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The Life and Reign of King Charles · John Milton

The Life and Reign of King Charles, Part 2

The Authors reply to an invective Remonstrance against the Parliament and present Government, wherein the whole managery of the late War is exactly described.

SIR,

HAving diligently perused the replication you sent me, I perceive that you are no changeling, but one and the self same man in your opinion, both in justifying the late Kings Actions, and in aspersing the Parliament with raysing the late War against him, as a premeditated Plot long since hatch't by a factious party amongst them, and to change the Government, and pull up Monarchy and Episcopacy by the roots; Strange Chimaeras indeed, that dropt lately out of the Clouds and Vapours of your own and your parties gyddy-braines; neither doe you rest there, but you proceed to charge those which now sit at Westminster with many other fowle Calumnies; to all which in their proper place I shall not faile to give you a particular answer; though I could have wisht, that you had fixt your cogitations on some other subject suitable to truth, and the ingenuity you pretend unto, and not after ten years revolution of time to fall flat on a meer suggestion of your owne without any other proof than a bare allegatiou, and that so destitute of possibility, either of thought or intent in the Parliament to effect, as that the affirmation seems to me a meer malicious fiction of your own rather than a simple verity, and so unbecoming a Gentleman of your quality, as that in plainnesse I take the boldnesse to tell you, you might on better reason with Copernicus his Disciples, have aver'd another world to be in the Moon, th…n to have devised and broached so vaine and senselesse an untruth; But since tis more of your will than chance, to fall on so groundlesse a fable and on a theam so old and over-worne; might I have advised, you should have turn'd your tone (which would have been much more for your honour) and aver'd, that the King, even from the very first entrance of his reigne (answerable to his Fathers instructions) began his arbitrary worke, and in pursuance thereof had laid sundry destructive and darke plots, how to invassalate the three Nations, and by degrees to reduce them all under one Intire, arbitrary and absolute soveraignty; and when they took not the effect he desired, being discovered and opposed by this Parliament, then to set up his Standard and array the poore people against themselves, which never any King of England durst attempt, otherwise than by publick consent, and against a forraigne enemy, and at last to wage open Narre against his owne subjects, and the representative of the Nation, Plundering, Fyring, and desolating the Kingdom to the utmost of his power; had you avouched thus much, you had hit on the right, and shewed your selfe both a friend to truth and your Country; but it seems you still stand close to your old destructive principles, as at first you sided with the King living, so dead you persist to make good his cause, whether right or wrong it mattered not much, with most of your party, the truth is, how good or bad soever his cause was, it was the bare name of a King and hopes of preferment which drew your Iron into the field, and tis the very same at present which invites all of you to flatter and sooth up your selves with the empty name of Loyalty to bring in the new Crown'd King of Scots on the old score, without looking to the preservation of the Liberty of your Country, and proprieties of your own posterity and the sad consequence thereof, as if the publick interest ought to be given up, for the fulfilling of your desires, and of one mans wilfull pleasure, a strange dotage that hath possest you, and more strange it is, that you should now fall a fresh on a subject that loathes any man of ingenuity to think on it, much more to treat on a theam so stale, were it but in reference to the memory of him who is at rest: But since I find that a kind of confidence possesses your intellectuals, that all your allegations are unanswerable, and that your provocations amounts to a challenge, the fault must be yours not mine, If in vindication of truth, I lay open the grossnesse of all your errors, in the manifestation of his which with such eagernesse and confidence you think your self able to defend being forced through your importunity, and the nature of the taske you put upon me, to run over the whole progres and managery of all the late Kings designs, visible and long since very well knowne to all men of common understanding; though I confesse, I do not much marvell that your selfe (amongst the rest of the facill beliefe) have been deceived by the Kings woonted and plausible protestations, especially as he handled the matter, in the cunning and umbragious carrying on of all his close and hidden designs: for I very well know many knowing▪ Gentlemen which have had a long conflict with themselves, what judgment to make on the first difference arising between the King and Parliament, his Majesty so often protesting, how much he intended the welfare of all his subjects, how unwilling to embrew the Kingdom with blood, how willing to embrace and conserve the peace of the Land, how resolved to maintaine the true Protestant Religion, how carefull and studious to uphold the Lawes and Liberties of the People, how ready to preserve inviolable the privileges of Parliaments, and how forward to supply his distressed Protestant Subjects in Ireland; all which (as a Copy of his counterfeit Countenance) he so often protested, and confirmed with Imprecations, that truely the spirits of many wise men were amazed and a long time stood staggering what to be. lieve in the case, and doubtfull whether the Kings cause or the Parliaments was most just, which party gave the first offence, which began the Warre, and of this number I confesse my self to be one, which stood sometimes diffident in a controversy so variously attested; but having made a diligent search into all the passages, and transactions between both parties, both from before the Sword was drawn, and after to the year 1645, when the Kings Cabinet Letters were taken at Naseby, and other manifests elsewhere, I then began to bethink my self (that which before I only admitted in a kind of Ambitious beliefe) that the Parliament had then to deal with a King (howsoever heretofore valued as a Prince of no deep reach) who was not to seek without the help and influence of a malicious Councell) to play his owne part, I shall not say better, but more dextrous and cunningly for his owne ends, and to the reducing of the Kingdomes under his absolute power, than any of those could direct him, whom he most trusted with the mannagery of his designs and secrets; truely, Sir, on that discovery (on the publishing of his Letters) let me tell you there were many thousands which fell off, and from the opinion they held of his integrity and the Iustice of his Cause, it being in the next degree to a miracle that after so full a disclosure of the Kings juglings and dissemblings there should any remaine to take his part, and the wonder is the more remarkeable that since his death any man should believe him to be a Martyr, but whom God hardens they shall be hardened, let the Charmer Charme never so wisely some will be deafe and diffident of visible truthes never so clearly manifested, of which number that you should perceveere to make one, as by your sundry invectives it appears, surely it hath not a little troubled me, to see the excrescencies of your inveterate malignancy to break out even to obstinacy, and so long to have blinded your judgment, from discerning of truth from falshood, and to have bard you from the right use of distinguishing between reason well weighed, and fraud umbrated and attested, with the usuall artifices of the royall protestations, a faculty (by your favour) too too common with the King and those quaint pen-men which attended him; with plausible Declarations, frequently sent abroad, ad faciendum populum, to catch fools, and as the Kings usuall phrase was to undeceive the people, (prepossest with the reality of the Parliaments Remonstrances) when in truth the Kings ends were no other than to decoy the poor credulous Annimalls into an opinion of his good meaning towards them, when he intended them most harme, as we find it evident in the silly devises and quaint impresses of his money coyned at Oxford, pretending that he took up arms in defence of the Protestant Religion, the Laws and Liberties of the People, and the Priviledges of Parliament, when the direct contrary appeared by all his Actions; and when as it was manifest, that before he began to quarrell with the Scots, he tacitely intended, and even then designed to suppress Parliaments, or so to qualify them, that they should be onelyonly usefull to his own ends, not to the people, and likewise to invade the Liberties of the subject, & adulterate the true Protestant Religion with the superstitious mixture of Popery, as it manifestly appeared by his admittance of a Jesuiticall crew into his own Court, & Cappuchins at Somerset-house with large maintenance, even in the face of the Court, and eye of the Kingdom, with a generall connivence, amounting to a tacite toleration to all Papists, together with idolatrous Masses, both in his own house permitted, andused throughout the Kingdom in most Papists houses without controule, & in imitation of Solomon, after that by his Wives he was turn'd Idolater, to set up the abomination of *…1 Kings 11. 4, 5, 6, 7.Ashteroth, even in the face of Jerusalem: And as to his invading of the Libertyes of the people, with his many other oppressions and irregularities, we all know, and have good cause to remember them.

The Breviary of his Life and unfortunate Reigne, manifestly declares as to his intent of suppressing of Parliaments, and future oppression of the people, the observations I intend to send you, with his own Letters sufficiently demonstrates, & by whose motion and Counsels those exorbitances were first by his own Fathers Instructions pursued, found in his Cabinet at Theobalds immediately after his departure, and whereof one was to quit himself by degrees of all Parliaments, as too bold Co-partners in the Government with their Kings, & to run the future course of his government answerable to that of France; and to verifie this I shall point you to King James his own Speech in open Parliament, 1609. March 21. Where you may see what preparations he had provided for his Successor to rule by: parallelling himself with God who he saith, Hath power to create or destroy, make, or un make at his pleasure, to give life, or send death, to judge all, and to be judged or to be accomptable to none, to raise low things, and to make high things low at pleasure, and to God are both Soul and Body due; the like power, saith this King, have Kings, they make and unmake their Subjects, they have power of raising and casting down, of life and death, Iudges over all their Subjects, and in all causes, and yet accomptable to none but God alone, they have power to exalt low things, and abase high things, and to make of their Subjects like men at Chess, a pawn to take a Bishop, or a Knight, and to cry up and down their Subjects, as they doe their money.

Whence you may observe this Kings Principles, which in the Speech it selfe every where extant you may find, that even this King, whom the world stiled the Platonicall King, and was reputed a pious Prince, took the hint of his tyrannicall principles from a *Mountague.Bishop, who in the very face and audience of a Court of Parliament, preacht all these fine arbitrary doctrines, and yet in the Speech it self, fol. quarto, you shall find the King defends him: Hence you way perceive by whose counsells the late King steered all the course of his government after his accession to the Crown, with the reason of his seldome calling of Parliaments, and his often dissolving of such as he did call without their due effects. I shall now faithfully relate the whole progresse of the War, and by what female advice he was directed to the reducing of all the three Kingdomes under his absolute power, and for your better satisfaction shall by the way present you with the orignall cause of his hatred against this Parl. and by what strange means it was summoned, and at a time when all wise men had given all Parliaments for lost, which although long since, and by many more able pens than mine have been sufficiently manifested to the world, yet for your sake, I shall adventure to present them a new, as having little more in addition to the elabourate pains of others, than in some particulars which I find not as yet produced to the light of the world: Briefly then, It is a knowne truth that the King in that his unnecessary raising of a warre against the SCOTS, and through the prodigality of the Court, especially the petulancy and lavishnesse of the Queens side, had so exceedingly exhausted both his Exchequer and Credit, and reduced himself to that extreme Indigence, that he knew not whither to turn himself, neither (as in the Breviary of his Reigne is exactly laid down) could that great head-piece, & the grand Master for carrying on of all his Arbitrary work, shew him how to dis-intangle himselfe out of that harle, wherein his owne wilfull Inclinations had incumbred him: We all know, that the King on the entrance of the Scots at Newborne, in August 1640. took a posting journey Northward to his Army, Strafford being Commissioned Generall in the room of the Earl of Northumberland, whither they were no sooner arrived, but they found the Souldiery in little better than mutiny for want of their pay; the whole army then lying on Free-quarter on the County of York, and the King without so much money as would pay halfe a Regiment, the Scots possest of the Town of Newcastle, the Nobility having been exhausted in their attendance the Summer before, yet to shew their loyalty, they again repair to York; amongst the rest, the Earls of Hartford and Essex in their journey take an occasion by the way to addresse themselves to the Queen, to whom they declare the sad condition wherein both the King and Kingdome were then reduced, and that they saw no possible means, other then a Parliament, whereby to repair the State, relieve the King, and peece up the rents and breaches between both Nations; on this expostulation they prevailed with the Queen to write her Letters to his Majesty, to move him to condescend to the summons of this Parliament, the mention whereof they very well knew without such a mediatrix would be very displeasing unto him; these Lords being thus provided with her Majesties Letters, repair to Yorke, and presented them to the King, and upon consultation with the rest of the Lords then attending his Majesty, five and twenty of them joyn in a Petition to that purpose: The Scots likewise, and 200 Gentlemen of the County of York concurring in the same sute for a present summons of a Parliament. Thus was his Majesty (as I may say) beleaguered on all hands, not anyone but Strafford dissenting; in the end, what between the Kings urgent necessities, and a concurrency of Petitions, together with the Queens Letters (which weigh'd most with the King) was this Parliament contrary to the expectation of all men, produced, to the admiration of the Kingdom, though against the Kings expresse vow, taken at the putting off his robes (as before is mentioned) when he dissolved his second Parliament, and in a contemptuous deportment, threw them from him, protesting that it should be the last time of their putting off or on: Hence we may discern through what difficulties and streights this Parliament took it's beginning, we may well say, by Gods speciall providence, and by hers principally as the instrumentall cause thereof, which soon after was it's greatest Enemy, and not by the Kings choise and inclination, as it is shamefully averr'd in his Pourtraicture, whereas, the bare name and mention of a Parliament was well known to be odious unto him, and the very motion of calling any more prohibited, by his own expresse charge to all of his Councell of State, as that which he foresaw would be the onelyonly impediment to the accomplishment of all his arbitrary designes so meerly brought to their ends, but the summer before he waged the first warre against his native subjects the Scots, an enterprise which the World knowes was the only Remora that checkt and choaked all his projections in the maturity of their birth, which to recover on sight, and his sense of the Parliaments proceedings he soon found he had no other way left him but by open War and force to suppresse them, the mannagery whereof I shall now briefly present unto you.

The Parliament had its Summons from Yorke (as all the Kingdom knows) and the third of November 1640. sate downe at Westminster, where according to the usuall Ceremonies, the King in his own person, in a set speech made a very gracious protestation, viz. That he was fully resolved to put himself wholy on the love of his People and Parliament, which if it proved not prosperous and a happy Parliament the fault should be none of his, and that he was fully determined to commit the reformation of all things amisse to their regulation. A profession which both took much with the House and all the Kingdom, which had he been pleased to have performed, and to have made good his word, in not protecting the many delinquents, questioned within a few moneths after the Parliaments first sitting downe, as with justice, honour, and his Coronation oath he was obliged, and in reference to his owne profit he might very well have forborne, such tragicall issues could never have befallen himself and the 3. Kingdoms: but having then entertained other designs, and perceiving the Parliament to fly high, and at his chief Ministers and woork-masters of his former arbitrary projects, and on those which had fomented that unnecessary Warre against the Scots, as the Earl of Straf ford and the Arch-bishop (principally) the Prelates and dissolute Clergy, most of the Iudges and the Farmers of the Customes, (not for common faults, but very high misdemeanours) the King to crosse them, most ignobly and against the justice of the Kingdome, not only provoked, but openly shewed himselfe both a defendor and protector of their Delinquencies, and upon the distast he took on the commitment of Strafford, was instantly known to have laid sundry plots and practises, how he might dissolve the Parliament, or utterly to destroy it, which the Parliament perceiving, and that the Queen under colour of accompanying the Princesse Mary into Holland, was sent thither with the Crowne Jewels to buy Arms, and procure forces to be sent him, and Digby employed to the same purpose; whereupon in prevention of the storme which they evidently then saw was like to fall on themselves and the Kingdom from beyond sea, they moved his Majesty that the Kingdom might be put into a posture of defence, and the militia deposited in such hands, as they might confide in, which he utterly refused to grant them as inseparables to the Crowne (as he alleaged) he was resolved to keep solely in his own power; The Parliament in answer to this, insist, That the Kings power therein, by the Law of the Land, was only fiduciary, allwayes in reference to trust, & the publik good & safety of the Kingdō; hence the contest by degrees grew to a separation, and in furtherance of the dispute, he also denyed the house to disband the Irish Army, raised long before by Strafford, and compos'd of Papists, a storm which could not otherwise be expected but would (if not timely prevented) fall on them from Ireland, whereof the *Vide the Juncto.Juncto at their very first sitting down had sufficiently informed them out of Straffords own mouth for what use and end that Army was raised, viz. where he tels the King, you have an Army in IRELAND to reduce this Kingdome, when it was manifestly known to the world, that it never was in a greater calm of peace and quietnes, and the universall people in a more absolute obedience, and as ready to be ridden as any slaves under the Grand Signior.

During this conflict, the King would needs take a journey into Scotland, notwithstanding the House by sundry petitions had earnestly moved him, either to lay it aside, or at least for some time to retard it, (but howsoever the King carried on his plots & intentions in the dark, & with as much cunning as possibly could be devised) yet they had then good reason to suspect, that his journey Northward was to some other end, than in leaving them to visit his Scotch Parliament, as it after proved; but on he would for Scotland, and before he took his journey, in a seeming providence to disburthen the Kingdome of the charge of the Scotch Army, he first prest the house to disband (with all their expedition) that Army, and to pay pay that of his own raising in the North, but not a word of disbanding it; upon this motion the House took it into their serious consideration (apprehending it for a provident, carefull, and timely motion of the Kings) and thereupon bethought themselves, how first to disband and quit the Kingdome of the Scots untill Mr. Stroude standing up, told the Speaker, That they ought not in such haste to depart with the Scotch Army, lest the sonnes of Zerviah (in their absence) would be too hard for them, this speech the house soon apprehended, and instantly resolved not to disband the one without the other army, which the King perceiving, & being daily prest with Petitions of the Officers of his own Army fot their pay, and himselfe not possibly able to content them, as also, that 25000 l. per mensem, allowed to the Scots Army, with 300000 l. by way of brotherly love given them by the Parliament in compensation of their losses through the Kings needlesse and unnecessary molesting them, during the two Summers before, amounted in the totall to so vast a sum, as that neither himself was able to contribute a groat, or the Parliament otherwise to discharge, but by borrowing it on the Publique Faith.

It would amaze those which are happily ignorant of the managery of this work, if I should tell them in what extremity of want the King was then reduced, and how he durst adventure to struggle, and after to trip up the heels of a Court of Parliament, which, without the least upraiding him with his profusions, and irregular Regality were not only willing and ready to pay all those vast scores of debts contracted through his own wilful misgovernment, but then had it in agitation, how to improve his Revenues, and to inable him to live of himself without squeezing his Subjects, in honour, splendour and plenty beyond any of his Progenitors as it is well known to many of his own party who were of that Committee, *Sir John Broke, Sir Ralph Hopton, Mr. Partridge, and Mr. Green, were of that Committee.touching the improving of an annuall revenue to be setled upon him by act of Parliament, out of one particular, the Customes amounting to 400000 li. per annum, proposed by old Mr. Turner the Farmer of the Allom works, and the same so much forwarded, that it was committed by Votes of the Parliament, to a select number of Members, to be considered, and shortly after was stated to a proportion of 200000 l. more per annum than ever he received out of the great and petty farms, but that the world may know the wilfulnesse of this King, after that he was gon from the Parliament, and had erected his Standard at Nottingham, he sent word by Master Levison by name, and one of his Bedchamber, to Turner, That if ever he medled with the Parliament about that businesse thenceforth, not to look him in the face; whence it evidently appears, that he meant not to take any thing of the Parliament by way of gift, having it in design to take what he pleased, as power should inable him. God knowes I send you no Fables, but shall willingly be accomptable of any thing which you shall find herein inserted, if it suit not with the naked truth and sincerity of him, who would not that your self and so many of the English Nation should be any longer deluded and flamm'd with untruthes, and nurst up in a belief of want of the Parliaments good and loyall intentions towards him, untill he had wilfully and desperately made himself uncapable of the love and loyalty of his people; and such was the ingratitude of this unhappy King, for proofe whereof amongst many instances that I could present, and of his carelesse paying where he borrowed, and ruining of many of his servants, let this one suffice of Mr. Turner, tow hom he owed no small sums, promised much and often, as he did to many others, but performed nothing, when it was the least thought of his heart; the after-story, as a known truth, will both shew forth his ingratitude, and the extremity of his want, with those sordid shifts he was put unto, both at the sitting down of this Parliament and long before, when the poor old man petitioned him for the nomination of a Baron, which is most true, that the King granted him without scrupie, provided he named a Gent. & of worth; in short, it was my Lord Capel, and he was to give him in ready money, 10000 l. but the King sending for the old man, told him of his want, and that he would gratifie him otherwise with double that sum; so the King as it is well known flattered the good old man out of his money, which was presently given to the Queen Mother for her Transportation hence into Germany, and the old Gentleman left to seek his bread, and to die a very poor man; many instances of this kinde I could relate, but to returne to our relation: the Parliament then moved the City for the loan of so much present money as might serve to discharge the arrears due to both Armies, which the Citizens denyed, unless an act might passe for the Parliaments sitting during pleasure; the Citizens well remembring the Kings wonted and sudden dissolving of all the Parliaments of his Reigne.

The King then finding where the Remora lay, readily past that bill in relation to his own debt, which hath been since both by himselfe and his party so much magnified for an Act of Grace surpassing all of his Progenitors, and shortly thereupon takes his journey towards Scotland, which considering his own hidden designes, was chosen in so fit a conjuncture of time, as that he overtooke the Scotch Army in their march before they past the borders, where what overtures he made to the Commanders to joyn with him against the Parliament, best appears by the notice thereof given and sent by them to the Parliament and their own Commissioners here then residing The King then finding that neither the English or Scotch Armies would be wrought upon, answerable to his designes, posts to Edinburgh, where he very well understood, that to keep the Scots quiet, necessarily he should be compell'd to give that Parliament all the content they desired, as tis maifestly known he did in all things they demanded, and in many Acts of Grace, which to the English Parliament he utterly denyed, and stood upon even to the last, as the Militia, the choice of their Admirall, Chancellour, Judges, &c.

During the Kings abode in Scotland, which was near upon foure moneths, it is well known the Irish Rebellion brake forth in October 1641. and that rising authorised under the great Seale of Scotland, as both the Rebels themselves aver'd, and that attested by divers witnesses of credit, which had seene it under Seal: the Parliament here at that time had a recesse, only so many of the Members as might keep up the reputation of a Parliament resided at Westminster, the rest were retired unto their habitations untill November following, when by order of the Houses they were all to re-assemble, in the mean time, whilest most of the Lords and Commons were in the Country hapned that Rebellion; the Parliament by this time and at their coming together, had to their old, a new worke cut out to their hands, what the King could not accomplish either in England or Scotland, by the way of insurrections and disturbances in both those Kingdomes, he had fore-laid the way to do it in Ireland, howsoever grosly palliated and denyed in his Pourtracture, yet so suspicious of fowle play, as that on a right understanding of the mannagery of the peace, and the slye carrying on of the whole businesse, between himselfe and the Marquesse of Ormond, (to be seen in his own Letters) makes it plain that he had a perfidious hand therein.

Now as to his preparations from France and Holland, wherewith to Invade the Parliament, its manifest he had then in readinesse a very considerable proportion of all sorts of ammunition, and many men, at least in expectation, to be sent him at a call.

About the beginning of December following the King (having (as he conceived) made sure worke with the Scots) comes to London, where at his first comming to the House, he makes open profession, what content he had given to his Scotch Parliament, even to a kind of ostentation, and as to this Parliament some dislikes he was pleased to take against them for that in his absence they had no better forwarded their worke; and as to his reception in the City it was magnificent, and as it seemed very well pleasing to himselfe, sure it was to the people and all the spectators, which suspected nothing of his ill meaning towards the Parliament.

The King by this time having been at home much about 20 dayes had a new and another kind of game to play than that of meriment, he found that the Parliament was then much distracted (as good reason they had) with the apprehension of the Irish insurrection, and that horrible slaughter there committed on the poor English Protestants, and that they stood not a little in jelousie and affrighted at their assiduall intell igence received from beyond sea of the Kings preparations, and that his heart was not right towards them; but of this he had determined to put them soon out of doubt, and the more to confuse them, conceiving that the Citizens would on all occasions be wholly for him, having in his approach to the City in his returne from Scotland, and his entry into the Suburbs, and throughout all the City, courteously saluted the people by the often puting off his Hat (as before is intimated) a favour which till then neither himselfe or his Father before him had never bestowed upon the vulgar (when (as it after appeared) his designe was to make use of them, having in readinesse, and shortly after fild whitehall with the forlorn Officers of his Casheered Army, he takes an occasion under pretence of suspicion of Treason to send for Sir Arthur Hasterigge, Mr' Hollis, Mr. Pym, Mr. Stroude, and Mr. Hamden, of the Commons House, and my Lord Kimboulion of the Lords House, by one of his Serjeants at Arms, which being denyed him by the House (as a plain breach of their privileges.)

The very next day being the fourth of January, he comes attended with his guards, and those armed Cavaleers, and entred into the House of Commons, sits downe in the Speakers Chaire, and demands the foresaid six Members, which, upon private intelligence given them of the Kings intent, had absented themselves; the King missing his prey grew exceedingly into choller, and vow'd that he would have them wheresoever they were; his own comportment and the demeanour of the Cavallers, both in desperate words and big looks was so terrible to the Parliament that they forsook the House and sate in the City, sending out a Declaration of the high breach of their Privileges, together with a Petition to his Majesty that he would be pleased to grant them a guard for the security of their persons and sitting, which true it is it, was granted them, but with such a person for the command, as that they durst not accept of him, but were compelled to remaine for their safety a longer space in the City, untill the Lord Major and the Citizens readily assisted them, and for their better security brought them in Coaches strongly guarded to Westminster, whither also resorted a considerable party dayly passing along by Whitehall Gates to their rescue in case the Cavaleers should have againe disturbed their consultations, on this party the Cavaleers falls a beating them whereof some they kill'd, even at the Court gate, untill a greater number came to their assistance. The King finding himself then deceived in his expectation, and that the people were generally devoted to the Parliament, he makes severall visits into the City, where in a publike audience be partly complains of the affronts done to him by the Parliament in their detaining the six Members, and partly excusing his unadvisednesse in his entring the house in that manner as he did (which is evident by his own Declaration) but finding at last, that his hopes failed him to have any assistance out of the City against the Parliament, he stood some time in doubt what course to take, but in the end resolves under the specious pretexts of his Insafety by reason of the Tumults, (as since himself stiles them) not to stay at Whitehall any longer; thereupon he departs from his own Court and the Parliament, as more fully hereafter I shall take occasion to remember. Hitherto I have presented you with nothing but that which is obvious, and long since knowne to all the Kingdome, having as briefly as I could, deduced the story, from the third of November 1640. which was the very day that the Parliament sate down, to January 1641, neer about the latter end whereof the King removed from Whitehall to Hampton-Court, Windsor, and Theobalds, accompanyed with his wonted guard of Ruffians; the Parliament continuing still to petition him for his returne, and concurrence with them; but no perswasions or arguments would prevail, but on he goes Northward, and makes his residence at York, whither he draws by degrees many of the Lords and Commons from the Parliament, most of the Delinquent party resorting unto him, together with my Lord Digby from beyond sea, though with his own approbation long before proclaimed Traytor; thither also (notwithstanding the severall affronts done to the Parliaments Messages and Messengers) they ceased not to importune his return; but nothing could move him against his will and inclinations, for now he had another game to play, having hitherto failed in all his practises, and (as he conceived) his designes then grown to maturity, his next plot was to seize on the Town of Hull, by the Earle of Newcastle, where a very great Magazine of Arms and Ammunition had been deposited the Summer before, which the King had also refused to return to the Tower; and the Towne of Newcastle by Colonell Legge was likewise to be seized on, both maritime towns and of great importance for the letting in of all strangers to his assistance; whereof the Parliament having certain intelligence, and by all the Kings former courses being more fully assured from abroad apprehending the dangerous consequence therof thought then it more than high time in what possibly they could, (for the safety of themselves and the Kingdom) to prevent the mischiefs, which they then evidently perceived threatned the universall Nation, and thereupon they suddenly dispatched the two Hothams with Commission to pre-possesse the Town by the Trained Bands of those parts: here you may see the first armes that ever the Parliament appeared in, unlesse you shall urge the guards which the City sent them for securing their persons from the fury of the Cavaliers, which admit, it was onelyonly defensive, to preserve themselves and the Kingdome, in what possibly they might, and in prevention of future storms, which they inevitably saw were sure to fall upon them from abroad; and had they not gone farther, in seizing on the Navy, the Tower, Forts, Castles, and Ammunition, together with the Crown Revenues, which are the Nerves and strengths of the Kingdome, which had they neglected, no man can make doubt but they would have been perverted from their proper use, and turned against the Kingdom; surely then when they perceived that nothing would worke upon the Kings obstinacy, but that he was resolved to make Warre, and to embroyle the whole Kingdom, and let in strangers, they would have been deemed unworthy of the places they held in the behalf of their Countreys, had they not done as they did. But as to the Kings part, please you to look over all the progresse of his designes, and take them once more into your second consideration, and you cannot in any reason beleeve, but that from the very first commitment of the Earl of Strafford to the lower, whose escape he had privatly plotted, and to send him into Ireland, (as in part is before noted) but that he intended to force the Parliament to his will, or utterly to annihillate it, especially when he found that the Earl was condemned, and his execution prest (as a publick example) to dye, after which its most certain he meditated nothing more than war, and to be revenged on the Parliament as it evidently appears by his sending over the Queen into Holland to buy arms, Cockram into Denmarke, and Digby in the same errand, as also by his practising of the Army in the North to fall upon the Parliament, together with the flight of Percy, Jermin, and Suckling, as the onelyonly persons first engaged in that Plot, which durst not stand to the Test, and in order to these, his peremptory denyall to disband the Irish Army, and his private addresses to other forreign Princes and States to supply him with men, money, and arms, all which his practises were visibly known to the Kingdom, to have been in agitation some of them before the Earle of Straffords execution, other shortly thereupon, which evidently shews, that he was resolved at any rate, and by force of arms to suppresse the Parliament. In the universal disturbance of the whole Kingdome, you may further observe, how in pursuance of his mischievous designes, notwithstanding the dislike the Parliament had of his determination to goe into Scotland, and their humble motions to him to lay that journey aside, or at least for some time to retard it, as before is laid down, yet would he needs goe, and the reasons thereof are perspicuous, considered as he made choise of his time to overtake the Scotch Army before they came to the borders, and to attempt to corrupt the Commanders to turn to him, and if that failed, yet to give his Scotch Parliament all the content they would desire; take the design farther; What worke was made there concerning the Irish Rebellion? what after his return home he made here, in his assaulting the House in a warlike posture, and his accusing the six Members (as the most noted Common-wealths-men) in terrour to the rest, upon no other ground but on a vaine surmise of his own making, of suspition of Treason, where the proof is so plain by the first shedding of bloud at his own dores, and the hostile manner of his entring the House attended with 300 armed men, and most of them of desperate and forlorn Fortunes, that the very bare deniall that the King made not the first Ware doth surpasse even impudence it self: I am not ignorant that the Kings many protestations, and not a few of them fortified with imprecations, hath taken a firme footing in the belief of many half-witted men, that his Cause was much better than it was, but the wiser sort make their judgements of men by their actions, not by their professions, and they believe by the testimony of their sences, what they see and feele they are bound to believe, especially when a King in his private inditements which are the dictates of the Soule, & those addrest to a person which had gained an absolute power over the faculties of his reason and understanding, such unbeleevers are not fit for humane society. But omitting repetitions and further Comments, wee have left the King at Yorke, where for your better satisfaction it is fit that I put you in remembrance how there hee pursued the War, in raising the people, and inviting the Counties both farre and near to rise and side with him against the Parliament, which in the Observations I shall send you will be made more manifest. But that it may more fully appear upon what further grounds the King forsooke his owne house and the Parliament besides the pretended fear of Tumults (of his own causing) it was suggested unto him, and he was made to believe, That without his presence and concurrence with the Parliament they could not, neither durst they vote or act any thing, though never so relative to the safety of themselves and the Kingdome, so that its apparent, that either by fraud or force he was resolved to put an end to this Parliament, and for farther proof of this I refer you to the Observations.

Now as to the main of your accusations, the taking away of the Kings life, and dis-inheriting of his Posterity, I crave leave to defer this point to the last, and to the conclusion of my animadversions, where hapyily you will find the true reasons thereof; and shall now proceed to the Change of the Government which you charge on the Parliament to be so long since plotted, and as a power usurped and exercised by them in a dispotical way way of Tyranny, in raising of money, imposing of taxes, and intollerable contributions on the whole Nation; to take them apart I shall begin with the change of the Government as it is now established in the nature of a Republick, which you know to be gotten by the Sword, and likely so it is to hold, by the same weapon as the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans got their Dominions here by Conquest, and as the late King on that mere foundation intended to make his power absolute and A la Francoys, in the needlesse endeavour wherof, and to be more than stood with the constitution of the English Soveraignty, you know how he lost all, together with his life; if your conscience cannot brook the present government as now it is established, I see no other remedy left you, but to quit the place you now live in (and quietly if you would) it suffiseth my Conscience that I live under it, in the enjoyment of somewhat wherewith to subsist, which I am sure was more than my self and many thousands more could do, when and weresoever the late Kings armies were prevalent; as to the Taxes and Contributions, whereat you so much repine as insufferable, and most illegally imposed on the people, all that I shall say to it is that we which suffer them, may all of us thank your party for it, as inforced on the States by your only means, for the defence of the common freedome of the Nation, which as in the beginning of the late Warres, your party under the royall Commissions invaded, so you continually indeavour to subvert them, by all the secret plots and practices you possibly can invent, whereas could that malicious tumor of yours, and that unquietnesse of your spirits by allayed, and your selves perswaded by reason, before it invades you, the taxes you may be sure on't, would soon be abated, why then can you not rest content with that change and government, which, were you not hood-winkt, you might manifestly see Gods high and over-ruling providence to have carried on the worke both in a series of the many and miraculous victories of the Parliaments, as also in disappointing all the late Kings designs, and in discovering all your plots and practises, even from the very beginning of the warre to the present, which although they weigh not with you, as men bewitched, and as I may say, besotted with an incapacity or hardnesse of heart not to be convinced by any force of reason, or arguments, though providence it selfe visibly shews it out unto you, that not only Gods special hand is in this great change of affairs, but that he hath yet some greater worke depending on this, which in his own good time he will bring to passe, in throwing down that proud papall Monarchy, and utterly to confound that man of sin who sits in the temple exaulting himselfe above God.

Sir, Here may you be pleased to take in your more serious consideration by whom Kings reigne, and cease to reigne, and soberly to observe for what sins almighty God usually striks down the prowd Septers of Kings, and binds their Nobles in chains of Iron, and you may without presumption say, and find it most true, throughout all the sacred Scriptures, that where Idolatry, Injustice, Oppression, and Bloodshed have had predominance, there Gods wrath hath inseparably attended the Authors, and favorers, and most severely punished those sins above all others, and what in these sins have been either permitted, acted, or connived at by the late King (howsoever faced out and denyed by himselfe) and most of your party, and his cause shamefully defended, yet I suppose you cannot but acknowledge that they have not only been winked at, but backt and authorised cnm privilegio. And here give me leave to tell you, that I have stood amazed at the impudence of your royal bookmen, I shall only instance (amongst ma ny) in a sew, as Judge Jenkins his Lex Terrae, and other of his jugling fragments, the Regall Apologie, the Reliquiae Sacrae Carolinae; but especially in that grand imposture of the Kings Pourtracture; in all which, that they should give the plain lye to truth, conceale and smother the true intent of the lawes of the Land, and contradict the Kings own Letters and expresses written with his own hand, augments the admiration, and much the more that they should with such acerbity exclaime against the ripping up of the faults of the dead, when they themselves give the occasion, in their frequent invective Pamphlets against the Parliament, and in their justifications of a Prince, whose inclinations lead him to the fulfilling of his own will, though to the apparent losse of his Crowne, and his dearest friends, so violently were his inclinations driven on to the accomplishing of his designs, when as neither the junctoes of France, Spaine, Denmarke, the States of Holland, or scarce any Prince Christian, (though most of them of his nearest allyes, and solicited by all the artifices that man could invent) would owne owne him when they understood the wayes and enterprises he most wilfully undertook, and all of them (upon due examination) as unnecessarily undertaken, and needlesly pursued with as much violence and craft, as if they had some necessary dependence on his own salvation, and the safety of his people, when as God knowes, they were most destructive, the mishapen, and illegitimat births of his own willful inclinations.

Now it would not be much impertinent to the subject you have sent me, if I should tell you that I find not any one Nation in the world that hath had any great reason to be overmuch inamored with their Kings, sure I am neither of us both (how different soever in our principles) have had any great cause given us to dote on our last, considered, as he raigned in blood and oppression, and handled the matter both with his friends and foes whether forraigne or domestick; witnesse those needlesse Warres he ingaged himselfe against Spayn and France in the entrance of his reigne, afterwards with the Scots, but espetially with this Parliament and the subjects of three Kingdoms, not only to the beggering of them, but the ruine of himselfe and his posterity; and yet is this most willfull and bloudy Prince the only King which your party have so much admired, defended and believed living, and dead, adored and esteemed for a Saint and a Martyr.

Sir, You are a Gentleman well verst in History, I shall therefore take the boldnesse to advise you, to take the right demensions of all the Kings you have read of, either in the sacred scriptures or prophane, observe well all their actings, and I dare be bold to say that you shall very rarely find any of them which have strictly tyed themselves to the duty of their office or to have executed their powers otherwise than to the extream detriment of their Subjects, take them wheresoever they have been admitted either by the suffrage of the people (as that hath been the best means to keep them within the bounds of moderation) or permitted by the absurdity of succession, whether wisemen or fools, whether Children or of mature years or assuming their Soveraignties by the power of their Swords, and doubtlesse you shall find few of them which have been over-mindfull of the good and welfare of their people, neither to have had any due retrospect to the right ends of Government, and that salus populi the safety and good of their Subjects, for which all Kings had their powers originally ordained and given them from God, never for their own private interests, which most of the Kings of the World have evermore studied to advance, and generally per fas et nefas right or wrong, indeavoured to inforce, as in this point we have all of us had a late and a lamentable experience; where take this in the way, that, without all dispute, all Kingly power, and that despoticall domination of that great hunter Nimrod, which was first by him usurped by force, and from him as the first pattern of Royalty, dispersed throughout most parts of the World, yet we find not in all the Scriptures any vestigia or authentick proof, that the succeeding Kings of the Nations, came to their powers by any immediate institution from God, but only permissive, though it is most true, that when such powers were in being, and how usurpatiously soever obtained, yet submission hath been by God himself enjoyned to those which lived under them, untill for their injustice and extreme Tyranny God in his justice determined to transferre their powers to others, as you may transparently see he hath done in our late change; since then other powers than Kingly are now with us in being, you and I both, which live under them, are bound in conscience to submit and obey them, for all *Rom. ….powers are of God. And let me remember you, for its worth your observation, that the Israelites for a long time had no Kingly Government, but in Egypt, in the Wildernesse, and after in the Land of Canaan, for many hundred years together were no other than Ambulans Respublica, a walking Common-wealth, and onelyonly governed by Judges and the Princes of their respective Tribes, never by the absolute power of any one man, Moses himself having his assistants, even the Princes of the People, untill through their own wantonnesse and contempt of that Government which God had set over them, and in his providence and love towards them, knew to be fittest for them, they obstinately rejected the gentle government of *1 Sam. 8. 3, 4, 5.Samuel, and weary of their own happinesse (surfeiting as they did in the Wildernesse on that delicious food of Quails and Manna, and wishing for the flesh-pots of Egypt) in imitation of the Heathen, they thirsted after a King, and not unlike to Esops Frogs, they prest Samuel to change their quiet and peaceable Block into a furious and devouring Stork, their freedom into slavery, as first with these Arguments, That thy sonnes walke not in thy wayes, but have turn'd aside after lucre, took bribes, and perverted judgement, (foul faults indeed and happily too true) for wheresoever power (without grace) is invested, faults there will be, and many times foul ones too; But this was not all that they resented, it was their ambition and desire of novelty in a vain-glorious affectation that swayed with them to be like their Neighbour Nations, and to have an illustrious and pompous domination over them; but how this pleased God that Chapter with others shews us in a very sad dialect; for, God in his wrath gave them a King according to their desires; yet he commands Samuel to shew them what would be the manner of a King, and what Tyrannies he would exercise over them; howsoever their hearts being set on a Kingly Goverment (a glorious thing indeed in the outward shew and splendor thereof) have a King they would without more dispute, alleging other Arguments to Samuel, viz. That he may judge over us, go out before us, and fight our battels; But how most of their Kings executed judgement, and what needlesse battles they fought for them, and how much bloud of theirs was in many of their Kings reignes willfully and profusely spilt by most of the Kings of Judah and Israel, as also what taxes and tributes were unnecessarily imposed on them, their own Chronicles will best inform you, and all this Kingly work, what doth it amount unto, more than to fullfill the will and pleasure, and to maintain the pompe and splendor of one man and his whole family, in the open and privileged oppression of a whole Nation?

Now if the History of the Kings of Iudah and Israel be not sufficient to inform your judgement of the oppressions and Tyrannies exercised by most of their Kings as a just judgement of God on the whole Nation, (for I may of truth aver, that they were a stubborn generation, and God answerable to their own hearts desires gave them their belly full of Kings when it was too late for their repentance) then you may pick and chuse amongst all the Kings of the World, and you shall find the best of them little better than Tyrants (yea David himself a a man of blood, and most perfideous in the case of honest Vriah) and as the greater Fish in the Sea which eats up the lesser, so Kings on the Land are commonly no more than Canniballs, man-eaters, and as a good Author describes them to be ex genere bestiarum rapacium, a sort of ravenous beasts (an undenyable truth) especially where absolute Soveraignty is usurped by any one man, and that derived in a succession, which is the evill of all evils, and the very same which your malignant party so vehemently drives at, to introduce on the English Nation, and to inslave a free borne people, when your self being a rationall man, very well knows that no man ab origine was born a slave, but either by his own consent, or by the ambition and pleasure of Tyrants was made so; for who koows not that all men are of the self-same mold as Kings; neither were Kings ever ordaind of God to govern their people, otherwise than for their *Rom. 13▪ 4.good, never to be opprest and trampled on at theit own wills and lustfull pleasures: But happily you may here charge me to intrench, and presse with the most on the Honour and Power of Kings, I answer, I honour them as Gods own Ordinance amongst other Powers, and am commanded by the Apostle to make prayers and supplications for them all, especially for Kings, (and great reason we all have so to do, lest they devoure us alive) but if they presume to break over those limits and boundaries which Almighty God hath set unto them, (as of those, and what they are you may best instruct your felfe out of *Deut. 17 19. Ezek. 45. 9 46. 18. …Deutronomy and *Deut. 17 19. Ezek. 45. 9 46. 18.…Ezekiel, where you shall finde the King to be tyed up to strict rules, as to read the law, and to observe it all the dayes of his life, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren; and as the Prophet tels them, take away your exactions from my people, remove violence and spoyl, and execute judgement and justice, &c.) VponUpon these considerations I hope you will not blame me, though I have not made one amongst so many which have sided with our late King in raising of war against his people and their Representative, neither in plundring and desolating the Kingdom, which howsoever those exorbitances (amongst other of his faults) have been palliated with as much finenesse of wit, as the art of man could possibly devise yet I beseech you let truth appear, which with a little of your patience you may more fully understand, and then happily you will adjudge him guilty of much more than hath beene yet vulgarly charged on his accompt; in the mean time remember our blessed Saviours oracle, That it is fit offences should be, but woe to those which occasion them: Excuse me then, though I tell you, that I know none more guilty of the occasion of all our barbarous and brutish wars, bloodshed, rapine, and of the imminent danger and utter desolation, which at present threatens and hangs over three late flourishing Kingdoms, than he who ended his vexatious dayes at his own gates, and she which had the Honour of his bed, together with her which was the mother, and of all the mischiefs which befell all the places wheresoever she made her abode. But happily you may again reply, that I speak as a loser, and true, and so may you and one hundred thousand more of poore innocent sufferers speake in the same sad dialect, as having felt the fearfull effects of the perversity of one mans will, who in the power of a moderate SOVERAIGNTY and the love of his people, by whom, and by this very Parliament (so hatefull unto him) never any King of England was more honoured, beloved, obeyed, and more courted; and when time was might have been what a just Prince would have desited; and should I aske you what might he not have been had he either at first, and long after this Parliament late downe, yea and long after the Warre began complyed with them (as great reason there was he should have done) and not to have protected Delinquents, neither to have sided with such as most treacherously deserted their trust, but to have relyed (as at first he promised) on his faithfull Councell the Parliament, I presume you will acknowledg it for a manifast truth, that none of his progenitors, were, or could have been greater it honour, power, wealth, and in reputation at home and abroad; but the truth was, so powerfull a domination his inclinations had over any other reason than his owne, that the wayes of the Parliament (though never so relative to his owne honour, justice, profit, and welfare of the Kingdom) were so averse and contrary to his genius, then rather to be controuled, or suffer any reformation to have been accomplished by them, either in the Church or State, and his disordered government to be regulgted by their advice, he would and did run the hazard of his owne ruine, his Posterity and people. And as allready I have shewed you, tis a manifest truth that he tacitely had designed, many years before this Parliament sate downe, not only to quit himselfe of this Parliament, but of all others, and as power should enable him, to invade the freedoms and liberties of the English Nation; howsoever in these particulars (amongst many other of his faults) it is far otherwise attested in divers of his expresses, as also protested in his late book (be it his own or not) the evidence of his own private letters, and the observations on them will clear that doubt; Where then, I beseech you tell me, should the subject have had any propriety, which by time and degrees would not have been swallowed up in that vast gulf of a prerogative royall, where into, not one year before the Parliament sate down, all that the subject had was in a faire way of ingulfing? neither wonder at this, for it is an infallible truth, that most Kings affect their own ends, and injustice, oppression, and commonly tyranny are faculties inherent to most of them, very seldome to look back to the proper ends for which they are ordained of God to advance the good and welfare of their subjects, but generally you shall find them only to seek the improvement of their own powers, & soveraignties, yea often times without any sensibility that their people are composed of the same flesh and blood as themselves, to make havoke of their lives and fortunes, sometimes to maintaine their power, pride, prodigallity, and luxury, and that which is worse, if worse may be, to fullfill their perverse wills and lustfull pleasures in the beggering and slaughtering of millions of their subjects, for proof whereof, we need not go farre for examples, the indeavours of our own Kings to inslave their subjects, yeelds us plenty of presidents, and the French to this day feel the yoke of slavery impos'd on them by Lews th' eleventh in taking away their Conventio de le Estates, and reducing that Government to be at his own disposement; neither was Ferdinando of Spaine quiet in minde, untill he had quit himself of the Justice of Arragon, a Court not unlike the Ephori amonst the Lacedemonians, or our Parliaments in England and Scotland, which limited their Kings, and kept them within the bounds of moderation; the Hollanders also have had lamentable experience of the Ambition of Philip the second, who on the massacre of 100000 of the Natives endeavoured to take away their ancient Immunities, and to invassalate the whole 17 Provinces under his absolute power; a strange passion in princes, when no power will content them, but that of absolutenesse, to be masters over their Subjects lives and Fortunes; surely if there be any anallogy between Shepherds and Kings (as no doubt there is) our blessed Saviour tells us, that bonus pastor ponit vitam pro ovibus, the good Shepherd, or King layes down his life for his people, and not to expose theirs to fullfill his own lustfull pleasure; a sad and lamentable president whereof, we have all felt in our late King Charls.

But to proceed, I would fain know, what your aims are, that moves you with such impetuonsnesse to revile the present Government, since I cannot imagine what other cause you have, but in your endeavour to bring in the new Crown'd King of Scots on the old score, thereby to re-make your selves in the unmaking and invassalating the rest of the English Nation, which duely considered as the posture of affairs with us now are, is so senselesse (in reference to the bettring of the peoples conditions) as that it exceedeth all the Chimaera's of the old Romances, and which you cannot expect may possibly be accomplished without the effusion of an infinity of more bloud, and by the swords of the Scots and barbarous Irish (excellent cohabitants for the English (if you think on't) when as you know they are generally hated by both those Nations, though probable it is, that your imaginations prompt you to beleeve, that all of your party shall assuredly rise with them, though in the undoubted fall of the rest of the Nation; and not unlikely you flatter your selves (out of the old remote potential hope) with the plunder of London, as the onelyonly magazine of wealth, that will make you all abundantly rich, though in this too you may misse of your aims, unlesse at an instant you can change your native dialect, and speak Scoth Presbytery and Irish Tanestry in a trice, neither ought you to beleeve that the Citizens will stand still whilst you cut their throates: But what a strange peece of poverty possesses your intellectualls, to beleeve that in such a change and turne of Fortune (as all of you so much desire) an English man (howsoever principled) shall long enjoy either life, liberty or estate, otherwise than at the discretion of the Conquerour; and when the King, either or both those Nations and other forrainers shall come in upon us and Lord it over us, in a far higher strain of Tyranny than ever the Danes exercised in that short time they were here masters over our Ancestors; If you foresee not this misery, and the fatall consequence which necessarily must follow such a turn of Fortune, I must leave you to your own will and expectancy, yet must I not forbear upon these considerations to commend unto your more serious thoughts, what kind and race of Princes wch with such zeale you endeavour to bring in to govern over the English Nation, where I shall present you with a very formidable observation, as you may find it in the History of the Scotish Kings, and it is this, that seven, if not eight of the last Scotish Princes of the name and family of the Stuarts (one onelyonly excepted) came all to their ends by violent deaths (a fearfull fate if you please to observe it) and some of them to make away one another; as for instance, Iames the first who for his Tyrannny was cut off by the Nobility, the second was slain at Roxborough, the third at Bonoxborn, the fourth at Plowden field, the last three in as needlesse quarrells as our late King Charts engaged first against his native Subjects the Scots, and on the heels of that War against the English and their Representative, onelyonly Iames the fifth had the fortune to dye of a naturall death, but as to his onelyonly Daughter Queen Mary and mother … King Iames the sixt, it is manifestly knowne that she caused Henry Lord Darnley her second Husband to be cruelly murthered, and only to make way to her third Marriage with Earl Bothwell her Paramour, whom the States banished, and shortly after call'd her to accompt for her Husbands murther, and for that fact and other conspiracies against the State, by the Votes of the major part of the Peeres and Commons in Parliament she was adjudged to die, whereupon she fled into England, where contriving sundry plots with the Papists and the Duke of Norfolke against Queen Elizabeth, and restlesse in her ambitious contrivements to dispossesse the Queen Regnant of the Crowne, you know to what end she came at Fodringay, where we may safely believe that Gods just judgments overtook her, when she little dream't to have dyed at the block; what since became of her only Sonne King Iames, and his two sonnes Prince Henry and our last King Charls? though the manner of the two first deathes are still held in dispute, yet we all know to what a fatall end the last came, even at his own Gates, and in the same place where the first blood was spilt by his own servants the Cavaleers; pardon me then, If I present you with an opinion of my own, which I am confident is an infallible verity, that allmighty God in his justice suffers not any man to come to a prodigious end but for such sinnes by him committed, as are equivalent to that sin for which he suffered; it is Gods own Oracle, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and he that kils by the Sword by the same weapon or the like he shal surely dye; for a conclusion, take this as a knowne truth to all the Nation, that both the late Kings, as they were naturall Scots, very rarely loved an English man, sure we are, not the Nation in generall, and that very seldome either of them admitted any of the English into their Bed-chambers, (for generally they were all Scots) neither took they any of the English (Buckingham excepted) into their secrets, and as their privadoes, untill Strafford was taken into our last Kings favour, but no otherwise than as a meer States-man and a bold instrument to act any thing conducible his Masters designs, and such projects which were suitable to his endeavours and inclinations, otherwise I never knew any that were fit servants for him; and it is most certaine, that both the Father and the Sonne laid more subtill and cunning snares to insnare the English Nation, than all of the Norman race before them; the Father to have laid the foundation, and the Sonne to build up the whole fabrick of absolute Soveraignty, as insensibly at first, and from the beginning of their reigns, as possibly their designs could permit, but King Charls towards his last, and long before the Warres began, openly, and shortly thereupon in hostility, and with morter tempered with more English blood than ever hath been so wilfully and profusely spilt by any one Tyrant in the World; and for what cause, and on what grounds (I beseech you tell me) more than for the Nug… and idle fictions of a divine prerogative, and to rule alone without other Law than his owne Will, and without accompt to any but to God alone? they are both the Fathers and the Sonnes owne Maxims, just Tyrant-like, quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem, and yet, which is the mystery and the wonder of the times, is this wilfull King cryed up, by his many partizans, for the onelyonly paragon of Princes, and that which is of more admiration, his Protestations in the common belief preferred and credited before his visible actions, and Cabinet Letters, which if men were not besotted, I am sure best of all other evidences, layes open the most hidden secrets of the heart: But it is most certaine, that before, and a long space after the battle at Edgehill, he refused all overtures of Peace, though tis confest he made many motions for Peace to the Parliament, but ever no other than on such disadvantagious terms as were utterly unfit for the Parliaments embrasure, and the Kingdomrs security, for we find them evermore accompanied with such restrictions, reservations, and ambignous conditions (howsoever gilded over with plausible pretences) that the Parliament at length durst not either trust him, or any of his specious Declarations, as in the observations on the Reliquiae Carolinae are manifested, for it is most true, that as soon as he had attracted a very considerable Army to his assistance, by his artifices, and the severall visits and the orations he made to the respective Sheriffes and Gentry (before and after the setting up of his Standerd) of the Counties of Yorke, Lincolne, Nottingham, Leicester, Chester, Stafford, Denby, Flint, Salop, Oxford, and Berks, wherein he neither spared any pains or travel, or lost a minute of time, both to deceive and win the people to his cause; and 'tis evident, that he had not onelyonly written his particular Letters to most of the prime Gentlemen of the Kingdome to side with him, but had sent his peremptory commands to most of the Colonells of the Parliaments Army sent into Ireland for the assistance of the distressed Protestants, to repair to his ayde against the Parliament, a treachery and a testimony beyond all others of the falsenesse of his heart, considered (as hereafter it shall be made more apparent unto you) with the seeming zeal and care he pretended to bear to those poor Irish Protestants. It is worth your further observation, that this most unfortunate Prince, having so often accustomed himselfe to fraud and dissimulation, that it came at last to this sad issue, that all his after Messages and Overtures made to the Parliament (in the declination of his power, and after he was a Prisoner) though happily more really intended than formerly, and atested with exceeding specious & plausible Protestations, & some of them confirmed with his wonted Imprecations, were not beleeved, but suspected for fallacious; so long had this most unhappy King (like the Flie that playes with the flame, which comes in the end to burn himself out of his own fury) such power had his will and naturall inclinations over his reason; where you may take an instance or two in the way for a proofe thereof. When he first raised his Army at York, for which he endeavours to flam off the Parliament, that those forces were onelyonly raised as a guard for the security of his Person, and to confirme this, he caused divers of the Fugitive Lords then attending him, shamefully to attest, that he had no intent thereby to levy War against the Parliament, when immediately thereupon he began to march, and to run from place to place as before is noted, to raise more force, and that which is most perfidious, after he had erected his Standard at Nottingham he continued the same straine, utterly denying and protesting that he had not then any manner of intent thereby to wage war with his Parliament, as hereafter you shall more plainly see, a strange delusion to flatter himself, in dancing unseen in a net, and that that he should not onelyonly be able to deceive the People by his Protestations, but to delude and cosen a Court of Parliament out of their understanding, as you may see this verified in his owne Expresses sent to the Parliament from Nottingham; and what a strange trick would he have put on the Parliament, when from Yorke he sent them a Message, that he had taken a resolution to go in person into Ireland to chastise those Rebels, and to that purpose had determined to raise 2000 Foot, and 200 Horse in and about the County of Chester for a guard to his person, and to flatter himself with such a senseless device to delude the Parliament, as if they understood him no better, than to beleeve his designe to be reall, when they perceived his drift was, First to raise here a considerable force, & then to joyn with the Irish Army there, and in the end to turn all his power on the Parliament. It would be too wearisome to me to recount all the perfidious practices of this most unhappy Prince, and too tedious to your selfe to read them, I shall therefore for the present conclude and referre you to the animadversions and observations on the contrarity between his publick protestations, and private Letters, which you shall God willing receive very shortly, and wherein I doubt not but that you will find so much fraud, deceit and dissimulation of this King, as will amaze you, and turn the strong tyde of your belief, (hitherto poysoned with flams and such subterfuges) as may shame any rationall man to be so long cosened and deluded by them. No more Sir at present but that I desire and wish you to beleeve no otherwise of that which I have sent you than in your judgement you shall find suitable to truth, and that as you shall see just cause, to esteeme me, (as I am) your well wishing friend.