ry of being a good King, that you will leave your felfe never a good Subject? Have you peace of Conscience, in inforcing many of your Subjects to fight for you against their Confcience? Are you provided with Answers at the great Tribunall, for the destruction of fo many thoufands, whereof every man was as good a man as your Selfe, qua man? Is it not a moft unworthy part for you to bee running away from your Subjects in a day of battell, upon whofe Pikes you may come safe with your naked breast and welcome? Is it honourable for you to bee flying on horfes, from those that would esteeme it their greatest honour, to beare you on their humble fhoulders to your Chaire of Estate, and set you down upon a Cushion stuffed with their hearts? Is it your prudence to be inraged with your best friends, for adventuring their lives to rescue you from your worst enemies? Were I a King, pardon the fupposall, I would hang that Subject by the head, that would not take me by the heels, and dragge mee to my Court, when hee fees me shifting for life in the ruined Countrey, if nothing else would doe it; And I would honour their very heels, that would take me by the very head, and teach me, by all just meanes, to King it better, when they faw me un-Kinging my felfe, and Kingdome: Doe you not know Sir, that, as when your people are ficke of the Kings-evill, God hath given you a gift to heale them? fo when your felfe are ficke of it, God hath given the Parliament a gift to heale you: Hath your Subjects love been fo great to you, that you will spend it all, and leave your children little or none? Are Are you fo exasperated against wife wife Scotland, that you will make England your foole or foot-ftoole? Is your fathers fonne growne more Orthodox, then his moft Orthodox father, when he told his fonne, that a King was for a kingdome, and not a kingdome for a King? parallell to that of the Apostle; the husband is but by the wife, but the wife of the husband. Is Majestas Imperij growne fo kickish, that it cannot stand quiet with Salus Populi, unlesse it be fettered? Are you well advised, in trampling your Subjects fo under your feet, that they can finde no place to be fafe in, but over your head: Are you so inexorably offended with your Parliament, for suffering you to returne as you did, when you came into their houfe as you did, that you will be avenged on all whom they reprefent? Will Will you follow your very worft Councell fo far, as to provoke your very best, to take better counsell than ever they did? If your Majesty be not Popish as you profeffe, and I am very willing to beleeve, why doe you put the Parliament to refume the facrament of the Alter in faying, the King and Parliament, the King and Parliament ? breaking your simple Subjects braines to understand fuch mysticall Parlee-ment? I queftion much, whether they were not better speake plainer English, then fuch Latine as the Angels can hardly conftrue, and God happily loves not to perfe; I can as well admit an ubiquitary King as another, if a King be abroad in any good affaire; but if a King be at home, and will circumfcribe himselfe at Oxford, and profcribe or difscribe his Parliament at Westminster, if that Parliament will prescribe what they ought, without fuch para doxing, doxing, I fhould think God would subscribe a Le Dieu le veult readily enough. Is your Advifera fuch a Suavamen to you, that hath been fuch a Gravamen to Religion and Peace? Shall the cheife bearing wombe of your Kingdome, be ever so constituted, that it cannot be delivered of its owne deliverance, in what pangs foever it be, without the will of one man-midwife, and such a man as will come and not come, but as he lift: nor bring a Parliament to bed of a well-begotten Liberty without an entire Subfidy? Doe not your Majefty being a Schollar, know that it was a truth long before it was fpoken, that Mundus eft unus aut nullus, that there is Principium purum unum, which unites the world and all that is in it; where that is broken, things fall afunder, that whatsoever is duable or triable, is fryable. Is the Militia of your Kingdome, fuch an orient flower of your Crowne, which all good Herbalists judge but a meere nettle, while it is in any one mans hand living? May not you as well challenge the abfolute difpofall of all the wealth of the Kingdome as of all the ftrength of your Kingdome? Can you put any difference? unleffe it bee this, that mens hearts and bones are within their skins, more proper and intrinfecall, their lands and cattell more externall: dare you not concredit the Militia, with those to whom you may betruft your heart, better then your owne breast? Will they ever harme you with the Militia, that have no manner of Malitia against you, but for mif-imploying the Militia againft them by the malitia of your ill Counsellours? What good will the the Militia doe you when you have wafted the Realm of all the best Milites it hath? May not your Majesty fee through a paire of Spectacles, glazed with inchboard, that while you have your Advifera in one hand, and the Militia in the other, you have the necks of your Subjects under your feet, but not your heart in your owne hand? doe you not knowe that malum eft, poffe malum? Hath Epifcopacy beene fuch a religious Jewell in your State; that you will fell all or most of your Coronets, Caps of honour, and blue Garters, for fix and twenty cloth Caps? and your Barons Cloakes, for fo many Rockets, whereof ufually twenty have had fcarce good manners enough to keepe the other fix fweet? Is no Bishop no King, fuch an oraculous Truth, that you will pawne your Crowne and life upon it? if you will, God may make it true indeed on your part: Had you rather part with all, then lose a few fuperfluous tumours, to pare off your monftroufneffe? Will you be fo covetous, as to get more then you ought, by loofing more then you need? Have you not driven good Subjects enough abroad, but you wil alfo flaughter them that stay at home? Will you take such an ill course, that no prayers can fasten that good upon you we defier? Is there not fome worf root than all these growing in your Spirit, bringing forth al this bitter fruit? Againft which you should take up Arms, rather then against your harmeleffe Subjects? Doe you not foresee, into what importable head-tearings and heart-fearchings you will be ingulfed, when the Parliament fhall give you a mate, though but a Stale ? Methinkes it should breake your heart, to see such a one as I, presume fo much upon your clemency & too much upon your Majefty, which your felfe have fo eclipfed by the interpofall of your Selfe between your Selfe and your Selfe, that it hath not ray's enough left, to dazle downe the height of my affections to the awe of my Judgement. Tref-Royall Sir, I once againe befeech you, with teares dropping from my hoary head, to cover your Selfe as clofe as you may, with the beft fhield of goodneffe you have: I have fomewhat more to say, which may happily trouble not your Selfe, but your followers, more than what is already faid. There lived in your Realme and Reigne two whom I may well tearme Prophets, both now in a better Kingdome; whereof one foretold two things concerning your Majefty, of these very proceedings, long before they began; which being done and paft fhall bee buried in filence: the other made this prediction about the fame time. King Charles will joyne himselfe to bitter Griefe, Then joyne to God, and prove a Godly Chiefe. His words were in prose these, King Charles will come into fetters, meaning strong afflictions, and then prove as good a King, as fuch a good King of Ifrael, whom he then named, but I need not: he was as inwardly acquainted with the minde of God, as fervent and frequent a Beadfman for your welfare, and had as religious Opticks of State, as any man I know: foure other Predictions he made, full as improbable as this, whereof |