought in by necessity, where the determining of controver­sies between two strange Princes of equal Po­wer, could not 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 borne against Rebels, it is not to be cal­led a War, but an Exercise of Jurisdiction upon trayterous and dissoyal Persons, atque est ratio manifesta, saith Albericus Gentilis, qui enim jure judex est & superior, non jure cogitur Alber. Gentil. 223. ad subeundas partes partis & aequalis, & non est bellum cum latronibus praedonibus aut piratis quanquam magnos habeant excercitus, & proin­de nec ulla cum illis belli jura, saith Besoldus: Besoldus in dissert. de [...]ure Belli 77, & 78. The Romans who were so exact and curious in their publick 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 [Page 43] Fidenatibus & Campanis non denunciant Lib. Alber. 23. 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 Rebels; Pompey justifies tbe War maintained by the Senate a­gainst Caesar (not then their Soveraign) with neque enim vocari praelia justa decent &c. Cicero Lucan. li. 2. did not think it convenient to send Ambassa­dors to Anthony, nor intreat him by faire words; but that it was meet to inforce him by arms to raise his siege from Mutina; for he said, They had not to do with Hambal an ene­my Cicero Phi [...] ▪ lipic. 5. to the Commonwealth, 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 and Insurrection, or Commotion, were the best terms bestowed upon it [such attempts are not called Wars, but Robberies, of which the Law taketh no other care of, but to pu­nish them] 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 Sonne 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 [Page 42] by the Sword: That which Rich. 2. made to suppress Wat. Tiler, H. 6. Jack Cade, H. 8. Ket and the Norfolk Rebels, and Queen Eli­zabeth to suppress the Earls of Northumber-land and Westmerland) may tell us that they understood it no otherwise than all the Kings and Magistrates of the world have ever pra­ctised it [by the Laws of England, if English­men that are Traytors go into France, and confederate with Altens 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 advice 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 worfer fellow-Subjects, may be enough to turn the question out of doors.

But lest all this should not be thought suf­ficient to satisfie those 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 concerning this matter.

[Page 43] Moses who was the meekest Magistrate in the world, and better acquainted with him that made the fifth Commandement, than these that now pretend Revelations against it; thought fit to suppress the rebellion of Corah, Dathan and Abiram as soone as he could; and for no greater offence than a de­sire to be coordinate with him, procured them to be buried alive, with all that appertained unto them.

When Absolom had rebelled against his fa­ther David, and it was told him, That the 2 Sam 15. 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 Absolom, or offering half or any part of his Kingdome to him, sent three several Armies to pursue and give him bat­tell.

When Sheba the sonne of Bichri blew a Trumpet and said, We have no part in David, every man to his tent, O Israel; and thereupon 2 Sam. 20. 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 commandement for it without offers of peace, and messen­gers sent first unto them) said to Amasa, As­semble me the men of Judah within three daies; 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.

[Page 42] For they that would take heed of Cocatri­ces, have ever used to kill them in the shell. Bodm, page 736. And diligenti cuique Imperatori ac magistrains danda est opera (saith Bodin) ut non tam sedi­tiones tollere quam praeoccupare student. For se­dition (saith he) once kindled, like a span of fire, blown by popular fury, may sooner fire a whole City than be extinguished. Et tales igitur pestes opprimere derepenté necess [...] 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 the Parliament could have been called a 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 abfence was either for­ced by a Faction of their own, or a party of seditious Londoners (for indeed the Warre 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 Constitutions of the Kingdom) coordinate and equal with the King, and joint-tenan [...] of the Kingdom; [Page 47] it would have been necessary to make [...] 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 Wars som­thing examined.

CHAP. IV. Suppose the Warre to be made with a neighbour-Prince, or between equals; Whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifyabie part of it.

PL [...]rique saith learned Grotius, tres statu­unt bellorum justas causas, defensionem, re­cuperationem H. Grotius. de jure pa­ [...]is & belli. & punttionem. 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, unIess 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 [Page 46] 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 and was neither so much as forced or a second time demanded of them, but 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 loosers at that time by the King, as the Remonstrance of the house of Commons made to the peo­ple 15. December 1641. of the Kings erroun (as they please to call them) in the govern­ment Collect. of MessR [...]. mon st. and Declar. 15. (but indeed the errours rather of his Ministers and themselves also, in busying him with brawles and quarrells and denying to give him fitting supplies) mentions how much and how many benficeial Laws the King had Iom. 45. &c. granted them. And so the Parliament and People being no loosers, and the King never denying them any▪ thing could in honour o [...] 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, [Page 47] 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, Ne nimis veteres causae accersentur. That they do not pick quarrels by raking up past grievances, that it be not propter leviuscu­las injurias; or for trifles. For when the King Besoldus in dissert. philolog. p. 58. (who if he had been no more then coordinate with them) had called them to Councell to to advise him, followed their advice in every thing he could find any reason for, taken a­way all grievances, made a large provision to prevent them for the future, by granting the Trienniall 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 quarrell 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 misusing the Parlia­ments Messengers, or the like; we know the King (unlesse it were by his patience and of­ten Messages for peace) was guilty of no pro­vocations; but on the contrary though hee had all manner of scornes and reproaches cast upon him, and his messengers evil entrea­ted 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 [Page 46] 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 be [...]li,, not to make a warre 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 ru [...]ne rather then his safety. For [...]urely should any stran­ger of another Kingdom or Nation have ca­sually passed by Edge-hill when the Kings and the Parliaments [...] were in fight, and have been told that the King shot at them for the safety of his own Person, and that they also shot against hi [...] for the safety of his own Person; and being a [...]ked which of the two parties hee believe did really or most of all intend the safety of it? we cannot tell how to think any man such a stranger to nature, reason or understanding, as to think the King should not fight as the Dictates of na­ture perswaded him to: or that the King could tell how to fight against those that fought for him: or that if he should be so hugely mi­staken in that one year or Battell, he should be in severall [...]her years and Battells after.

To [...] the de [...]ence of the Religion establish [...]d (as they made also the people be­lieve) that was as needless; when the King [Page 49] offered to do every thing might help to pro­mote it: and they are so little also to be credited in that pretence, as we know they did all they could from the beginning to ruine it; took away Episcopacy, the hedge and bounds of it, brought in Presbytery to preach up and aid their Rebellion, and when their own turnes were served, encouraged Conventicles and Tub Preachers to [...]ud down the Presbytery: And being demanded at the Treaty at Ʋxbridge by the Kings Commissi­oners what Religion they would have the King to establish, were so unprovided of an answer, as they could not resolve what to nominate, nor in any of their propositions afterwards sent to the King, though often urged and complained o [...] oy the Scottish Commissioners, could ever find the way to doe it, but have now set up an Independent extemporary enthusiastick kind of worship­ing God (if there were any such thing in it) or rather a religious Chaos or gallimaufry of all manner of heresie,, errours, blasphemies, and opinions put together, not any of the owners of which we can be confident will subscribe to that opinion, that Wars may be made for Religion, or that Conscience ought to be forced by it.

As for the restrictive part of the Lawes, to keep the people in subjection, we can very well perswade our selves no such War was e­ver made yet in the world, nor any people ever found that would engage in a War for [Page 50] that they obeyed, but against their wills; And for that part of the law that gives them the Kings protection, priviledges, immuni­ties, and certainties of deciding controver­sies (which are more fitly to be called the Li­ber [...]ies of tbe people, than to have 45. of the house of Commons, or a Faction to make daily and hourly Lawes, and Religion, and Government, and vote their estates in and out to pay an Army, to force their obedi­ence to it) if we had not outlived the Parli­aments disguises and pretences, saw them now tearing up by the roots, that there may be no hope of their growing up again, and setting up their own, as well as the ignorant and illiterate fancies of Mechanicks and Souldiers in stead of them; we might have said that also had been needless, when the King had done abundantly enough already; and offered to grant any thing more could in reason be demanded of him.

And as touching their priviledges of Par­liament, they that understand but any thing of the Lawes of England, or have but looked into the Records and Journals of Parlia­ment, can tell that all priviledges of Parlia­ment (as King James said) were at first be­stowed upon them by the Kings and Princes of this Kingdom, That priviledges of Par­liament extended not to Treason or Felony, or breach of the Peace. That 32 Hen. 6. Sir Thomas Thorp Speaker of the House of Com­mons, being arrested in execution in the time [Page 51] of the prorogation of the Parliament, the Commons demanded he might be set at li­berty according to their priviledges: wher­upon the Judges being asked their Councel therein, made answer, That general superse­deas of Parliament there was none; but special supersedeas there was; in which case of special supersedeas, every member of the House of Com­of Commons ought to enjoy the same, unles in cau­ses of Treason, Felony, or breach of the Peace, or for a Condēmnation before the Parliament: After which answer it was determined, that the said Sir Thomas Thorp should lie in execu­tion, and the Commons were required on the behalf of the King to choose a new Speaker, which they did, and presented to the King accordingly. That Queen Eli­zabeth was assured by her Judges, that she might commit any of her Parliament during the Parliament, for any offence committed against her Crown and Dignity, and they shewed her precedents for it; and that primo & tertio Caroli Regis, upon search of prece­dents in the several great cases of the Earls of Arundel and Bristol, very much insisted and stood upon, the House of Peers in Parliament allowed of the exception of Treason, Felony, and breach of the Peace.

For indeed it is as impossible to think there can be any priviledge to commit Trea­son, as to think that a King should priviledge all his Nobility, and every one of his Sub­jects that could get to be elected into the [Page 52] House of Commons in Parliament, to com­mit Treason, and to take away his life in the time of Parliament, whensoever their re­venge, or malice, or interest should finde the opportunity to do it; or that, if it could be so, any King or Prince would ever call or summon a Parliament to expose himself to such a latitude of danger, or give them leave to sit as long as they would to breed it: or that priviledges of Treason can be consistent with the name or being of a Parliament to consult or advise with the King for the de­fence of Him and his Kingdome; or that when Felony and breach of Peace are excep­ted out of their priviledge, Treason, that is of a far higher nature, consequence, and pu­nishment, should be allowed them; or if there could have been any such priviledge, and a meaner man than their Soveraign had broke it, a small understanding may inform them they could not, without breach of the Peace, have fought for it against a fellow-sub­ject, and then also could not their priviledges have reached to it, but the King might have punished them for it: and if they cannot upon a breach of priviledge (as it was adjudged in Halls case) without the Kings Writ, and the cause first certified in Chancery, deliver one of their own setvants arrested: It is not likely any warrant can be found in Law to inforce the King to reparation, though he himself should have broken it; but to peti­tion the King for an allowance of that, or [Page 53] any other priviledge, as well in the middle, as any other time of their sitting in Parlia­ment, as they alwayes doe at the presenting of their Speaker in the beginning of it. Wherefore, certainly the people never gave the Parliament Commission (if they could have given a Commission to make a War a­gainst their Soveraign) to claim that was ne­ver due to them, or to fight for that was ne­ver yet fought for by any of their Fore-fa­thers, 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 Lawes and Li­berties, as well as a good part of their lives and estates with it, and are now become to be every thing their Representatives will and and arbitrary power have a mind to make it; who have so driven away their old legal priviledges by setting up illegal and fanta­stick kind of Priviledges (as they are pleased to call them) instead of them, as there is no­thing 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 the lower after that, have driven away the upper, and 45. of the House of Commons (whereof eleven are great Officers and Com­manders of the Army) have after that im­prisoned and driven away four hundred of their fellow-members: And from degene­rate [Page 54] and distemperate piece of a Parliament, brought themselves to be but a representa­tive, or journey-men-voters to a Councel of their own mercenary and mechanick Army; and may sit another eight yeares before ever they shall be able to find a reason to satisfie any man 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 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 Lawes of the Kingdome, which the Parliament, and they themselves that were accused, have more than 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 a wing 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 [Page 55] them, and 39 more 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 find nothing to make a defensive or lawful, nor so much as a ne­cessary War on the Parliaments part: for (causa belli, saith Besoldus, correspondere debet Besoldus dissert. p [...]î. log. pa 88. damno & periculo) the Parliament feares and jealousies were not of weight enough to put the people into a misery far beyond the ut­most of what their feares and jealousies 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.

Injustum censetur bellum si non ejus, penes Can. quid culpatur 23. 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: It belongs to the Prince to Da. D. Bo­cer de b [...]ll [...] cap. 5. Be­soldus de juribus Majestati, cap. 6. 7 Edw. 1. raise or forbid Arms; 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, That it belong­eth, and his part is, through His Royal Sig­norie streightly to defend force of Armour, and [Page 56] 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 bee Lawfull? or (if by any Warrant of Laws, Divine or Humane, they could but tell how to absolve themselvs from their oaths of Su­premacy, Allegiance, and their very many protestations and acknowledgements of Su­bjection to the King) find a Supream autho­rity to be in the People, at the same time they not only stiled themselves, but all those they represented to be his Subjects.

Or, how will they bee able to produce a warrant from the People, their now preten­ded Soveraigns (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 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 bee 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 [Page 57] the Religion, Laws, and Liberties of the people, be a warrant to the Parliament (which ne­ver sought any 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.

There is a two fold rule of Justice in the practise of War and Nations, si bellum geratur sine denuncaitione in captivos tanquam latrones animadverti possit; It is a thievery, rather than a War not denounce or give notice of it before­hand: and in that also the Parliament was faulty, for they took Hull and Portsmouth and the Kings Navy and Magazine from him when hee hoped better things of them, and sent out their Armies and the Earl of Essex a­gainst him whilst he was in treaty with them, and offered all that he could to have a peace with them.

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 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 killed upon no provocation, Women and Maids ravish­ed, and their fingers cut off for their rings, [Page 58] Old Best of Canterbury hanged up by the pri­vities, others tortured, and had burning matches tyed to their fingers to make them confess where their mony was, Women and Children, sick and aged Persons starved for want of the sustenance they had taken from them; Husbandmen had their corn and hay spoiled in the field, and the barn, their sheep, cattle, and provisions devoured, houses rui­ned or burnt, & their horses that should help to plough and do other works of Husbandry taken away, in so much as some were infor­ced to blind and put out their horses eyes, that they might not be taken from them; Churches that escaped defacing, prophaned, and made Stables, or Goals or Victualling, 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 benesices and livelyhood taken from them by Wolves put in the Shepherds places; had their Books burned, and all their means and mainte­nance plundred from them; and those that were neutralls, and m [...]dled on neither side but lived as quietly as they could, either to­tally undone, or cast in prison, not for that they did them no 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.

Ut bellum illaesa conscientia geratur, necesse Besoldus Ibid. 95. [Page 59] est ut adsit intentio bena; there ought to bee 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, and they have done a great part of it, and as fast as they can are pulling down the remainder.

Quaerere debemus victoriam rationibus hone­stis, Du. picart observat. decad 10. colle 2. & Facius axi­om bell 10. ne salutem quidem turpibus; We ought to pursue victory and the just ends of War by ho­nest and lawfull means, and not to do foul and dishonest things to procure our safety; from the latter of which, the mad fears and jealousies which the Parliament made use to usher in their pretences, their fayning of Victories and scandaling the King and his actions, not to insist upon their buying the Kings servants and secrets, Battells, 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 years together, whilst they were ruining their King that would have helped them, violating of their oaths of alle­giance and Supremacy, which many of their Members had taken six or seven times over breaking their oaths, taken in their protesta­tion and Nationall Covenant, and not so [Page 60] few at one hundred solemne promises, and undertakings in their severall Petitions, Re­monstrances, and Declarations; forcing the People to take the Protestation and Cove­nant, and compell them as soon as they had taken it, to break them, and by cozening and forcing them into Rebellions and perjuries, cheat them out of their Religion, Loyalty, Laws and Liberties: will without very good advocates be sure enough to condemn them: and if the great Turk carrying the Covenant which Ladislaus the unfortunate King of Hungary was perswaded to break with him as an ensign of publick detestation in the battell wherein he sl [...]w 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, [...]o carry in their banner, the Po [...]rtract of the Kings bleeding Head, as it was cut from his shoulders, and make War in revenge of the Master piece, and totum aggregatum, of all manner of wick­edness and perfidiousness, who besides all their own and the Peoples oaths taken to de­fend him, when those they called Deliu­quents (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 [Page 61] enjoy either his Life or Estate, though to save his people and keep them from killing one another, he yielded himself became a Priso­ner upon the publick faith of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland.

Paxaequa non est recusanda Licet victoriae spes adsit (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 instead of offering any thing which was likely to bring it, they caused men and women in the first year of their Warre to be killed because they did but petition them to accept of a peace; and in the third and fourth year of their War plundered and robbed o­thers that petitioned them but to hearken to it, and put out of office, and made all as De­ [...]linquents in the seventh year of the Warre that did but petîtion 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 successe in the War, but when he was at the lowest, and a Prisoner to them, and conjured them as they would answer at the dreadfull day of Judgement to pitty the bleeding conditions of his Kingdomes and People, and send pro­positions of Peace unto him, quarters and half years, and more then a whole year toge­ther after the battell of Naseby (insomuch as their fellow Rebells the Scotch Commissi­oners did heavily complain of it) were at se­verall [Page 62] times trifled away and spent before any propositions could be made ready, though those which they sent to Oxford, Uxbridge, New-castle 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 Kingdome, but would neither for Gods sake, or their Kings sake, or their Oaths or Conscientes sak, or the Peoples sake, or Peace sake, which the People petitioned and hun­gred and thirsted for, alter or abate one Jota 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 mannerly 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 Earles, Lords or Knights, because the King had made them so since the beginning of the War, or else must be neither Treaty nor Peace there.

At Uxbridge the time of the Treaty limited for 20. days; and at New-Castle for 10. and though the King and his Commissioners at Uxbridge almost petioned for a cessation in the interim of that which was at Oxford, it [Page 63] could not be granted, nor have a few dayes 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 only to consiscate the Estates of his Friends and those that took up armes to save his Life and Estate, but to take away their Lives also, and not only that, but to condemn of high Treason, & attaint their blood, when they that fought against them were only guilt [...], a thing so unfitting and unusually stood upon, as it was never asked in any treaty or pacification among the civilized or mor 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 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; was not to be asked or granted by any that could but intitle 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 selfe would abhor, and the worst of Villains and Reprobates rather loose their lives then yield to: would never be demanded by any nor granted by any but his Equalls.

And if their desiring of a War more then a [Page 64] peace, and to keep the King out of his own had not been the onely cause of such unnatu­rall 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 they are now so bufie to do of themselves: and as if they had been afraid all this would not be enough to keep the doors of Janus, or the Devill open, for fear lest the King should trouble them with any more offers or Messages of 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 some what like a cause or justi­fication of a War against their Soveraign (for notwithstanding all their hypocriticall pre­tences, so as it was at first intended, and so it hath been 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 du [...] sunt genera [Page 65] decertandi, unum per disceptationem, alterum Cic. 1. de offic. per vim, & ad hoc confugiendum non est si uti superiori licebit: There are other wayes to come by pretended rights, than 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 between the Kings of Castile and Navarre, The Rebellious Barons of England in the Reign of King Hen. 3. referred their Jov. lib. 1. controversies to the decision of the King of France and his Parliament at Paris: And the blood of this Kingdome which ran so plentifully in those unhappy differences, was by that meanes onely stopped. Charles the 4. Emperor was made a Judge of the diffe­rences Polidor 13. 20. betwixt the English and the French Kings: For as Albericus Gentilis saith well; Intelligendum & eos qui diffugiunt genus hoc de­certandi Albericus Gentilis Cap. 3. per disceptationem, & ad alterum quod est per vim currunt, illico 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 meanes of deciding the controversie for which it is made, and will judge onely according to their own will and opinion, doe 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 Estates of the united Provinces, did by more than one Request and Embassy severally and earnestly [Page 66] 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, and 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 party, 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 had no manner 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 plundering and taking away their estates from them, long before he had either armed himself, or had wherewithal to doe it, had been cause as sufficient as to cause a Hue and Cry to be made after a F [...]lon, or raise the posse Comi­tatus to bring him to Justice; and might by [Page 67] the same reason doe 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 doe 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 only sheep, he that un­derstood wel enough the duty of a King, was exceeding wroth against the man, and said, As sure as the Lord liveth this man shall surely die. And can any man think that the King when he saw so much Sedition and Treason among the people countenanced & 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 (saith St. Jerom) did [...]ver rest quietly sleeping neer a viper? Est lex una & perpetua salutem omni ratione de­fendere Jerom. Ep. 47. & haec ratio doctis, necessitas Barbarts, mos gen ibus, feris natura ipsa praescripsit, & haec non scripta sed nata lex, saith Tully (that great master of morality) Reason, Necessity, Custom, and Nature it self, have made self-preservation to be warrantable. Cicero pro Milone.

Nemo exponere se debet pericu [...]is sed obvi [...]m offensioni eisudum, [...]non m [...]do quae est in actu, sed quae est in potentia ad actum, & [...]ustus me­tus [Page 68] justum facit bellum, say the Civil Lawes; 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 than 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 only 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: Nec distingui vult Baldus sive se, sua, suosve defen­dat, Baldus 3. consid. 485 & confid. 3 sive prope, sive posita longè; A man is said to defend himself when it is but his own goods, estate, or people, whether neer or further off; 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.

[Page 69] Ʋtilis 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, & atnevertere, nec est cunctan­dum aut expectandum, &c. meet and take a­way growing evils, and turn them another way, and not to d [...]lay, and be slack in it.

Honesta defensio quae citra metum ullum peri­culi nostri, nulla utilitate quaesita, tantum in gratiam aliorum suscipitur: 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 Alberic. Genti. lib. 1. Dec. 25. 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 himself, and was so overmuch 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 im­possibilities of such horrid proceedings against him, as all his three Kingdomes were in a flame of War, and strong Combinations made by two of them, and the Pulpit every where flaming, Seditious exhortations a­gainst him, his Navy, Magazines, Ports, Re­venues, Mint, strongest Towns and places [Page 70] seized on, Armies marching against him, and he onely 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 man­ner of reason and understanding, to deny him a Justification upon the first sort of de­fences, if the two latter will not reach it, for the first cannot by any interpretation goe without. For haec est necessit as (saith Baldus) quae bellum justificat quum in extremo loco ad bellum confugitur. Or if with Grotius Bald. 5. Cons. pa. 439. we look upon it another way, and make the Justice of War to consist, 1. in defensione. 2. in recuperatione rerum. 3. in p [...]uitione. 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 doe 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 Emperour of Ger­many; the former for misusing, the latter for encroaching upon him, and not re­ceiving [Page 71] his Ambassadors, found warrant and necessity enough to doe it. But what could the King doe 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 Commonwealths in the World, been reputed a just and warrantable cause of War.

Homicide by the Lawes of England shall be excused with a fe 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 manner of neces­sitie compassing him in on every side, could then doe no less then rouze him up to make his own defence; and he must be as much without his senses, 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 the Money, Arms, Ammunition, and strength of the Kingdom in their hands, and multitudes of deluded people to assist them; and so [Page 72] hunted and pursued 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 goe 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 suffer him to make use of any victories or ad­vantages God had given him. Twice did he suffer 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 adoe 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 warre without any power or strength at all against those that had before-hand ingrossed it: or what po­licy or wisedome could it be in him to begin a War without Money, or Men, or Armes to goe through with it? or to refuse the assi­stance of his Catholique Subjects, and Forrain Friends and Forces? or to spend so much [Page 73] 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 if we could but tell how to say 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 it 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 fought to make him break? Or did he any more then seek to defend himself against those did all they could to force him to break it? or could there be a greater perjury, or breach of trust in the Kingly office, than 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, did as much break their own trust to those they represented in asking of it, as the King would havedone 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, the Laws [Page 74] of God and Man, his Coronation-Oath, Ho­nour, and Conscience, and a duty to Himself and 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 manner 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 & attempts of as high a nature put upon him, the most ma­licious interpretation of the matter of Fact, cannot find him so much as 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 condiscend to all that might be profitable for his people in the matter of Religion, Lawes, and Liberties? Or was it not a just cause of War to defend himself and his people against those would notwithstanding all he could doe and offer, make a War against him, because he would not contrary to his Oath, Magna Charta and so many other Laws 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 [Page 75] out of his power, was never sought to be ta­ken out of the hand of any Father who was not a fool or a mad-man, nor yielded to by any who would have the credit to be accoun­ted [...] wise; 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 King­dome had their original, and refused to 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 practice to Anabaptists, Blasphemers of God, denie [...]s 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, would not even have taken away his own Authority, but have done the like also with the Lawes and Liberties of the Nation, and the ruling part of that they now call the Parliament utterly abhor; or if all that could not make the War be made to be defensive and lawful? had he not cause e­nough to deny, and they none at all to ask that he should by Act of Parliament consent [Page 76] to make all those to be Traytors 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 to him; That if he yeelded 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 Warre, than that of the Kings part, since man came out of Paradise. And if such a War should not be lawfull (after so many provocations and necessities for the defence of himself and his People, and so many after-generations, 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 Abraham with Chederlaomer the King of E­lam, Gen. 14. 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 of the War which the Tribes of Israel made against the Tribe of Benjamin, Judg. 20. and the men of Gibeah, for committing lewd­nesse and folly in Israel: that of David to 1 Sam. 30. rescue his Wives that were carried away cap­tive by the Amalekites, or to fetch home the 2 Sam. 6. Ark of God from the Philistines; that which Ahab made with Benhadad the King of Syria, 1 Reg. 20, [Page 77] 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 Machabeus 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 unlawfull: How shall this of the Kings be condemned, that had as much as Abraham, David, Ahab, a­gainst Benhadad, Judas Machabeus, and the 1 Macc. 3. v. 43. tribes of Israel, or those heathens that made it pro aris & focis, put them altogether 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 or hindred by a Wall or a Water, that he can go no farther? or for killing thieves 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 onely for his Life, but his Honour; and not onely 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 [Page 78] God hath given them? Or how can those State-riddles (like those of Sphinx, only made to destroy men with all) that they fought for the King and Parliament, as is alledged in many of their Orders and Declarations? and that the War was a Rebellion raised against the King and Parliament; as is expressed in the Ordinance of Parliament for association of the Counties of Pembroke, Cardigan, and Carmarthen; be ever understood by any rules 8 June, 1644. of sence or reason; if he were on the offen­sive part of the War, and had begun it against them? But if any shall be so in love with the sense of the House of Commons, as to be out of their owne senses, and thinke that though there be no manner 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 lawfull defence; make [...] him (who must needs be best acquainted with his own actions) to be so clearly guilty of all the blood 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 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 hi [...] [Page 79] Kingdomes and People to wallow in the blood and misery their Parliament Idols had brought them to; and have all the blame laid upon him for hindring a Peace 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 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, or Truth, or Reason, or Argu­ment, to perswade him to yield unto it, but laid it onely as a case of necessity before him (though there was no such preamble at the Treaties of Oxford and Uxbridge, nor any such necessity at those times insisted upon) that unlesse he would take the guilt upon him­self, his too Houses of Parliament and the people had engaged with them must necessarily bee guilty of Treason and could not have any se­curity from the guilt and punishment. The King be [...]aning 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 difference: But Cains sins being greater then could bee forgiven him, unless Abel can be brought to say he killed Cain; they that could after­ward find an expedient for 21 of their great [Page 80] Council of State that refused to subscribe to the lawfulnesse 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 the like preamble to his own Proposition, or the like might have been easily contrived and thought upon. For the truth was, the Independent party desired no Peace at all, and the Presbyterians desired it onely to get into their hands the Kings Po­wer and Authority, and lay the guilt of all the blood they had shed for it upon him; and 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 take away his Life for confessing himself guilty of it, by allowing of the preamble; in this unparallel'd de­mand, never before stood upon By Subjects to their Prince, or Conquerours to their Cap­tives. Nero himself was so far short of it, as though he had cunning enough when he set Rome on fire, to lay the fault upon the Chri­stians, had not Villany enough to torture and seek to draw them to a confession, that they did it.

The King after Protestation that he could not without manifest injury to the Truth, and a violation of his Honour and Conscience, take upon him a guilt, could no way be char­ged [Page 81] 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 selfe, and a Christian vertue to undergoe 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 alwaies 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 endeavour to save his People, and if the Parliament had not need of a Justification, when they used all manner of force and shifts, to have the King take the fault upon him: they therefore that shall consider that the King was a close prisoner, robbed and bereaved of all he had (but his Ho­nour and Conscience, and a great mea­sure [Page 82] of knowledge and understanding, and the hearts of his Loyal Subjects) was debarred of all friends and comforts, pent up and used with all manner of hardship and extremities, and every day like to be murdered, that conditions ad­impleri debent priusquam sequatur effe­ctus, are but inserted or added, in casum incertum qui potest tendere ad esse, aut non esse; and depend on subsequencies or fol­lowing effects, which not hapning or co­ming to be performed according to the intent of the conditions, makes them to vanish and expire, as if there no such matter at all had been acknowledged or expressed in them: That Cooke, his ac­cuser, who when he comes to be hanged for it, will never be able to prove that the People substituted, or gave him war­rant for to accuse him. And Bradshaw, who sate 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 onely acquit him of any confession or guilt to be inferred from his conditional yeelding to that Ambuscado Preamble, but dissolve into [Page 83] wonder and admiration, that he who in his Royal Meditations, and Conference with death, upon the Parliaments Votes of non address, and his closer imprison­ment at Carisbrook-Castle, had clearness of Conscience enough to say (for as for his judgement we hope it cannot be su­spected, when Mr. Carill the Independent, and Mr. Vines a Presbyterian Minister, could say he was a second Solomon; and the Parliaments Commissioners at the Isle of Wight report him to be the ma­ster of the greatest wisdome and under­standing) That he had the feast of a good Conscience, and the brazen wall of a judi­cious [...], Cap. 28. integrity and Conscience! doubted not but his Innocency would finde God to be his protector! rejoyced in the comfort of imitating Christs example in suffering for Righteousness sake! and thanked God he could pray for them, that God would not impute his Blood to them, fur­ther than 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, heard to say upon the Scaffold, He never did begin a War with the two Houses of Parliament, [Page] 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 looke 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 than a man, and so great a protector of his People, as not onely to be content to be robbed and dispoiled of all that he had for their sakes, but to save the Lives and 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 a great and accursed thing is committed in our Israel, and the anger of the Lord is kindled against us; it may be labour well bestowed (though here is sure e­nough [Page 85] already said and prov'd, that the King was in the defensive and justifiable part of the War) to send into Achan's tent, and search and see what is there to be found concerning this matter; and here we finde the Lord Say, the Lord Brooks, and their 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 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, History of the Mar (que) Montrosse his actions in Scot­land. Hinderson the Scotch firebrand confesses the Covenanters of both King­doms were unanimously agreed to bring the King to their lure before they laid down Arms: the joint Declaration of both Kingdoms in January, 1643. professes they will never lay down Armes till the pretended reformation be accomplished; many Declarations and Remonstrances of the Parliament (if they may be so called) and the Army, mention the [Page 86] original power and Soveraignty to be in the people, the common Rights and Freedome of the Nation, and the oppor­tunities God hath put into their hands. An Ordinance of Parliament 20 October 1645. concerning Rules and Directions for Triers and Judges of the ability of Elders, declare it was the wonderfull pro­vidence of God in calling them (which he never did by force of Arms, Hypo­crisie, Treason, Rebellion, and usurping of Regal Authority) to the great and difficult work of reformation and purging the Church. The Lord Fairfax and his General Council of Officers in their Re­monstrance of the 16 November, 1648. made to the Parliament, call the put­ting down of Monarchy, and the esta­blishing of their unjust ends, the publick interest originally contended for on the Parliaments part; and the Declaration and Votes of those that call themselves the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, 1 January 1648. affirm the bringing of Delinquents to punishment (which if they had been Delinquents, is certainly a part of the Kingly Office) the main, if not the onely end of making this War. And in another place thereof ac­knowledges [Page 87] the rooting out of Episcopa­cy, and bringing Delinquents to punish­ment to be the onely motives that induced them to undertake this War.

And though Achan will neither con­fess nor be brought to punishment, till the wrath and never-failing judgement 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: and the Fig-leaves which they have patched to­gether to palliate and hide their naked­nesse, cannot keep out the eyes and un­derstanding of a ruined Nation bleeding under the burden of their iniquity; but whether ever confessed or never, will be as plain as the most infallible demon­stration; 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 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 was none of their own, or to take away tenures in Capite, [Page 88] which was a principal Flower of his Crown; or for a Reformation of Religi­on, was already the envie and ambition of the best of the Reformed Churches, or to commit Sacriledge and 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 than their fore­fathers and the makers of that Statute ever thought on. But that we may do all the right we can to them 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 lesler occasion 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 get within their jurisdiction: Witnesse 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 Sense and Cabal of the House of Commons; men and women, old and young, shut [Page 90] up under Decks, ready to be stifled a ship-board, upon suspition that they affected the King; hanging of the two Bristol Merchants, Master Bourchier and Master Yeomans, for an endeavour to deliver to deliver up Bristol, putting Co­lonel Essex out of the Government of that Town, upon suspition of favouring the enterprise; hanging of Master Tom­kins 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 Ambas­sadors, and intercepting and opening their Letters; beheading Sir Alexander Cary for an intention to deliver up Pli­mouth, 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 Term (being a greater mis-usage then Davids Messen­gers [Page 91] received from King Ammon) im­prisoning, starving, and undoing of any that durst but own the King, 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 jugling Covenant (they themselves took, and forced upon them) 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 the Ortho­dox Ministers out of their Benefices and livelihoods 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 prescription 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 [Page 92] charges of High Treason against those that either fought for the King, or coun­selled him how to defend himself; for but obeying the known Lawes, they themselves made the world believe they made some part of the War for, ordering all to die without mercy that did but harbour the King when he fled in a disguise before their Armies, con­demning men by a Court Martial after the War was ended, and shooting them to death but for words or intentions. And if this and many things more 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 Warre 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 Mayor of London and divers Alder­men imprisoned but upon a suspicion of joyning with the Scots, or something in pursuance of the Covenant 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 after the War was ended, and [Page 93] the people like sheep devoured to main­tain them; so much complaining in our streets, and taking away the fifth part of many men in whole Counties, as Essex, Kent, &c. for joyning with some of 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) and causing the Souldiers not onely 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 to it, with disabling the Citizens of London for bearing any office in the City or Common wealth, for but putting their hands to the petition for the Trea­ty, though Cromwel himself had not long before set on som to petition for it; and the ruine & undoing of 2 parts of 3 in the Kingdome, very many of whom did nothing actually in the Wars, but were onely sacrificed to their pretended reasons and jealousies of State, do suffi­ciently proclame, and remain the woful Registers to after-generations of this lamentable assertion. If the King could [Page 94] have gotten but so much leave of his mercy, and a tenderheartednesse to his people, as to have used but the five­hundredth part of the Parliaments jea­lousies, and sharp and merciless autho­rity in the managing of this Warre, so much of his Kingdomes and people had not been undone and ruined, nor the Parliament put to so much labour to coyn faults and scandals against him, nor to wrest the Lawes to non-sense, and the Scriptures to Blasphemy, to justifie their most horrid act of murthering him, but for seeking to preserve the Lawes and Liberties of his people, who are now clearly cheated out of them. And here our misery tells 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.

TH'bundant satisfaction 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 look't to have any profit in the murthering of him (for a Trial of a King without either warrant or colour of Scripture, or the Lawes of the King­dome, or the consent of the major part of the people (if that could have autho­rized [Page 96] it, cannot, nay will not by all the world and after-ages be otherwise in­terpreted; unlesse we shall say Ravillac might have justified his killing 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 onely de­sirer of Peace, and laboured and tugged harder for it than ever Prince or King, Heathen or Christian, fince Almighty God did his first dayes work, did ever doe with Superiors, Equals or Subjects; and it will be no wrong certainly to Da­vid (whose sufferings are so much re­membred in all Christian Churches) complaining so bitterly that he sought peace with those that refused it, and in the mean time prepared for War a­gainst him. To say the King did suffer more, and offer more, and oftner for peace than 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 Decem. 1647. sent to the Parliament after so [Page 97] 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 onely 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 term of his life, and in a manner to un-king himself, and was afterwards content to doe all that his Coronation-Oath, Honour and Conscience, could possibly permit him to do; and to pur­chase a peace for his people, was con­tent to have born the shame & reproach of what his enemies were onely guilty of▪ insomuch as the Lord Say himself, and most of his ever-craving, never safe enough Disciples, confessed 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 acknowledge [Page 98] the King offered all, and the Parliament 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 yield to part with any thing was not their own. And thus may the account be quickly cast up be­tween the King and Parliament, who would have saved 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 to try the businesse, a [...] they use to do at the Councel of War, or the new invented way of Justice, sitting with their Will, or the Sword onely 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 was so great betwixt what the Parliament laboured to get, and the King to keepe, as that which sways the balance in most mens actions, will be argument enough to conclude they were more likely to lose by a peace than a war; therefore the more willing to continue it: and if their own Inte­rests would not put them so far upon it, their vain-glory and ambition would be forward enough to perswade them to it; and if not that, the success of their arms, or miscalled providence, would make them look (as experience tells us they did) upon any tenders of peace, as A­lexander the Great did upon Darius his offer o [...] half his Kingdom: and if not that, their feares and jealousies now grown greater by wronging of the King, than ever they were when they suspe­cted him, could never think it safe to [Page 100] let an inraged Lion into his Denne they had so long kept out of it. But the King could not fight for his own, but he must adventure the undoing of his own; 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 he can to preserve a People, had no minde to preserve themselves; and be­fore He had gathered up the Bayes He won at Edge-hill, sends a Proclamation of pardon to those, that the day before did all they could to kill him; and in all his actions of War afterward behaved himself rather like a weeping Father de­fending himself against the strokes and violence of disobedient children. Had the Parliament accepted of his offers before he came to Beverley, or besieged Hull, he had never set up his Standard at Notsingham; or had they loved his People but half so much as he did, their Armies had never seen his Banners dis­p [...]aid a [...] 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 near as to their very doors to intreat for it, they had never been troubled to frame an [Page 101] Accusation against him for defending himself at Brainford, Had his Treaty at Oxford been proceeded in with the same desires of Peace he brought to it the blood that was shed at [...]versham-bridge had been kept for better purposes; had he sought his own advantages, he had not besieged Glocester; 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 Glocester, whil'st he was as David besieging the strong Hold of the Jebusites, that withheld it from his obedience, and sought to ruine and un­doe Him aswell as his Loyal Subjects, he had not fought with them afterwards at Newbery; 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 Cornwall. Had the Treaty at Ʋxbridge taken effect, he needed not afterwards have adventured so much to defend [Page 102] himself at Newbery. Had not the new­modell'd Army after so many tenders of Peace, refused by their masters, beene 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, might have reserved himself to a better success and advantage than 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 Kingdom; 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 should the drummes have out gone the voice of the Turtle. He that could not bring himself to the common actions of War to hang a Spie, insomuch as when one of them was hanged before he was told he was taken, he was intreating the Governour of Oxford to spare him. He that when he had John Lilburne, one of the most factious that were against him, [Page 103] Wingate and Darley Parliament-men, Colonel Ludlow an actor of that Trea­son his Father had not long before spo­ken against him, and Dr. Bastwiek one of the bellows and principal factors of this horrid Rebellion, did no more than imprison some of them, and giving the rest a legal Trial, shewed them what the law they made filly People believe they took up arms to maintain, would judge of them; and suffered them to be ex­changed to do what they could after­wards against him: He that when he had taken 400 prentice-boys in the fight at Brainford, did but dismiss and pitty them; and when he had compelled the Earl of Essex the Parliament-General at Lestithiel in Cornwall to flie away by Sea in a Cock-boat, and leave all the Artil­lery and Foot of his Army to his mercy, did no more but disarm them, and take an oath of them never more to serve a­gainst him; and being then in the height of his prosperity, sent a Message and Offer of Peace to the Parliament, who were low enough at that time (if their designs would have given them leave) to have received it: He that could say he should be more afraid to take away [Page 104] any mans life unjustly than to lose his own! was not likely to be guilty of blood-see­king, or the shedding 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 Newark, 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 foraign parts or at home to cease: He that could endure five yeares 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 enjoy'd but the liberty of Pen and [Page 105] Ink, 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 notwithstanding all that, made shift to throw a Message or Declaration to his People, made up like a ball, out of the place of his close Imprisonment at Ca­risbrook, was not like to desire the lengthening that war he did all he could to avoid, and offered so much to make an end of; but on the contrary, if we take into our consideration the more than Gothish unheard of inhumane cru­cities, acted and done by the Parliament against their better fellow-Subjects, their Plunderings, Sequestrations, and rack­ing of every mans estate they pleased to call Delinquents; severities in all their actions, standing upon every punctilio or word, or superscription of a Letter, and not abating a tittle of their demands, as if they had been the Decalogue, or some other place of Scripture (though rivo­lets of blood, hundred thousands of ru­ined families, and thronged Hospitals of sick and wounded men, Widows and Fa­therless cried aloud to them for Peace) and their killing and murdering those [Page 106] that but petitioned for it; and a foun­dation laid of a new war may last as long as that of the Netherlands and Germany. There will be enough and enough again to insure us of this most clear and evi­dent truth, the King did all he could, and more than any man else would have done to obtain Peace, and the Faction of Parliament all they could to avoid it; for certainly if there be any rules of Learning, Truth or Reason, left us to judge by, he must be sequestred of all his brains that can but endeavour to make a doubt whether the King did not more resemble the true mother of the Child in the case before Solomon, who did so much, and offered to part with so much to save the life of it, than the Par­liament, that would have it more than divided, and to be cut and torn all to bits and pieces, and would do nothing at all to save, but every thing to destroy it. And now we have seen a King un­done and imprisoned for his endeavours to protect his People, and bring againe beloved Peace to those that would not entertain it: and heard the report of his murther (for most of the Peoples eyes have not seen it, nor have their [Page 107] hearts acted in it) we shall, as most men do (after they have lost a good offer or opportunity) enquire.

CHAP. VIII. Whether 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.

IN order to which, though so wofull and over-and-over-bitterly -Tasted, Seen, Felt, Heard and Ʋnderstood, Expe­riences of the miseries have come unto us by the Parliaments not accepting the gracious offers and conditions the King made unto them, may make it to be as needless to enquire of them, as for a man to ask where to finde Pauls Steeple in London when he is in Pauls Church­yard, or to enquire for the Sun in the dog-days, when he and every man else may see or feele the effects of it; we shall be content to consider what the [Page 108] King offered, and what the Parliament would have had him to grant. What the King would have done, and what the Parliament have done; and by that see which would have been the better bar­gain.

The King like a pater patriae offered over and over to grant all manner of Laws and Liberties, which might be good and wholsome for his People, and onely denied to grant those things the granting whereof (as he said himselfe) would alter the fundamental Laws; and endanger the very foundation upon which the publick happiness and welfare of his People was founded and constituted; or to give them stones in stead of bread, or Scorpions in stead of fishes. But the Par­liament meaning to feed the People nei­ther with bread nor fishes, ask the Royal Sword, Crown, and Scepter, Coronation Oath, and Conscience, and an Arbitrary Power to governe and domineer over their fellow Subjects, and to enslave those that trusted them: And though the King had already granted enough to preserve the Laws, Lives, Religion, and Liberty of the People, and was so wil­ling, almost at any rate, to purchase a [Page 109] peace for himself and his people; as he was content to part with his Sword and Militia, and divers other parts of his Re­gality during his life: Yet that would not serve the turn, 'twas Naboths Vine-yard, not Ahabs Fast, made all the busi­nesse: the Parliament, that pretended so much to deny themselves, and to dote upon the people, doe notwithstanding all they can to continue the War, and to cozen & force the peoples blood, estate, and conscience out of them; and they must never give over paying of Taxes, fighting and fooling, till they enable them to imprison their King, and not onely murther him, but thousands, and many ten thousands of their fellow-subjects, and the Lawes, Religion, and Liberties of the people.

And now that they have done more than the men of the Gun-powder-trea­son intended to do; & all England are be­com like sheep without a Shepherd; wandring on the mountains, & thousands of Wolves by Votes & Ordinances, & mis­called Acts of Parliament appointed to feed them; four or five yeares sad ex­perience in the Wars of the Parliament against the King, and almost as much more time spent in setling and subduing [Page 110] the people, making them like Camels, to kneel down to take up their bur­dens, labour, and travel hard, and en­dure hunger and thirst under them; yet yield up their veines to be prick'd for blood to enable their drivers to furnish them with a new supply of burdens, when they shall be discharged of what they have laid upon them, may easily shew us a difference as big as a mountain betwixt our old good Lawes and Liber­ties enjoyed under a gracious King, who had an estate of inheritance large enough of his own, besides an oath to oblige him to protect us; and a Hell upon Earth, and the most Slavish of all the Governments were ever yet put upon a Nation, by men of as little wit and estates as they have honesty; having no other obliga­tions upon them but their own abomi­nable designs & interests. For which of the people, unless those that have traded in their neighbours blood and ruine, but hath made their complaints of their un­doing?

The Religion of the Kingdome, once so glorious, is now cut into fancies and blasphemies; the Churches where God was wont to be worshipped, either de­faced, [Page 111] or pulled down, or made stables for horses; the Lawes of the Kingdom, that were consonant to the Word of God, and had in them the Quintessence of all could be found to be extant in the Lawes of Nature, Nations, Civil Laws, or rectified Reason, and whatsoever the wisedome and care of all former Kings in Parliament, or the usage and customs of this or any other neighbouring Nati­ons could bring to its perfection, and were wont to nourish & preserve peace and property, among us voted out, or into that sense, or to [...]er interest, to that every thing or nothing, or to that non­sense according as the Lawlesse, Unli­mited, Unjust and Ignorant will of fel­low-subjects shall please to misuse them in the Voting house, or place of bandy­ing aies or noes. (For a Parliament, which in its legal and primitive Institu­tion, consisting of King, Lords and Commons, and the right use of it, is so venerable, as no man (as our Lawes say) ought so much as to speak or think dis­honourably of it, we cannot without violence to the Lawes, and our reason and understanding call it) where pu [...] ­lique orders are made without hearing [Page 112] of all, or any parties interessed, a piece of a cause heard by some, and none at a [...]l of it by others; votes and parties made and packed and lent to one another be­fore-hand, and the best of the Faction, and Juglers, carry all the businesse as they have a mind to it. A way of Justice worse than that ( [...]f there were any in it) of a lawlesse Court said to be kept yearly on a Hil betwixt Raleigh and Rochford in Eeslx, the wednesday afterevery Micha­elmas day, where the Steward, or Judge sitteth in the night after the first Cock-cro­wing, without any light or candle, and cal­leth Weavers Funcral Monu. ments, pag. 605. all that are bou [...] to attend the Court, with as low a voice as possibly he may, write orders with a coal, and they that answer not are deeply amerced: For that being a particular punishment long agoe infli­cted upon the Tenants of certain Manner in Raleigh hundred, for a conspiracy a­gainst the King, is but once a yeare, some shift, or chance, or mercy of the Steward, or an appeal, may take a way the incon­venience of it. A way of government worse then to be subject to the rule of so many fools, for they might perchance doe that would be just; or so many Knaves, who but in playing the Knaves [Page 113] one with another, or for reward, might sometimes do that which was right, or Mad-men, which at intervals might do something which was reasonable, worse then for every subject of England to be put to play at dice for his life, or estate, or any thing else he should crave a Ju­stice to get or keep; for then he might by skill or chance obtain something: In fine, worse then any example or way of Government the world hath as yet pro­duced, and can have nothing worse but Hell it self.

The Parliament and priviledges of it are destroyed, and every mans life and estate in no better a condition then at the pleasure of the next pretenders to it. All the Charters and Liberties of Ci­ties and Corporate Towns, Corporati­ons of Trade, and Companies of Mer­chants made void; all the Merchandise, Trade, and Manufacture of the King­dom laid open, and in common to eve­ry one that will intrude upon it; all that is in the Law concerning our Lives, E­states, Liberties, and Religion, made void and dependant upon the Arbitrary Independent power; all that is in the Law concerning Navigation, the Kings [Page 114] Protection of his people; certainty of Customes, Trade and Entercourse, Leagues and Correspondencies with Forrain Princes expired or annihilated, and all that our Fore-fathers have ob­tained by way of Lawes and Settle­ment, and certainty of Estate, are now at dispose of our vote-mongers; who in stead of a most pious and gracious King governing by known Lawes, have set us up 43. or 50. Kings, and ten times as many more Knaves and Fools, who will govern by no Law but such as they shall call Lawes and make themselves; can be accusers, witnesses and Judges, at one and the same time, and if need be, con­demn and take away mens Estates first, and try them after two or three yeares Petitioning for it: a bondage & slavery in the general more then ever any of our Ancestors tasted of. For the Ro­mans, whose Justice and Morality at home, and Vertue and Temperance a­broad, made them free enough from Tyranny, did but make them as Tribu­taries: The Picts made but temporary incursions, and a wall could be made a­gainst them: The Saxons and Danes brought us good Lawes; and William [Page 115] the Conquerour was content to restore them. And all that succeeded him since, understood a government by Lawes to be their own as well as the peoples secu­rity: but this which they have now brought upon us, and would keep us under, is a misery beyond that was suf­fered under the 30. Tyrants of Athens, Spartan, Ephori, or Romes Decemvirat, for there were something of Lawes and Rules to govern by: The Children of Israel in the Egyptian slavery, had a pro­perty in their goods and cattel, and were at liberty to serve a better God then that of their Masters; and though they had their burdens doubled upon them, were not kill'd, imprisoned, or seque­stred, for petitioning against the sense of Pharaoh. The Jewes in Captivity had so much liberty of Conscience al­lowed to them, as to play upon their Harps, and sing the Songs of Sion in a strange Land. The frozen Russians, though so dull and ignorant, as when they are asked any matter of State, or difficulty, make answer, God and the great Duke knoweth, breath not under so Arbitrary & lawlesse a government. The Grecians had not their Lawes, Re­ligion, [Page 116] and Liberties, as we have, all at once taken from them; nor can the suf­ferings of them or any other vassals of the Ottoman Port, or those that live un­der the Crim Tartar, equal the one half of our English slavery.

Into which we had never fallen or come at all, or so long groaned under, had we but served God and the King, as we ought to have done, and not wr [...] ­sted the sense as well as the plain words of the Scripture, and the Lawes of the Land, to enable the sons of Zerviah to be too hard for us, and bring all manner of mischief, confusion and wickednesse upon us, more then Romes and Constan­tinoples Antichrist ever brought upon a people, and from which the King had delivered us, if we had not Cursed, Re­viled, Prayed, Contributed, and Fought against him for endeavouring to Protect us. How gracious then was he who en­dured the heat of the day, and cold of the night, to preserve a great deal more for us then Nabals sheep could amount unto; yet being worse used then ever David was for it, could not tell how so much as to threaten to doe that which David had so great a mind to doe, but [Page 117] fought as long as he could to Protect them, would not so much as defend themselves, but did all they could to ruine those that defended him. And how much was he beyond Codrus the A­thenian King, the Roman Curtius, or Decii (if all that the Ancients wrote of them were true) who sacrificed them­selves, but not their Estates and Poste­rity to preserve the Publique; and how good beyond example, or the credit of any History, who made himself a Mar­tyr for his peoples lives and liberties, and endured so many deaths, and suffer­ed more indignities then all the Kings of England put together, have ever en­dured to preserve a people, have (for a 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 Lawes 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 [Page 118] 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 wirh Sampson have pleased himself with re­venge, and delivered up a people to Slavery, were at so much expence of Treasure and Blood, and their own Soules, 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 palat 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 doe any [Page 119] thing might help himself, either to pur­chase his own quiet, or so great a Liber­ty, and would neither for any good might come to himself, or any evil 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 Warre their Task-masters had a mind to put them upon, must have been excised, plundred, sequestred, ruined, and undone; sworn and forsworn; constrained to swear to doe a thing to day, and the next day swear not all to doe it: The son set to kill his Father, and brothers forced to fight one against another, and have all their Holy-dayes turned to Thanksgi­ving-dayes, 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, [Page 120] or Town-Clerk but subscribe it, their Spiritual as well as their Temporal Estate, and their Soules 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 happi­nesse, 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 fore-fathers (though some have thought themselves to have wit enough to adventure to call them fooles) 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 Lawes of Monarchy, Peerage, Par­liament, and Magna Charta, even since this 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 and his Posterity, before the five Members and Kimbolton had so for engaged themselves in it) to inform them, if nothing else had been demonstrated unto them: That the [Page 121] King did all he could to preserve the Lawes, Religion, and Liberties of the people (which divers pieces of his coin 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 have they as actually un­done and destroyed them. And let the greatest search of History 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 Lawes to restrain himself withal: 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 murtherer 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 second of England was not murthered for the blood that was shed in the Barons Wars, though some of them had drawn their swords [Page 122] but in performance of his fathers will, to take away his favourite Gavestion 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. publickly 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 favourite 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 than Burton, Prynne, and Bastwick) 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 Catholick, for spending so much of their blood to another purpose than 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 [Page 123] Swedes and the Emperour, thought it any way reasonable or necessary to de­mand reparation for those millions of men, women, and children, houses and estates, were ruined and spoiled by a thirty 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 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 unfaithfulnesse? or can there be a­ny thing in the Reason or understand­ing of man, to perswade him to think the King was justly accused for the shed­ding of his blood which the accusers themselves were only guilty of? And Bradshaw himself (like the Jewes high Priest, confessing a truth against his will) in the word he gave instead of reason for murthering the King against the will and good liking of nine parts in every ten of the Commons of England, could [Page 124] make his Masters that call themselves the Parliament of England to be no bet­ter then the Tribum plebis of Rome, and the Ephori of Sparta, the former of which for manifold mischiefes 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 Colonell Popham should joyn with those that sate 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 Tryall of the Earl of Essex, in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth, That 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 of the Prince. For that Rebells by their good will never suffer that King or Prince to live or Raign, that un­derstands [Page 125] 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; is now written in the blood of the King, and those many ite­rated complaints of the King in severall 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 suspition: and every man may now know the mea­ning of their Canoneers levelling at the King with perspective glasses, at Copredy bridge, the acquitting of Pym the Inn­keeper, who said, He would wash his Hands in the Kings hearts-blood, stifling of fifteen or sixteen severall indictments for treasonable words; & Rolf rewarded for his purpose to kil him, and the prose­cutors checked, 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, [Page 126] & Quod primum fuit in intentione ultimo loco agitur, Seaven years hypocri­tical Promises & practices, 7. years Pre­tences, and seven years preaching and pratling have now brought us all to this conclusion as wel as Confusion. The blood of old England is let out bygreater witch-craft 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 devouted, and the Trees have made the Bramble King, and are like to speed as wel with it as the Frogs did with the Storke that devoured them; And they have not onely slain the King who was their Father, but like Nero, rip't 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 murthered, an action so horrid, and a sin of so great a magnitude, and complication, as if we shall ask the daies that are past, and en­quire from the one end of the Earth to the other, there will not be found any wickednesse like to this great wickedness, or hath been heard like it. The Se­vern, Thames, Trent, and Humbar, four [Page 127] of the greatest Rivers of the Kingdome with all their lesser running streams of the Island in their continuall courses, and those huge heaps of waterin the O­cean girdle of it in their Restlesse agita­tions will never be able to scoure and wash away the guilt and stain of it, though all the rain which the clouds shal ever bring forth, and impart to this Na­tion, and the tears of those that bewail the losse of a King of so eminent graces and perfections bee added to it.