A panegyric TO THE KING'S Most Excellent Majesty.  
By CHARLES COTTON.  Mart. Epigr. 
jam Caesar, vel nocte veni: sint astra licebit,  
Non deerit populo, Te veniente, dies.  
LONDON, Printed by Tho. Newcomb, 1660.   

To the most High and Sacred Majesty OF Charles By the Grace of GOD, KING of GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE & IRELAND, Defender of the Faith, &c.  
Most Dread sovereign,  
IT has been an ancient and a laudable custom, and even in latter times not altogether out of use, to celebrate the Inaugurations, Triumphs and virtues of Princes, upon every happy Turn of State, memorable Success, or glorious Action; and that by way of panegyric, or laudatory Oration. Thus Isocrates to Philip, Mamertinus to Julian, Ausonius to Gratian, Nazarius to Constantine, and Pliny to Trajan. And it ought chiefly to continue, where the people's peace, liberty and safety become enfranchised and restored by so happy a revolution, as the Divine providence has now wrought in restoring Your Sacred Majesty to us, who have so long bowed and groaned under the yoke of Tyranny and Oppression. And although I Your majesty's most loyal Subject am far unfit for so great an undertaking, a work that requires the best and most assured Pen to the due celebration of the virtues and greatness of so Excellent and so mighty a Prince; yet it may not be the greatest wonder that the happy Influence of your Royal beams have wrought, that a man how much soever a stranger to all the ornaments, and even the method of Art, should nevertheless pour out his Joy at the sacred feet of so gracious and so indulgent a King and sovereign. Now then is a time to imitate so beautiful Examples, and after our hosannas and Hallelujahs to Almighty God for your many great and miraculous Deliverances, to give Your Majesty a most loyal and hearty Welcome to Your just, and so long unjustly usurped Inheritance, and to all that (by Your gracious Indulgence) we do or may call ours.  
It is not unknown to Your majesty's faithful Subjects, by what an unparalleled Rebellion, what vile confederacies, and what unexampled cruelty Your Royal Father (of blessed memory) was deposed from his undoubted and hereditary Empire; nor by what an irreligious power Your Majesty has since been so long opposed and kept from the Government of Your faithful and affectionate people: Nor with what admirable patience, and absolute resignation of yourself and affairs to the will of the most Mighty, You have embraced dangers, and sustained afflictions, that nothing but so heroic a Spirit could oppose, or suffer. And certainly, the great mercy, and mighty power of God was never more manifested in any human affair, then in the miraculous preservation and most happy restauration of your Royal Person to your Crowns and Kingdoms.  
It were an unseasonable, and perhaps an inofficious work, to repeat a story Your Majesty in Your own grace and goodness are willing to forget: It were otherwise not hard (chiefly to a mind not yet weaned from the sense of Your past sufferings) to trace You through the unhappy progress of Your misfortunes; and to let Your Majesty know, that although our hands were manacled from the service of Your cause, and our feet fettered from the pursuit of Your fortunes, yet our hearts went along, and were wounded with every impious stroke that was made to the danger of Your Sacred majesty's life, or to the prejudice of Your Royal Interest.  
Thus far (Sir) we dare speak ourselves honest, even when we lay gripped in a tyrant's talons, and panting under his weight; when upon every Parasites suggestion, or his own perpetual jealousy (his more frequent Intelligence) men's lives, which were his sport, only served to make way to their fortunes, which were his business. And although good and prudent Subjects ought to measure their happiness or affliction by the Rulers scale, yet since all men are not principled at that honest and knowing rate, it may not be impertinent to consider, that as Your own particular sufferings (if a Prince can be said to suffer alone) have made Your majesty's person most welcome to some, so I hope the common calamity they were involved in, and are now freed from, will endear it to all, even the most blind and violent, of Your most seduced, or most wilfully offending Enemies. Men now look back into their lives, and see so many deformities behind, that they run affrighted from themselves, and can find no refuge but in Your Princely arms, no safety but in Your mercy, nor no peace of mind till Your Royal word hath assured them of Your Love, without which Your Pardon would only reproach them of their unnatural guilt.  
But (Mighty Sir) we find You apt to forgive, and so sweetly inclined to mercy, that You prevent the offender, by obliterating the offence; so that the most obnoxious find themselves absolved before they ask; and become more ashamed of their misdemeanours, then afraid of their punishment. 
* Seneca de Clem. lib. 1  Verecundiam peccandi facit ipsa Clementia regentis; and Your Majesty has made so admirable an improvement of this excellent maxim, that methinks the Crimes could be no less, that could serve to manifest so Christian, and so heroic a virtue.  
By Your gracious Pardon to your people, this Nation that has been for some unhappy years, and that through the particular guilt of a few, a general scandal to all her Neighbours, shall now become reconciled to the other obedient parts of the world, and wipe off a blemish, that such as were strangers to the true English nature, unjustly laid upon the whole. 
* Plin. Pan. Tra.  Magnum quidem illud Seculo dedecus, magnum reipublicae vulnus impressum est; Imperator & parens generis humani obsessus, captus, inclusus, ablata mitissimo seni servandorum hominum potestas, ereptumque principi illud in principatu beatissimum, quod nihil cogitur. A reproach too fitly applied to the condition of this unfortunate Kingdom, and perhaps not unbeseeming this occasion; should we not, whilst we celebrate Your Mercy, seem to awake Your majesty's reposing Justice.  
Let us therefore now celebrate our country's Redemption, Joy and Dignity, and forget her old bondage, wounds, and afflictions. A Nation rescued from the barbarity and insolence of Straws and tilers, and restored to a flourishing Kingdom under the blessed Government of an heroic, and a lawful King. A King so gloriously eminent in his piety, magnanimity, fortitude, wisdom, and mercy. A King like Saul, in the stature of his virtues, more conspicuous than all the potent Princes of the earth, endowed with all the true real ornaments and graces, that may render a Monarch feared, and adored of his own people, or make him an illustrious and unimitable precedent to all the future Rulers of mankind. A Prince nourished and bred up in all the extremes of adverse Fortune, who by the great favour and assistance of a miraculous Providence, has victoriously run through all the threatning accidents of treacherous Designs, bloody Arms, deaf and tumultuous Seas, unnatural sickness, and what ever else may in the greatest malignity of force, or fortune, threaten or attempt the life of man.  
Ista virtus est quando usuest qui malum fert fortiter.  
Fortiter malum qui patitur, Idem post patiter bonum.  
A Prince who has not only, and that fearless, opposed his magnanimous breast to all these; but which is more, and still more shining, even in the midst and fury of mischance, and in the lowest ebb of his greatest necessities, through the purety of his Innocence, and the constancy of his virtue, has defended himself from the snares of insinuating policy, when dressed in all the gaudy ornaments of temptation, and disguised in all the subtlety of distorted reason. A Prince whom no allurements, no securety of His own endangered person, no reflections upon His immediate and clamorous wants, could ever draw from His firm piety towards God, or from the Dignity and Majesty of His own honour.  
These trials (Royal Sir) have made you thus superlatively eminent, and acquired not only the consent of all, even the worst of men, but have added also one jewel more to the Crown, and given You a general and undisputed choice, to Your undoubted and hereditary succession. And these are those trials that have approved You to be that good King, that other people pray their Kings may be, and have taught You to prize a lasting and immarcessible virtue, before all the unstable and fading glories of Crowns and sceptres. 
* Erasm: Ep. 17. lib, 3.  Ab hoc cardine praecipue pendet orbis faelicitas, si principibus maxime cordi fuerint, quae sunt optima. And it is from this natural and constant love to virtue, that we expect a reformation of times and manners, and steadfastly hope (through a continued providence) that we and ours shall see Your majesty's happy Throne established to all posterity. And doubtless that great and unerring council, that has still had the conduct of all your majesty's affairs, saw this the fittest time to restore You to Your desolate people; for never yet was so great necessity of a good Prince, nor ever so good a Prince to supply so great a necessity. Never so distracted a face of men, and business, such confusions of Arms and counsels, such fears and jealousies, whisperings and expectations, every one ignorant of his distinct office, and few resolved upon their common duty: Nothing but clouds, and murmuring noise and fluctuation, shifting and unsettledness, while the Actors themselves were amazed at all they did, neither knowing how nor why. But when the fore-running phosphor of Your majesty's bright, and so long miss day, The thrice Noble and ever to be recorded General appeared, and that the face of affairs began to unveil itself, than the glorious and majestic light even of Your dawning, so cheered the hearts of some, and illuminated the minds of others, that they all returned into the natural channel of their duty, and ran with a smooth and untroubled current, to kiss and court those noble feet, which the violence of their giddy and intestine storms had once tripped up, and hurried the sacred Frame as a prey to the insensible Ocean.  
Neither was this an ordinary conflux of men either in respect of their number, or quality, but such an one as might rather seem to oppose, then secure Your way; and in a better sense serve to inform Your eye of the strength, and Your Princely heart of the Joy and Loyalty of this Your Majesties now most happy Kingdom. 
* Plin. Pan: Tra.  Videres reserta tecta, ac laborantia, ac ne eum quidem vacantem locum, qui non nisi suspensum, & instabile vestigium caperet. Oppletas undiabque; vias, angustúmabque; tramitem relictum tibi. Alacrem hinc, atque inde populum ubiabque; par gaudium parémabque; clamorem, tam aequaliter ab omnibus ex adventu tuo laetitia percepta est, quàm omnibus venisti, quae tamen ipsa cum ingressu tuo crevit, ac prope in fingulos gradus adaucta est. So hearty and so general was the Joy they met You with, that they scarce left you a path to your lawful possession: And it may be worthy your majesty's Princely consideration, and best thanks to Almighty God, that your way was laid open by your people's love, and not forced by your own just Vengeance, that your Throne is established in the Judgements, and supported by the voluntary and united Strength of your People, fixed and riveted to the Centre of your Laws, not floating in Blood, nor raised upon heaps of ruin, but built upon its true and ancient Foundation: Not one Wound to blemish your Triumph; not one Opposer to dispute your Title, nothing but Praise and Acclamation for your safe return, everyone doting of the Majesty of your Person, admiring the Lustre of your virtues, and crying as it were with one Mouth, God save the King! Never was so great an harmony of mind, in so prodigious and so mixed a number of men; Never so wonderful and so sudden a change in men's persons, minds and manners: Old men forgetting their infirmities, and Young men their wildness; Good men their injuries, and Ill men their vices; all offences and animosities laid aside and forgot, as if they had never been: The worst men secured by Your Pardon, and the best rewarded by Your Presence; not only concurring in their Allegiance to their Prince, but mutually reconciled to one another. No man now regards his danger, or suspects his safety; Every man's loyal love to his Prince, has overcome the fears he had of himself. We look upon ourselves now as under protection, and the protection of a King that can, and will protect us; A King that has vanquished Danger, and fettered Mischance; A King that with his own victorious sword has cut through thousands of prevailing Enemies, and even in the miscarriage and treachery of an unfortunate day, remained a Conqueror, and won the hearts of those men, whose ill taught hands were exercised to an unnatural war against their own lawful Head.  
It were (without flattery, Most Gracious sovereign!) an endless work in itself, however unacceptable to Your Majesty, to repeat the number, much less to celebrate the value of Your approved virtues, which have shone forth with dazzling splendour, through the clouds and horror of those impious times we have too lately seen: And though their natural lustre need no foil to set them off to the world's eye, yet they must appear more excellently beautiful, when immediately confronted to the bestial, and most odious qualities of the late usurping Tyrant: Aman (if he ought to be called by that name) made up of all the vicious inclinations, Machiavilian counsels, bloody designs, and execrable executions that ever yet blotted the face of History; and in his unbridled and inhuman will, appinged by the numerous and successful arms of a corrupted and a rebellious power, a crew of veteran Vilains, whose Pay was their god and cause, and whose admirable design was no less than the subversion of what has ever been most dear to all good men in this life, to wit, Religion, Prince, Laws, and Country; disciplined to nothing but Blood and Rapine, Plunder and Insolence; till He (who is indeed the Glory of Military Commanders) taught a new Army a new lesson, appeased their fury, moderated their ambition, and reformed their riots. 
* Plin. Pan: Tra.  Corrupta erat disciplina castrorum, ut ille Corrector Emendatorque contingeret. 'Twas his Conduct that has made up an honourable body out of the most infamous Army in the world; an Army formidable to all, but beloved of none; an Army employed to destroy them they pretended to defend, and to subject a Nation, not to be subjected by other than the spurious issue of her own bowels: But now by the prudence and integrity of their Leader, become an Army faithful to their Prince, such an one as may be useful and necessary to the most important affairs of all Christendom.  
What things, with Your own courage, Your kingdom's wealth, and Your people's fidelity, may Your Majesty not do? Secure Your Subjects at home, and enlarge Your Dominions abroad; repay injuries, reward friendships, and shake foreign sceptres, as well as defend Your own: Your clemency may nourish us, whilst Your arms chastise Your Enemies; and when Your Royal pleasure shall summon Your Subjects to the test, they who have smiled at Your misfortunes, may see that You can command, and that You govern men who dare and will obey.  
A Prince that grasps three sceptres in one hand, may conquer all he will, with both. Neither is there any thing so impossible to do, or so hard to suffer, that You have not already suffered, or done; and although Your Majesty cannot outdo yourself in the quality, yet You may increase the number of Your glorious actions, at your own generous choice.  
We have found Your Majesty a King throughout, in all Your trials and misfortunes: Nothing in all your dangers, and calamities, unworthy Your birth, and greatness; no low addresses to Your flourishing neighbours, no unprincely offers or unmanly apprehensions; no more abated with Your mishaps, than we find you elated with Your success, but constant and unshaken in all the storms and violences of fortune. 
* Plin. Pan. Tra.  Nihilabque; magis à te subjecti animi factum est, quàm quod imperare coepisti.  
These virtues of Your Sacred Majesty, as they have made You the best Prince, so they must consequently make us the happiest people; A people that are to be governed by a Prince, that has begun His Empire in himself, and made himself absolute sovereign over his own passions; A Prince that has made all the world to admire, but left none to dispute the prerogative of His virtues; A Prince that in the youth, beauty, and carriage of his own person, without any addition of His more lasting graces, speaks himself truly and magnanimously what he is. 
* Plin. Pan. Tra.  Jam firmitas, jam proceritas corporis, jam honor capitis, & dignitas oris, ad hoc aetatis indeflexa maturitas; nec sine quodam munere deûm, festinantis senectutis insignibus ad augendam Majestatem ornata caesaries: nonne longè latéabque; Principem ostentant? In fine, Sir, there is nothing we could desire either in the Majesty of Your person, the experience and stability of Your mind, or the sweetness of your Royal disposition, that God and Nature have not prevented our prayers in, and blessed us withal, even (if it be possible) beyond the weak aim of our own wishes: And we were certainly the most stupidly ignorant, and impiously ungrateful of all that ever wore the characters of men, if we should not acknowledge it in our Devotions to God, our Loyalties to Your Majesty, and endeavours by all the obedient affection, and industrious services of a good and Loyal people, to deserve it in ourselves.  
Live then, Great King, the true Defender of the Catholic Faith, the Sacred and uncorrupted Fountain of the Law, and the gracious and tender Father of Your people! May Your Majesty prosper by sea, and land; at home, and abroad, in all You design and enterprise; and the merciful, omnipotent and only-wise God fortify Your arm in war, and direct Your Justice in Peace! May Your Majesty live long, and fortunate, full of Peace, Honour and happy days, ever secured (by the same waking Providence) from the malevolence of wicked men! May Your Crown and Dignity shine brighter to the distant World by the addition of a hopeful and numerous Posterity, A Posterity to inherit their father's virtue, and the great Name of their illustrious Ancestors! Lastly may there never want a Prince of Your Royal Line to govern these Kingdoms, from Race to Race, in the same Justice and Reputation, while there are men to obey, or a man to rule upon the face of the earth! and may that disloyal Subject perish in his ingratitude to God and You, that will not sincerely, joyfully and heartily say,  
AMEN.  
FINIS.