A SHORT VIEW OF THE LIFE and REIGN OF King Charles, (The second MONARCH OF GREAT BRITAIN) From his Birth to his Burial.  Tacit. Hist. Lib. I. 
Alii diutius imperium tenuerunt, Nemo tam fortiter reliquit.  
LONDON, Printed for Richard Royston, at the Angel in Ivy-lane. 1658.   

A SHORT VIEW OF THE Life and Reign of KING CHARLES. (The second Monarch of Great BRITAIN) from his Birth to his Burial.  
OUr Chronicles tell us of a Man in Queen Elizabeth's time that wrote the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the paternoster, the Queen's Name, and the year of our Lord within the compass of a penny; and gave the Queen a pair of Spectacles of such an artificial making, that by the help thereof she did plainly and distinctly discern every Letter.  
The contracting of the Life and Reign of King Charles in so narrow a compass as I have limited to myself, may seem to be a work of no less difficulty. And yet I hope to do it in such a plain and perspicuous manner, that every one who runs may read it without the help of any such Spectacles as our Chronicles speak of. To Brevity I am enjoined, and it must be my business to avoid all Obscurity; though I am conscious to myself, that I shall draw this Picture with too much shadow. But I take the Pencil into my hand, and thus form my lines.  

1600  
CHARLES, the third Son of James the sixth King of the Scots, and of Anne his Wife, Daughter of Frederick the second, and Sister of Christiern the fourth, Kings of Denmark, was born at Dunfermeling (one of the principal towns of Fife) in Scotland, on the nineteenth day of November Anno 1600 derived by a long descent of royal Ancestors from Malcolm Conmor King of the Scots, and the Lady Margaret his Wife, Sister and sole Heir of Edgar Atheling, the last surviving Prince of the English Saxons. So that his Title had been good to the Crown of England, though he had borrowed no part of his Claim from the Norman conqueror.  
Which I observe the better to encounter the extravagant follies of some men in the book called anti-normanism, and some other Pamphlets of that time: in which it is affirmed that this King had no other Right to the Crown, than what he claimed from that Conquest; and therefore that the English Nation having got the better of him by the Sword, might lawfully free themselves from that subjection, which by no other Title than the Sword of the Normans had been laid upon them.  
At his first coming into the world he was so weak and unlike to live, that his Christening was dispatched in haste, without attending the performance of those solemnities which are accustomably used at the baptism of such Princely infants. And as the name of Henry was given to the Prince, his Elder Brother, with reference to Henry Lord Darnlie, the Father of King James by Mary Queen of Scots; so was this younger Son called Charles, in relation to Charles Earl of Lenox, the younger Brother of that Henry, and by consequence Uncle to King James.   

1602.  
Having received some measure of strength, he was at the Age of two years created Duke of Albany, marquess of Ormond, Earl of Rosse, and Baron of Ardmanock; of which four Titles the two first and the last are wholly at the Kings disposing, to be bestowed on whom he pleaseth. But the Earldom of Rosse falling unto the Crown in the time of King James the third, was so settled in the Crown by Act of Parliament, that it is not lawful for the King to sell, alienate, or dispose the same unto any other, then to the second Son of Scotland.   

1603.  
On the 26. of March next following, Anno 1603. King James had news by Sir Robert Cary, one of the younger Sons of the Lord Hunsdon (who had stole a posting journey thither) that Queen Elizabeth was dead, contrary to the opinion of many of his Scottish Courtiers; who being wearied with the tediousness of their expectation, did believe at last, that it should never be acknowledged by the Lords of England that the Queen was dead, as long as there was any old woman of that Nation left, to wear good Clothes, and take the name of Queen upon her. For bringing which news the Duke of Albany (as if he were more concerned in it then all the rest of the King's Children, as indeed he was) was afterwards committed to the Governance of Sir Robert's Lady, and he himself from that time forwards of principal esteem and place about him.  
This news being seconded by that of the Proclaiming of King James, for her true and lawful Successor in the imperial Crown of this Realm, the King prepared himself for England. At what time (as I have been told by some Persons of Quality) a certain Laird of the Highlands, though of very great Age, came to his Court, to take his leave of him, whom he found accompanied with all his Children, the young Duke being then held in his nurse's arms.  
His address unto the King consisted of Prayers for his long life and Prosperity; and those Prayers intermixed with some desires, that in the midst of the Felicities and Glories of the English Court, he would not be unmindful of his Native country. Which having said, without taking any great notice of the Prince, he applied himself wholly to the Duke, whose hands he kissed with such an Ardency of Affection, as if he meant they should grow for ever to his lips. And when the King told him, that he had mistook himself in his Addresses to the infant, as not being his eldest Son, and Prince of Scotland; he answered, that he knew well enough what he did, and that it was this Child in whom his Name and Memory was to be perpetuated to succeeding Ages, with other Speeches of like nature. Which being then either unregarded, or imputed unto age and dotage, were called to mind after the death of Prince Henry, and then believed to have something in them of a Prophetical spirit.   

1603.  
But to proceed. On the fifth day of April in the year 1603. King James began his journey for England, and in the end of May, the Queen accompanied with Prince Henry, and the Lady Elizabeth, set forwards also; finding at Berwick a Noble Train of Lords and Ladies sent thither from the Court to attend her coming, and wait upon her in her journey.   

1604.  
The next year order was given for bringing the young Duke to the Court of England. But before such as had the Charge of him could begin their journey, the young Duke was taken with a fever. Which being signified to the King, he sent thither Doctor Atkins one of his Physicians, who in six weeks restored him to such a degree of health as made him fit to be removed to a Warmer air, and a more comfortable Climate.  
On the sixteenth of July this Remove began, which brought him by short and easy stages in the first week of October, to Windsor Castle, where the King then was, by whom he was committed to the Governance of the Lady Cary, as before is said. And not long after, for his better welcome into England, he was on the sixth day of January next following (commonly called Twelfth-day) invested solemnly with the title of Duke of York by cincture of a Sword, imposition of a Cap and Coronet of Gold upon his Head, and by delivering unto him a Verge of Gold; himself with ten others of eminent Nobility, having been made Knights of the Bath (with all the accustomed Ceremonies) the day before.   

1606.  
In the sixth year of his Age, he was taken from the charge of his Women (though not from the Motherly superinspection of the Lady Cary) and committed to the Pedagogy of Master Thomas Murray, a Scot by Nation; sufficiently qualified for that service, but otherwise ill Principled in the Rites and Ceremonies in which the Church of England differed from the kirk of Scotland.   

1610.  
Under this Tutor the young Duke advanced exceedingly in the way of good Letters; the weakness of his lower parts, which made him unapt for Exercises and feats of Activity, rendering him more retired and studious, and more intent upon his Book than he had been otherwise. Which Prince Henry taking notice of, as he, the young Duke, Dr. Abbot then newly made Archbishop of Canterbury, with many of the Nobility, were waiting in the privy-chamber for the Kings coming out; the Prince (to put a jest upon him) took the archbishops Square-cap out of his hand, and put it on his brother's head, telling him that if he continued a good boy, and followed his Book, he would make him one day Archbishop of Canterbury. Which the child took in such disdain, that he threw the Cap upon the ground, and trampled it under his feet, not being without much difficulty and some force taken off from that eagerness.  
This, though at first it was not otherwise beheld then as an Act of Childish passion, yet when his Brother Prince Henry died, and that he was Heir apparent to the Crown, it was taken up by many zealous churchmen for some ill Presage unto the Hierarchy of Bishops, the overthrow whereof by his Act and Power did seem to be foresignified by it. But in that their fears were groundless, and their conjectures no better grounded then their fears, there never being a more gracious Patron to the Church, nor a more resolute Champion in behalf of the Hierarchy than he proved to be▪ What is presaged (if there were any presaging in it) in reference to the Archbishop's Person, may be shown hereafter.   

1611, 1612.  
In the eleventh year of his Age, he was made Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, and on the sixth day of November, Anno 1612. he lost his Brother Prince Henry, whom he immediately succeeded in the dukedom of Cornwall, with all the Royalties, Rents, Profits, and Commodities of it; according to the entail which was made thereof by King Edward the third, when he conferred it upon Edward the black Prince, his eldest Son.  
The first solemn Act which he appeared in after this change of his condition, was at the funeral of Prince Henry on the 7. of Decem. following, at which he attended as chief Mourner. And on the 14 of February than next ensuing, being Sunday, and St. Valentine's day, he performed the Office of a Brideman (a Paranymph the Grecians call him) to the Princess Elizabeth his Sister, married upon that day to Frederick the Fifth, Prince Elector Palatine: A marriage which drew him afterwards into many cares and great expenses, of which more hereafter.  
In his Childhood he was noted to be very wilful, somewhat inclining to a perverseness of disposition, which might proceed from that retiredness which the imperfection of his Speech, not fitting him for public discourse, and the weakness of his limbs and joints (as unfit for Action) made him most delight in.  
But now being grown both in years, and state, he began to shake off that retiredness, and betake himself to all manner of manlike exercises; such as were Vaulting, riding great Horses, running at the ring, shooting in cross bows, Muskets, and sometimes in great Pieces of Ordnance, in which he became so perfect, that he was thought to be the best marksman, and the most comely mannager of a great Horse of any one in all three Kingdoms. And as he shaked off this retiredness, so he corrected in himself the Peccancy of that humour which had grown up with it; there being no man to be found of an evener temper, more pliant to good Counsel, or less wedded than he was to his own opinion.   

1616.  
On the third of November, Anno 1616. He was at Whitehall (with all the accustomed Solemnities) created Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester and Flint, and put into the actual possession of all the Regalities, Profits, and Commodities belonging to them; his household being then formed and constituted, and all the officers of State, which belong unto him, appointed to their several places.  
And now it was expected that he should break out into more glory than he had done formerly, and take upon him as the Heir of so great an Empire. But considering very wisely that the forward and enterprizing nature of his Brother Prince Henry, the popularity which he affected, and the great resort of young noblemen continually unto his Court, had been displeasing to his Father; resolved to keep himself at a close ward, and not to seem so great as he was, that when time served, he might appear greater than he seemed to be. Old Princes do not love to have their eldest Sons too active, and to tread too close upon their heels; and therefore many times do interpose the power of a favourite to keep them at the greater distance. A policy much used by King James in the whole course of his Government, who for that cause in the life-time of Prince Henry, took Sir Robert Carr into his most especial favour, whom he first made Gentleman of his bedchamber, and on the twenty fifth of March Anno 1611. Created Viscount Rochester, and the same year made Knight of the Garter also, conferring on him all the power and trust he was capable of; that by the greatness of the one he might keep down the daring nature and confident Spirit of the other.  
Prince Charles understood this well enough, and carried himself with so much prudence, that he disputed not the power of his father's favourites, suffering all Honour, Offices, and other matters at the Court to be carried by them as best pleased the King. Which though it was generally ascribed unto Pusillanimity, and the defect of Spirit in him, yet was it looked upon as an Act of the greatest wisdom by more knowing men. For had he any ways crossed the designs and counsels either of Carr then Earl of Somerset, or of the Duke of Buckingham, his father's favourites (who at that time did much outshine him) he had not only incurred the King's displeasure, but of necessity must have divided the Court, and by consequence the Kingdom also into several factions, each labouring to advance their own, though to the ruin and Destruction of the public Peace.  
Only to take off somewhat of the imputation, he made so much use of his power and interest with the King, as to prefer three of his servants unto Titles of Honour, Anno 1621. viz. Sir Robert Cary Chamberlain of his household, to the Title of Lord Cary of Lepington; Sir Thomas Howard, second Son to the Earl of Suffolk, and Master of his Horse, to the Honour of Viscount Andover, and Lord Howard of Charlton; and Sir John Vaughan Controller of his household, to the Honour of Lord Vaughan of Molingar in the Realm of Ireland.   

1618.  
On the eighteenth day of November Anno 1618. There appeared a great blazing Star, the forerunner of many woeful events in these parts of Christendom. But the first sad effect thereof which we found in England, was the death of Queen Anne, which happened on Tuesday the second of March next following. A loss which the Prince bare with great equanimity, or evenness of Spirit; neither banishing all shows of grief with a Stoical apathy, nor spending his time in too much womanish lamentation. At the funeral of this great Queen, he was principal Mourner, and it became him so to be; she having always been to him a tender and indulgent Mother, expressing more affection to him then to all the rest of her Children.   

1619.  
Not long after the death of the Queen, King James fell very sick at Newmarket, and having a desire to come to London, advanced on his way as far as Royston, where he was fain to stay till his sickness was over, which at last became so dangerous, that his death was feared. At what time Dr. Andrews Bishop of Winchester attending on him, bewailed with great Affliction the sad condition which the Church was like to fall into, if God should take away his life, the Prince being in the hands of the Scots, which made up the greatest part of his household, and not well principled by those which had the tutelage of him, either as to the Government or liturgy of the Church of England. The King acknowledgeing this sad truth, and condemning his own negligence in it, made a solemn vow, that if God would be pleased to restore him to his health, he would take the Prince into his own immediate care, instruct him in the Controversies of Religion, and set him on so right a bottom, that there should be no fear of his disaffection either unto the Hierarchy, or the rites and Ceremonies of the Church; which he did accordingly. And he did it so effectually, that at such time as the Prince made his journey into Spain, and that some principal persons in all the Places and Offices belonging to him, were to follow after, Dr. Maw, and Dr. Wren, two of his Chaplains being appointed for that service, came to King James to know his pleasure and commands. The King advised them not to put themselves upon any unnecessary Disputations, but to be only on the defensive part, if they should be challenged. And when it was answered that there could be no reason to engage in such Disputations, where there could be no Moderator; the King replied, that Charles should moderate between them and the opposite party. At which when one of them seemed to smile on the other, the King proceeded, and told them, that Charles should manage a point in controversy with the best studied Divine of them all; and that he had trained up George so far as to hold the conclusion, though he had not yet made him able to prove the premises.   

1619.  
On Friday the twenty fourth of March, Anno 1619. The Prince with the marquess of Hamilton, marquess of Buckingham, divers Earls and others performed great just at White-Hall in honour of the day, being the day of King James his happy coming to the Crown of England.   

1620  
And on the Sunday after, being Mid-lent Sunday, he attended his Father to S. Paul's cross, conducted in a most solemn manner from Temple Bar to that Church by the Lord Major and Aldermen, and at the entrance into the Church, received by the Dean and Chapter in their rich Copes, and other ecclesiastical Habits, and by them conducted into the choir; where having heard the Divine service for that day most solemnly performed with Organs, Cornets, and Sagbots, they went to a prepared place where they heard the Sermon at the cross preached by Dr. King, than Lord Bishop of London; and from thence unto the Bishop's Palace, where they were entertained with a Banquet. Infinite was the concourse of People at both those Solemnities, and all of them returned with great joy and comfort to see him so bravely accomplished in the one, so devoutly reverent in the other.   

1622.  
On Tuesday the eighteenth of February, Anno 1622. Accompanied with the Duke of Buckingham, M. Erdimion Porter, and M. Francis Cottington; he took ship at Dover, arrived at Bulloign in France, and from thence rode Post to the Court of Spain.  
The occasion this; Frederick Prince Elector Palatine had inconsiderately taken on himself the Crown of Bohemia, An. 1619. and for so doing, was by the Emperor deprived of his Ancient Patrimony; the electoral dignity together with the upper Palatinate being conferred on the Duke of Bavaria, and the lower on the K. of Spain, who possessed himself of all of it except the towns of Heidelberg, Frankendale, and Manheim, well manned and Garrisoned by the English. For the preserving of which places, and the recovery of the whole, when all means else had proved ineffectual, it was held most expedient to negotiate a Marriage betwixt Prince Charles and the Daughter of Spain. Which being first managed by the leaguer ambassadors in both Courts, was afterwards prosecuted with more particular instructions by John Lord Digby (well versed and studied in that Court) whom the King sent as his ambassador extraordinary to conclude the match. But Digby being fed with delays from one time to another, it was resolved by King James, without making any of his council acquainted with it, that the Prince himself should go in Person, that he might either speed the business, or break off the Treaty.  
According to this Resolution he began his journey, no otherwise accompanied or attended then with those three persons above mentioned, all of them passing in disguise, to avoid discovery. Being come to Paris, they adventured to see the Court, where at a Mask, he had a view of that most excellent Princess whom he after married. But no sooner had he left the City, than the French King had Advertisement of his being there, who thereupon dispatched away several Posts to stay him in his journey, and bring him back; but the Prince had past beyond Bayonne, the last Town in France, without being overtaken by them, and posting speedily to Madrid, entered the Lord ambassadors Lodging, without being known to any but his Confidents only.  
News of his safe arrival there being brought to the King, there was a present order taken for the sending of some of his Servants of all sorts, to attend upon him in that Court, that so he might appear amongst them in the greater Lustre. But this lessened not the Cares and fears of the English Subjects, who could not be more glad to hear of his safety, than they were afraid of the danger which he had incurred. For having put himself into the power of the King of Spain, it was at the courtesy of that King whether he should ever return or no: it being a maxim amongst Princes, That if any one without leave sets foot on the Ground of another, he makes himself his Prisoner.  
Philip the first of Spain and Duke of Burgundy, being cast by Tempest on the Coast of England, was here detained by King Henry the seventh, till he had delivered up the Earl of Suffolk, who had fled for Refuge to his Court: and Mary Queen of the Scots, being forced by her Rebellious Subjects to fly into this Realm, was presently seized on as a Prisoner, and so continued till her lamentable and calamitous death. So in like manner Richard the first of England, passing in disguise through some part of the dominions of the archduke of Austria, was by him took Prisoner, and put unto an heavy ransom; and not long since Charles Lodowick the now Prince Elector Palatine posting through France, in hope to get the Command of Duke Bernard's Army, was stayed in the middle of his journey by the King's command, and kept so long under Restraint, that he lost the opportunity of effecting his purprose.  
This, though it was the general Fear and apprehension of the English Subjects, yet nobody durst acquaint the King with it, but Archee the fool, who going boldly to the King, as he found him once in a good humour, told him that he was come to change Caps with him. Why, said the King? Marry, says Archee, because thou hast sent the Prince into Spain, from whence he is never like to return. But said the King, what wilt thou say when thou seest him come back again? Marry, says Archee, I will then take off the fool's Cap which I put upon thy head, for sending him thither, and put it on the King of Spain's, for letting him return. At which words, it is reported, that the King became exceeding pensive, never before so much apprehending the Danger of that Adventure, as then and afterwards he did.   

1623.  
But the generous Spaniard intended to make no such Market of him, but gave him all the royal entertainment which a Princely Suitor might expect. Nor was the Prince wanting for his part in all fit Compliances by which he might both gain on them, and preserve himself. For by his Courtly Garb he won so much on the Affections of the Infanta, and by his grave and circumspect behaviour got so much ground upon the King and his council, that the match went forward in good earnest. The Articles of the Marriage with all the Circumstances thereof were agreed upon, and solemnly sworn to by both Kings. Nor was the Pope wanting in the grant of a dispensation (without which nothing could be done) writing a Letter to the Prince, who returned to him a Civil answer, which afterwards was reckoned amongst his Crimes, by such as rather would not then did not know the necessity which lay upon him, of keeping at that time a plausible Correspondence with the Catholic party.  
But as for his Religion, the change whereof was moved by the Pope, and much hoped for by the Court of Spain at his first coming thither, he showed so many strong evidences of his constancy in it, that those hopes soon vanished. And that it might appear, that he professed no other Religion, than what was agreeable to the Rules of Antiquity, and not much abhorrent from the forms then used in the Church of Rome, the English liturgy was by the care of the Lord Keeper Williams translated into the Spanish Tongue; and so many Copies of the Book then printed sent into Spain, as gave great satisfaction in that point to the Court and Clergy.  
And this I must needs say was very seasonably done, the Spaniards being till then persuaded by their Priests and Jesuits, that when the English had cast off the Pope, they had cast off also all Religion, and became mere Atheists; the name of God being never used amongst them, but with a purpose to expose it unto scorn and profanation. Insomuch that the Constable of Castille, being sent to swear the Peace concluded with Spain, when he understood the business was to be performed in the chapel, where some Anthems were to be sung, desired that whatsoever was sung, God's name might not be used in it, and that being forborn, he was content they should sing what they listed. King James himself so relates the story in Archbishop Spotswood, fol. 530.  
But the Prince had another game to play, namely, the Restitution of the Palatinate; which the Spaniard would not suffer to be brought under the Treaty, reserving it (as they pretended to be bestowed by the Infanta after the Marriage, the better to ingratiate herself with the English Nation. Which being a point of too great moment to depend upon no other assurance than a Court-Complement, he concluded with himself that since he could not prevail in the one, he would not proceed unto the Consummation of the other. And hereupon he was much edged on by the Duke of Buckingham, who having conceived some deep displeasure against the Conde de Olivarez, the special Favourite of that King, desired rather that all Treaties should be broken off, then that any Alliance should be made in which that Conde had appeared so instrumental.  
But it did concern the Prince so to provide for his own safety, that no intimation might be made of the intended Rupture, till he had unwound himself out of that Labyrinth into which he was cast. For which cause having desired of his Father that some ships might be sent to bring him home, he showed himself a more passionate lover then ever formerly, and made a proxy to the Catholic King and Don Charles his Brother, in his name to espouse the Lady Infanta; which proxy he left with Digby, not long before made Earl of Bristol, by him to be delivered within some few days after the coming of the expected dispensation.  
But no sooner had he took his leave, and was out of danger, but he dispatched a Post unto him, commanding him not to deliver up the proxy until further order. And having so done, he hoist Sails, and came for England, arriving at Portsmouth on Sunday the fifth of October, Anno 1623. From whence by Post-Horses he passed to London, the next morning, and so by Coach to the King at Royston, to the great content of all the kingdom, declared by Bells, Bonfires, and all other the accustomed expressions of a public joy.  
The King being made acquainted with all particulars, and that no Assurance could be had of the Restitution of the Palatinate, by the advice of his Privy council, dispatched a command to the Earl of Bristol, not to deliver up the proxy unless the business of the Palatinate were concluded also▪ The expectation whereof not being answered by success, a Parliament is summoned, to begin on the sixteenth day of February than next following, to the end that all things might be governed in this great Affair by the public Counsel of the Kingdom. Not long after the beginning whereof, the Duke declared before both Houses (more to the disadvantage of the Spaniard then there was just ground for) how unhandsomely they had dealt with the Prince, when he was in Spain; how they had fed him with delays; what indignities they had put upon him, and finally had sent him back not only without the Palatinate, but without a Wife; leaving it to their prudent Consideration what course to follow.  
It was thereupon voted by both Houses, that his Majesty should be desired to break off all Treaties with the King of Spain, and to engage himself in a war against him for the recovery of the Palatinate, not otherwise to be obtained. And that they might come the better to the end they aimed at, they address themselves unto the Prince, whom they assured, that they would stand to him in that War to the very last expense of their lives and fortunes; and he accordingly being further set on by the Duke, became their instrument to persuade his Father to harken to the Common Votes and desires of his Subjects, which the King, pressed by their continual importunities, did at the last assent to.  
But in the conduct of this business, the Prince consulted more the Duke's passion, and the pleasing of the Commons in Parliament, then either his own or the regal interest. For there is nothing more unsafe for a King of England, then to cast himself upon the necessity of calling Parliaments, and depending on the purse of the Subject. By means whereof he makes himself obnoxious to the Humour of any prevailing Member in the House of Commons, and becomes less in Reputation both at home and abroad. The Commons, since the time of King James, have seldom parted with a penny▪ but they have paid themselves well for it out of the prerogative.  
And this appeared by their proceedings in this very Parliament: For though they had engaged the King in a War with Spain, and granted him three Subsidies and three Fifteens toward the beginning of that War; yet would they not suffer that grant to pass into an Act of Parliament, till the King had yielded to another against Concealments. Insomuch as it was affirmed by Justice Dodderidge, at the next public Assizes held in Oxford, that the King by passing that Act, had bought those Subsidies and Fifteens at ten years' purchase. Nor dealt they otherwise with this Prince than they did with his Father, those very Commons who had engaged him in the war, and bound themselves to make good that engagement with their lives and fortunes, most shamefully deserting him in the first Parliament of his Reign, and after working more and more upon his necessities, till they had robbed him of the richest Jewels in the Regal Diadem.   

1624.  
But to proceed, the Treaty with Spain being like to come to a Rupture, it was judged necessary to counterbalance the Power of that King by negotiating a Match with the Princess Henrietta Maria, the youngest Daughter of France; first set on foot by the Mediation of the Earl of Holland, who found that Court inclinable thereunto, and afterwards concluded at the coming over of the Earl of Carlisle, joined in Commission to that purpose. It was reported, that when she was told that the Prince of Wales had been at the Court, and was gone for Spain; she Answered, that if he went to Spain for a Wife, he might have had one nearer hand, and saved himself a great part of the trouble. And I have read, that receiving at one time two Letters from England, the one from King James, and the other from the Prince, she put that from King James into her Cabinet, and that from Prince Charles into her Bosom. Of which King James being told, he was exceedingly pleased with it, saying, that he took it for a very good Omen, that she should preserve his Name in her Memory, and lodge Charles in her heart.   

1625.  
During these preparations for War and Marriage, King James departed this life at Theobald's on Sunday the twenty seventh of March, Anno 1625. Immediately upon whose death Prince Charles was proclaimed at the Court-Gates to be King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, &c. The like done presently after at London, and by degrees in all the other Cities and Towns of the Kingdom, with infinite rejoicings and Acclamations of the People.  
The funerals of the deceased King were celebrated on the seventh of May, his body being brought from Somersethouse with great Magnificence to Saint Peter's Church in Westminster (where he was interred) the King himself being principal Mourner. Which though it were contrary to the custom of his predecessors, yet he chose rather to express his Piety in attending the dead body of his Father to the funeral Pile, then to stand upon any such old Niceties and points of State.  
The funeral being past, he thought it was time for him to quicken the coming over of his dearest Consort, to whom he had been married on the Sunday before at the Church of Nostre-Dame in Paris; the Duke of Chevereux a Prince of the House of Guise (from which House King Charles derived himself by the Lady Mary of Lorain, Wife to James the fifth) espousing the Princess in his Name.  
On Trinity Sunday, late at night, she was brought by a royal Fleet of Ships from Bulloign to Dover, which being signified to the King who was then at Canterbury, he went to her betimes the next morning, and received her with great expressions of Affection, professing that he would be no longer Master of himself, then whilst he was a Servant to her. The same day He brought her to Canterbury, where he gave himself up to those Embraces, to which from that time he confined himself with such a Conjugal Chastity, that on the day before his death he commanded his Daughter the Princess Elizabeth to tell her Mother, that his thoughts had never strayed from her, and that his love should be the same to the last.  
On the Thursday after, being the sixteenth of June, they came from Gravesend to Whitehall in their Royal Barges, attended with an infinite number of Lords, Ladies, and other people who could get Boats to wait upon them; the Ordnance from the Ships which were then preparing for the Wars, those from the merchant's Ships, and the Tower of London, thundering her Welcome as she passed.  
But in the heat of these Solemnities and entertainments, the King forgot not the main Concernments of himself and the kingdom, and to that end began his first Parliament on Saturday the eighteenth of June, which fell out not unseasonably, that the French Lords might see with what royal Magnificence he was attended by the Peers, Prelates, and other Officers of State (besides his own domestic Servants) to the Parliament-House.  
At their first meeting, he put them in mind of the War in which they had engaged his Father, and of the promise they had made to stand to him in it with their lives and fortunes; that both his Land and Sea-forces were now in readiness to set forwards, and that there wanted nothing but a present supply of money to quicken and expedite the Affair. In Answer whereunto, the Commons past a Bill of two Subsidies only, so short of the excessive Charge which the maintenance of so great a Fleet and Army required at their hands, that being distributed amongst the Officers, soldiers, and Mariners, it would scarce have served for Advance-money to send them going. Which notwithstanding, the King very graciously accepted of it, taking it as an earnest of their good Affections, in reference to the greater sums which were to follow.  
But the Plague growing hot in London, the Parliament on the eleventh day of July was adjourned to Oxford, there to be held on the first of August, at what time the King put them in mind again of the necessity of setting forward his Fleet, and that the eyes of his Confederates were fixed upon it. But the Commons had other fish to fry, and began to quarrel at the greatness of the Duke of Buckingham, whom in the last Parliament of King James they had idolised above all men living. But he had served their turn already, and now they meant to serve their own.  
This was the first Assault which the Commons made upon this King, though not directly on his Person, wounding him through the sides of his principal Minister; they were so well versed in the Arts of a Parliament-war, as to take in the outworks first, that so the Fort itself might lie the more open to continual Batteries. Concerning which, and the sad consequents thereof, take here the words of a Letter written to the King from an unknown Person.  
These men, saith he, either cannot or will not remember, that never any Noble man in favour with his sovereign, was questioned in Parliament, except by the King himself in case of Treason, or unless it were in the Nonage and tumultuous time of Richard the 2. Henry the 6. or Edward the 6. which happened to the destruction both of the King and kingdom. And that, not to exceed our own and father's Memories, in King Henry the eight's time, Wolsy's exorbitant power and pride, and Cromwel's contempt of the Nobility and the laws, were not yet permitted to be discussed in Parliament, though they were most odious and grievous to all the kingdom. And that Leicesters' undeserved favour and faults; Hattons insufficiency, and Raleigh's insolence far exceeded what yet hath been (though most falsely) objected against the Duke; yet no Lawyer durst abet, nor any man else begin any invectives against them in Parliament. And then he adds (some other passages intervening) that it behooves his Majesty to uphold the Duke against them, who if he be but decurted, it will be the cornerstone on which the demolishing of his Monarchy will be builded. For if they prevail with this, they have hatched a thousand other Demands to pull the feathers of the Royalty, they will appoint him counsellors, Servants, Alliances, Limits of his Expenses, accounts of his Revenue, chiefly if they can (as they mainly desire) they will now dazzle him in the beginning of his Reign.  
How true a Prophet this man proved, the event hath shown, and the King saw it well enough, and therefore since he could not divert them from that pursuit, he dissolved the Parliament, by whose neglect (I will not call it a perverseness) the Fleet went out late, and returned unprosperously. In which conjuncture, if he had clapped up a Peace with Spain, (which the Spaniards had as much reason to accept as he to offer) he might have prevented the following Rupture betwixt him and France, and freed himself from the necessity of calling Parliaments, till he had no necessity for a Parliament to work upon, and then he might have found them as pliant to him as he could reasonably require.  
But he resolves to try his fortune in another as soon as he had performed the Solemnities of his Coronation, which was celebrated on the second of February, (commonly called Candlemas Day) then next ensuing. In the external Pomp whereof, he omitted his triumphant riding thorough the City from the Tower to White-Hall, the Charge whereof would have stood him in sixty thousand pounds, as some compute it; and he had then more necessary occasions to expend his money, than Money to answer those occasions. In the sacred part of it, there was nothing altered, but the adding of a clause to one of the Prayers which had been pretermitted since the time of King Henry the sixth, and is this that followeth, viz. Let him obtain favour for the People, like Aaron in the Tabernacle, Elisha in the Waters, Zacharias in the Temple; give him Peter's key of Discipline, Paul's Doctrine. Which clause had been omitted in time of Popery, as intimating more ecclesiastical jurisdiction to be given to our Kings then the Popes allowed of; and for the same reason was now quarrelled by the Puritan Faction. As for the Coronation-oath, it was the same which had been taken by his Predecessors, as appears by the Records of Exchequer; Not made more advantageous to the King, and less beneficial to the People by the late Archbishop, though both the long Parliament in the year 1642. and the lewd Pamphlets of that time did object the contrary.  
The Coronation being passed over, he began his second Parliament on the sixth of the same month, in which he sped no better than he did in his first. The Commons voted some Subsidies to be granted to him, but they never passed them into Act, that bait being only laid before him, to tempt him to give over the Duke to their pride and fury, against whom they had framed a large impeachment ushered in by Sir Dudley Diggs, prosecuted with six bitter invectives, made by the best Speakers and most learned Lawyers of that House, and finally concluded by Sir John Eliot, who brought up the Rear.   

1626.  
But the King easily perceived that his Royal Father and himself were as much concerned in it as the Duke, their favours being made his crimes, and their authority in bestowing Offices and Honours on whom they pleased, not obscurely questioned.  
But the storm went higher than the Duke, some part of it falling downright on the King himself; it being openly affirmed in the House of Commons by one Mr. Coke (a true chip of the old block) that it was as good to die by a foreign Enemy as to be destroyed at home. Of this reproach, tending so much to the dishonour of his Government, he complained in a Speech before both Houses, but without any remedy. And being further incensed by the noise of a Declaration which they had then upon the Anvil, he dissolved the Parliament on the eighteenth day of June then following.  
No sooner was he freed from this, but the necessity of his Affairs involved him in another Embroylment. The French Priests and domestics of that Nation which came into England with the Queen, were grown so insolent, and had put so many affronts upon him, that he was forced to send them home; in which he did no more than what the French King had done before him, in sending back all the Spanish Courtiers which his Queen brought with her. But the French King not looking on his own example, and knowing on what ill terms the King stood both at home and abroad, first seized on all the Merchants ships which lay on the River of Bordeaux, and then broke out into open war. So that the King was fain to make use of those Forces against the French, which were designed to have been used against the Spaniard, and to comply with the desires of the Rochelers, who humbly sued for his protection and Defence. But the Fleet not going out till after Michaelmas, found greater opposition at the Sea than they feared from the Land; being encountered with strong Tempests, and thereby necessitated to return without doing any thing, but only showing the King's goodwill and readiness toward their assistance.   

1627.  
But the next year this design was followed with greater vigour by the Duke of Buckingham, who hoped thereby to make himself of some consideration in the eyes of the people. The gaining of the Isle of Re, which lay before the Town of Rochel, and imbarred their Trade, was the matter aimed at; and he had strength enough both for Sea and Land to have done the work, if he had not followed it more like a Courtier than a soldier; suffering himself to be complemented out of the taking of their chief Fort, when it was almost at his mercy; and standing upon points of Honour in facing those Forces which were sent from the French King to raise the siege, when he might have made a safe retreat unto his ships without loss or danger.  
In the mean time his Majesty neither neglected his Affairs at home nor his Friends abroad: At home he found the Puritan faction to be much increased by the remissness of the government of Archbishop Abbot, whom therefore he suspended from all his metropolitical Jurisdiction, and confined him to his House at Ford in Kent, committing the exercise thereof to the Bishops of London, Durham, Rochester, Oxford, Bath and Wells, by Letters Patents, bearing date the 9 day of October, Anno 1627. Abroad he found the Princes of Germany wormed out of their Estates, one after another, by the Emperor's Forces, the King of Denmark (whom they had made the Head of their League) being driven out of the country by Count Tilly, and hardly able to defend his own Dominions. No Prince so fit for the prosecution of that cause, as Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, whom therefore he elects into the Noble Order of the Garter, and solemnly invests him with it in the midst of his Army, then lying at the Siege of Darsaw, a Town of Pomerella belonging to the Crown of Poland, on Sunday the twenty third of October, of the same year also. At which time he laid the grounds of that Confederacy, which being seconded by the French, the States of the united Provinces, and the distressed Princes of the Empire, brought that King into Germany; where he gave the first great check to the Emperor's fortunes, and had restored the Prince Elector Palatine to his ancient Patrimony, if he had not fallen unfortunately at the battle of Lutzen.   

1628.  
Being thus engaged and embroiled, he gave a beginning to his third Parliament on the seventeenth of March, and freely declares to them the necessities under which he lay; in Answer whereunto the Commons voted five Subsidies, but meant he should pay dearly for them before he had them. Such grievances as they thought fit to insist upon, were cast into the mould of a petition, by them called a Petition of Right; which if the King granted, he must lose his prerogative; if he denied it, he must lose all hopes of their supply in his great extremities. The consideration of which last induced him to yield to their desires, and confirm that petition by Act of Parliament, the Prerogative never so much descending from Perch to popular Lure, as by that concession. But though this Act of grace might have given satisfaction even to supererogation (as one well observeth) yet the Commons were not so contented, but were preparing a remonstrance to take away his Right of Tonnage and Poundage, as disclaimed by him in that Act; which coming to the King's knowledge, on the twenty sixth of June, he adjourns the Parliament till the twentieth day of October than next ensuing.  
In the mean time the Duke prepares for the relief of Rochel, both by Sea and Land, and being ready to set sail, was suddenly cut off at Ports-muth by the hand of one John Felton, a discontented Officer of the last years Army, alleging no other reason for that bloody act, but that the Duke had been declared an Enemy to the commonwealth, in a Remonstrance tendered to the King in the former Session.  
But such was the constancy of the King's temper, and the known evenness of his spirit, that this sad Accident made little or no stop in the proceedings of the Fleet, which at the last set forwards under the command of the Earl of Lindsey,; who found the Haven of Rochel so strongly barred, that it was utterly impossible for his Ships to force their way (though it was gallantly attempted) and give relief to the besieged; who thereupon set open their Gates, and received their King into their Town without more delay.  
To smooth his way to the next Session of Parliament, adjourned again till the twentieth of January, Archbishop Abbot is admitted to kiss his hand, by whom he is commanded not to fail of his attendance at the council table; Dr. Barnaby Potter (a through-paced Calvinian) is made Bishop of Carlisle, and Mr. Montague's book called Appello Caesarem (for which he had been questioned and molested in the beginning of the Kings first Parliament) must be suppressed and called in by Proclamation.  
But this little edified with the faction in the house of Commons, who not only took upon them the reforming of the Church and State, but called the Customers in question for levying Tonnage and Poundage, not then granted (nor ever likely to be granted as it had been formerly) by Act of Parliament, and distraining such merchant's goods as refused to pay it. And in this point they went so high, that fearing they should be dissolved before they had vented their own passions in that particular, upon the second day of March they locked the Doors of the Parliament-house, kept the key thereof in one of their pockets, and held the Speaker by strong hand in his Chair, till they had thundered out their anathemas not only against such as should dare to levy it, but those also who should willingly pay it. The news of which riotous proceeding being brought immediately to the King, he sent his Band of Pensioners, accompanied by his ordinary Guard, to force open the doors, and going himself to the House of Peers, he dissolved the Parliament, not having continued in that Session above forty days.  
At the end of the former Session he had admitted Sir John Savill of Yorkshire, a busy man in the House of Commons, (but otherwise a politic and prudent person) to be one of his Privy Council, created him Lord Savill of Ponfract, and made him controller of his household in the place of Sir John Suckling deceased. And a little before the beginning of the following Session, he took into his Council Sir Thomas wentworth of Wentworth Woodhouse in the same County, whom be created Viscount Wentworth, and made Lord President of the North, and within two years after Lord Deputy of Ireland also. A man he was of prodigious Parts, which he made use of at the first in favour of the Popular Faction: But being gained unto the King by Sir Ri. Weston then chancellor of the Exchequer, (afterwards Lord Treasurer and Earl of Portland) he became the most devout friend of the Church, the greatest zealot for advancing Monarchichall interest, and the ablest Minister of State which our Histories have afforded to us.  
On the judgement of these two his Majesty did much rely in Civil matters, as he did on the advice of Doctor Neile then Bishop of Durham, and Doctor Laud then Bishop of Bath and Wells, in matters which concerned the Church. These last he had called unto his Council in the beginning of April 1627. and finding them to be of as great abilities to advise, as sincere affections to his person; he advanced the first to the See of Winchester, and afterwards to the archbishopric of York, Anno 1631. the second to the See of London, and from thence to Canterbury, Anno 1633   

1629.  
But whilst it was such hot weather at home, it grew cold abroad, the breach betwixt him and France being closed up at the same time, by the prudent and seasonable intervention of the State of Venice. And not long after he concluded a Peace also with the King of Spain, all things being left on both sides in the same condition in which they were before the war, but that the Spaniard did engage that he would make use of all his Interest with the Emperor, for restoring the Prince Elector Pa●●●ine to his lost Estate.  
And now the King having thrown away his Crutches (which had as often deceived him as he trusted to them) he began to stand on his own legs, and in short time became more considerable in the eyes of the world than any of his Predecessors. The Spaniard sent hither yearly in English Bottoms no less than six hundred thousand Crowns in Bullion, for the use of his Army in the Netherlands, redounding very much to the King's benefit in the coinage, and no less to the profit of the Merchants also, most of the money being returned into Flanders in Leather, Cloth, Lead, tin, and other the manufactures and Native Commodities of this kingdom. The Dutch and Easterlings look upon London as the safest Bank, not only to lodge, but increase their Treasure; so that in short time the greatest part of the Trade of Christendom was driven up the Thames.   

1630.  
To make him yet more estimable in the sight of his People, God blessed him with a Son, the presumptive Heir of his Dominions, on the twenty ninth of May, Anno 1630. and seconded that blessing with the birth of a Daughter on the fourth of November, in the next year after, as afterwards with a plentiful issue of both Sexes.   

1633  
Nor did he meet with any check in his Prosperity till the year 1633 at what time the coals of Faction and Sedition, which seemed for some years to have been raked up in the ashes of contentment, kindled the next combustible matter and broke forth again to the inflaming of both Kingdoms. Scotland burneth first, and takes fire on this occasion.  
In the minority of King James, the Lands of all cathedral Churches and Religious Houses which had been settled on the Crown by Act of Parliament, were shared amongst the Lords and great men of that kingdom, (by the connivance of the Earl of Murray, and some other of the Regents) to make them sure unto the side. And they being thus possessed of the said Lands, with the Regalities and Tithes belonging to those ecclesiastical Corporations, Lorded it with pride and insolence enough i● their several Territories, holding the Clergy to small stipends, and the poor peasant under a miserable vassalage, and subjection to them.  
King Charles engaged in War at his first coming to the Crown, and having little aid from thence for the maintenance of it, by the advice of his Council of that kingdom, was put upon a course of resuming those Lands, Tithes and Regalities into his own hands, to which the present Occupants could pretend no other Title than the unjust usurpation of their Ancestors. This he endeavoured, first by an Act of Revocation, but that course not being like to speed, he followed it in the way of a legal process, which drew on the Commission for surrendering of Superiorities and Tithes, to be retaken from the King on such conditions, as might bring some profit to the crown, some Augmentation to the Clergy, and far more ease and benefit to the common people. But these proud Scots choose rather to expose their country to the danger of a public ruin, then to part with any of that power (it might be called a Tyranny rather) which they had exercised on their Vassals, as they commonly called them; and thereupon conspired together to oppose the King in any thing that should be offered in the following Parliament, which had relation to the Church or to church-affairs.  
But because Religion and the care thereof, is commonly the best bait to catch the vulgar, they must find out some other means to divert the King from the prosecuting of that Commission; then the consideration of their own personal and private interest; and they found means to do it on another occasion, which was briefly this.  
King James from his first coming to this Crown, had a design to bring the Kirk of Scotland to an uniformity with the Church of England, both in government and forms of worship. And he proceeded so far as to settle Episcopacy amongst them, naming thirteen new Bishops for so many Episcopal Sees as had been anciently in that Church; three of which received Consecration from the Bishops of England, and conferred it on the rest of their Brethren at their coming home. Which Bishops he armed also with the power of an High Commission, the better to keep down the insolent and domineering Spirit of the Presbyterians. In order to the other, he procured an Act to be passed in the Assembly at Aberdeen, Anno 1616. for composing a Liturgy, and extracting a new book of Canons out of the scattered Acts of their old Assemblies. At the Assembly held at Perth, Anno 1618. he obtained an Order for receiving the Communion kneeling, for administering baptism and the Lord's Supper in private Houses, in cases of extreme necessity, for episcopal confirmation; and finally, for the celebrating the Anniversaries of our saviour's Birth, his Passion, Resurrection and Ascension, and the coming down of the Holy Ghost. All which he got to be confirmed in the following Parliament.  
So far that wise King had advanced the work of Uniformity, before his engaging in the Cause of the Palatinate. His Breach with Spain, and the War which did ensue upon it took off his thoughts from prosecuting that design, which his son, being more entangled in Wars abroad and Distempers at home, had no time to finish till he had settled his affairs, and attained to some measure both of Power and Glory. But being it was a business which was to be acted leisurely and by degrees, not all at once, he first resolved upon passing of an Act of Ratification of all that had been done by his Father, and then to go in hand with the introducing of a public liturgy. In the effecting whereof, at such a time as he went into Scotland to receive that unfortunate Crown, he found a stronger opposition in the Parliament of that Kingdom also, about the passing of that Act of Ratification, than he had reason to expect: But carried it at last by a far major part of that Assembly.  
This gave him the fist taste of their disaffection to his Person and Government; but he went forward notwithstanding in pursuit of those purposes, which he brought thither with him. For not long after his return into England, he gave order to the Dean of his chapel royal in Edinburgh that Prayers be read therein according to the English liturgy; that a Communion be had every month, and all Communicants to receive the Sacrament on their knees; that he who officiated, if he be a Bishop, perform it in his Rochet and other episcopal Robes; and that he do it in his Surplice, if a common Presbyter; and finally, that not only the Lords of the Council, but the Lords of the Session, and as many of the principal Magistrates of that City also as could conveniently, fail not of their attending the Divine Service there on Sundays and holidays: For by this means he gave himself no improbable hopes, that the English Liturgy passing a probationership in the chapel royal, might find a plausible entertainment in the Churches of Edinburgh, and be received by degrees in all the rest of the Kingdom.  
But the Presbyterian Scots not ignorant of the King's intentions, insinuated into the minds of the common People, that this was a design only to subject that pure Kirk to the superstitious Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England, and therefore that it did behoove them to stand together as one man to oppose their entrance.  
The Lords and Gentry of that Realm, who feared nothing so much as the Commission of Surrendries before mentioned, laid hold on this occasion also: And they being seconded by some malcontented spirits of that Nation, who had not found the King to be as prodigal of his favours to them as his Father had been before, endeavoured to possess them with Fears and Jealousies, that Scotland was to be reduced to the form of a Province, and governed by a Deputy or Lord Lieutenant, as Ireland was. The like done also by some Lords of Secret Council, who before had governed as they listed, and thought their power diminished and their persons under some neglect, by the placing of a Lord President over them to direct in chief.  
So that the people generally being fooled into this opinion, that both their Christian and Civil Liberty were in no small danger, became capable of any impression which the Presbyterian Faction could imprint upon them. Which visibly appeared by a virulent and seditious Libel, published in the year 1634. wherein the King was not only charged with altering the Government of that Kingdom, but traduced for very strong inclinations to the Religion of the Church of Rome. The chief Abettor whereof (for the author was not to be found) was the Lord Balmerino, for which he was legally convicted and condemned of treason but pardoned by the King's great goodness, and by that pardon kept alive for the mischiefs following.  
The fire thus breaking out in Scotland, it was no marvel if it had laid hold on England also, the Puritans of both Nations working themselves about this time into a Body, and from henceforth communicating their Counsels and designs unto one another.  
The King not long after his return thought fit to renew his father's Declaration about lawful sports on the Lord's Day, the principal motives whereunto were, the increase of Popery in some parts of the kingdom, occasioned by interdicting all honest Recreations on that day, and the rest of the holidays; the tendency of the Sabbatarian Doctrine to downright Judaism; some orders made by some public Ministers of Justice, for suppressing the Annual Feasts of the Dedication of Churches, commonly called Wakes; and finally, the bringing of Dancing, Running, shooting and other harmless Recreations, within the compass of the Statute made in the first Parliament of his Reign against all unlawful exercises and pastimes; in which no such thing was ever intended. And though the King's intention in it was only to ease the people from that yoke of superstition which many of their Preachers had laid upon them; yet by the practice of those Preachers, it made more noise among the People, and wakened more to appear in defence of that which they call Religion, than all the Geese in the Capitol.  
Nor did His majesty speed much better in another of his pious intentions, concerning the Conformity of parochial Churches to their Mother Cathedrals. The Dean and Chapter of S. Paul's (as Ordinaries of the place) had appointed the Communion-Table in St. Gregory's Church to be placed altarwise at the end of the Chancel, where it had stood (and by her injunctions ought to stand) in Q. Elizabeth's time. Against this some of the parishioners appealed to the Dean of the Arches, & the Dean & Chapter to the King. The cause being heard before His Majesty and the Lords of the Council on the third of November, Anno 162●. it pleased his Majesty, having first showed his dislike of all Innovations, to declare that he well approved and confirmed the Act of the said Ordinary, and also gave commandment, that if those few parishioners before mentioned, do proceed in their said Appeal, than the Dean of the Arches (who was then attending at the hearing of the Cause) shall confirm the said Order of the aforesaid Dean and Chapter. On this encouragement the Archbishop of Canterbury in his metropolitical Visitation, beginning in the year next following, and the Suffragan Bishops in their several and respective dioceses, did appoint the like, for the avoiding of those frequent inconveniences and profanations which that sacred Table had formerly been exposed unto.  
This made the Puritan Faction open wider than before they did, as foolishly afraid of the breaking in of Superstition, by this last Declaration, as of profaneness by the other. And that they might keep peace with the Scots in all particulars, they dispersed many scandalous and seditious Libels against the governors of the Church, and all that acted by and under their Authority, not sparing the king himself if he came in their way; most certain tokens and prognostics of those great Combustions which soon after followed in both kingdoms.   

1634.  
Nor were there any less Apprehensions infused into them by some zealous Patriots, who most ambitiously affected the Title of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, in the orator's language, the professed Champions of the Property and Liberty of the English Nation; the occasion this: The sovereignty of the narrow Seas, had not only been invaded by the Hollanders during the late troubles both at home and abroad; but that invasion had been justified in some public writings. And thereupon, by the Advice of Mr. Noy his attorney general, he issued certain writs in the tenth year of his Reign, Anno 1634. directed to all the Port Towns of the kingdom, to set out a certain number of ships furnished with Mariners. Ammunition, Victuals, and all other necessaries, for defence of the Realm; which Writs he afterwards extended also to the inland Counties, following therein the examples of his Predecessors, in which none was better able to instruct him, than he that gave him that Advice. By means whereof he did not only recover that Dominion, which belonged to him on the Sea, but very much improved and enriched the Land, as before is said. Which notwithstanding, some of the discontented members of the former Parliament, and others of the same party, under colour of standing in defence of the Rights and Properties of the Subject, did stubbornly oppose the payment of that imposition, in which the Honour, Wealth, and happiness of this kingdom was so much concerned. And though the King had the opinion of all the Judges, under their hands to justify his proceedings in it; yet chose he rather to proceed against them in a legal way, then to make use of any arbitrary power, or the opinion of the Judges, which extra judicially had been given in the case. And so well did he prosper in it, that when it came to be argued in the Exchequer-Chamber, of the twelve Judges, ten absolutely declared themselves for the lawfulness of it; the other two (being Crook and Hutton) dissenting openly from that opinion, to which they had formerly subscribed▪ So that here being a mixture also both of Christian and Civil Liberties, which were given out to be in danger; it is no marvel if the Faction in both Nations did conspire together, to disturb the peace and happiness of this flourishing Kingdom.   

1637.  
The ground thus laid, it was thought fit the first part of the Tragedy should be played in Scotland. The Bishops of that Church, though they liked well enough of the English Liturgy, desired a Liturgy of their own, for fear of acknowledging some dependency of that Church on this; which being composed amongst themselves, and approved by some of the English Prelates, to whom his Majesty referred the perusal of it, was recommended to the Scots for the use of that Church, and the twenty third day of July, Anno 1637. appointed for the first exercise and reading of it: on this occasion followed the sedition at Edinburgh, encouraged underhand by the marquess of Hamilton, the Earls of Roxborow and Traquair, and many other of the King's false servants, both in Court and council.  
This sedition afterwards broke out into open Action, the principal Sticklers against the Book of commonprayer, and the King's proceedings in the same, engaging the whole Nation in a solemn Covenant for the Extirpation of Episcopacy, and whatsoever they were pleased to comprehend under the general Names of heresy and Superstition, in which not only the five Articles of Perth, but the whole Common-Prayer-Book was intended by them. And that they might be sure to keep their party together, they bound themselves in the said Covenant, to stand to one another in pursuance and defence thereof, against all manner of persons whatsoever, the King himself not being excepted. And though the King, by the persuasion of Hamilton here, and his untrusty servants there, gave order for the suppressing of that Liturgy, the High Commission, the book of Canons, and even the Articles of Perth, though confirmed in Parliament, yet nothing could content their pride and insolency, but the utter abolishing of Episcopal government: which since they found the King resolved not to yield unto, they were resolved to do it without him; in their Assembly held at Glasco, abolishing the Episcopal Order, and thundering their anathemas and excommunications, not only against the Bishops themselves, but all such as adhered unto them. And that they might be beforehand with him, they intercepted his revenues, surprised all his Forts and Castles, and finally put themselves into open arms.   

1639.  
This forced the King to set forth against them, accompanied with an Army royal, and furnished with such a gallant Company of Lords and Gentlemen, as might assure him of a cheap and easy victory. But he conceiving that the terror of his coming would reduce the Scots to obedience without blows or bloodshed, resolved in himself not to outgo Muster and Ostentation; and thereupon was very easily entreated to refer all differences between them to certain Commissioners of both Kingdoms.  
By their negotiation a general Accord was made at Barwick on the seventeenth of June Anno 1639. upon which the King presently disbanded his Forces, and returned towards London, having effected nothing by his chargeable expedition, but his making the Scots more insolent then before they were, and giving them a greater Reputation in the eye of the world then before they had; of which he became assured and sensible when it was too late.  
For no sooner had he disbanded his Army, but the Pacification (such as it was) was openly protested against in the Scots Army; and many false copies of it were scattered abroad, to make it more dishonourable to the King, and of more advantage to themselves. The Officers of their Army were retained in pay, the old form of holding Parliaments in that Kingdom was altered by them, and the prerogatives of the Crown invaded; their words and actions tending to a more general Defection than before. So that the King was fain call home his sheet-anchor the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whom not long after he created Earl of Strafford, in the County of York. By whose advice, seconded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, his Majesty about the beginning of December gave a public intimation of a Parliament, to begin on the thirteenth day of April than next following.  
And it was intimated so long beforehand for these two reasons. First, that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland might in the mean time hold a Parliament in that kingdom, which he did, and managed so much to the King's advantage, that an Army of 8000 Horse and Foot was speedily raised, and money granted by the Parliament to keep them in pay, and furnish them with Ammunition, Arms, and all other necessaries. Secondly, that by the Reputation of a following Parliament, he might be the better enabled to borrow money for the carrying on of the war, in case the Parliament should fail him, as it after did. For being come together at the time appointed, instead of Acting any thing in order to his majesty's service, they were at the point of passing a Vote for blasting his war against the Scots To prevent which his Majesty was forced to dissolve them on the fifth of May, the Convocation still continuing, who granted him a Benevolence of four shillings in the pound for all their ecclesiastical promotions, to be paid six years together then next ensuing.  
The Members of the dissolved Parliament inflamed the people in all parts of the kingdom with such discontentments, which actually broke out in Southwark into open sedition, not pacified without much danger, and the executing of the principal Leader. In the middle of which Distempers his Majesty was blessed with a third Son, born on the eight of July, christened by the name of Henry, and by his majesty's command called Duke of Gloucester.   

1640.  
To welcome this young Prince into the world, the Scots put themselves into arms again, and backed by a strong faction here, thought that they could not do enough by standing on their defence at home, unless they entered England also, as they did accordingly. But they took not his Majesty unprovided, who had raised another gallant Army under the command of the Earl of Northumberland, as chief general, and the Earl of Strafford as the chief Commander under him; himself with all speed posting towards the North, as soon as the News of this invasion had been brought unto him. But scarce was he well settled in the head of his Army, but he was followed by a Petition from some Lords of England, conformable in the main points of it to a Declaration of the Scots, which they called the Intention of their Army. So that the Cloud which gathered behind him in the South, threatened more danger to him then the Northern Tempest, which blew directly in his teeth.  
Sailing thus between Scylla and Charybdis, it concerned him to steer as even a course as he could, and thereupon he summoned the great council of his Peers to attend him at York, that doing nothing in this great business without their advice, he might give himself the better hopes of their assistance, as his occasions should require. By their advice Commissioners are appointed to treat with the Scots, to understand their Grievances, the reasonableness or unreasonableness of their Demands, and finally to make up the breach by such an Accommodation as might conduce to the peace and happiness of both kingdoms, and his majesty's honour.  
In the mean time he calls a Parliament, to begin at Westminster the third day of November than next following, which if it had been held at York, as lying nearest to the danger and Scene of action, might not have proved so fatal and destructive to him as it after did.  
In the beginning of this Parliament, he cast himself on the love and loyalty of his English Subjects, in which he found himself deceived of his expectation. For the first thing they did, was to deprive him of the Counsels of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and thereby to terrify all others from adhering to him in the times of his greatest need. These they impeached of High Treason, removed them from the House of Peers, and committed them to the Tower of London, where the Archbishop stayed four years before any particular charge, or any prosecution upon that charge, was brought against him. But with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland they made quicker work, inviting the People of all the three kingdoms to bring them in such matter as they had or could devise against him; and having made all things ready for a public trial, they brought him to the Bar before the Peers, sitting in Westminster-hall on the sixth of April than next following; but he so rationally pleaded in his own behalf, and so fully satisfied all objections which were made against him, that the Commons were fain to desist from the Course which they had begun, and to proceed against him in a Bill of Attainder.  
For the better passing whereof the Commons framed a Protestation on the third of May, in many things not unlike the Scotish Covenant before mentioned, by which they bound themselves among other things, to maintain and defend the Power and privileges of Parliament, the lawful Rights and Liberties of the Subject, to endeavour to bring to condign punishment all such as shall either by Force, Practice, Plots, Counsels and Conspiracies, or otherwise, do any thing to the contrary; (amongst which they reckon the Earl of Strafford to be one) and finally to stand unto one another, and to every other person whatsoever in any thing he shall do in pursuance of the said Protestation. Which Protestation being first taken by themselves, was the next day taken also by the House of Peers, and not long after obtruded on all the rest of the Kingdom.  
But not finding this sufficient to effect their purpose, they first forced the Lords by Tumults, and afterwards the King by their importunities to pass that unhappy Bill of Attainder; which having obtained, they brought him to the Scaffold on Tower-Hill on the thirteenth of May, where with as much Christian confidence and magnanimity as could be expressed by flesh and blood, he delivered up his neck to the Executioner.  
In order to this great work which they knew the Scots much laboured for, and had declared so much in a Pamphlet called The intentions of their Army, at their first coming into England, the leading men in the house of Commons held a strict correspondency with the Scots Commissioners then residing in London, and voted no less than three hundred thousand pounds (by the name of a brotherly Assistance) to be given to the Scots in general, under colour of repairing such damages as they had sustained in the time of this breach, but in plain truth to bind them fast unto themselves. And having made sure work with them, they deprived the King by little and little of almost all the ancient and undoubted prerogatives which of right belonged unto his Crown.  
The power of calling Parliaments, in case of his neglect or refusal, is put into the hands of Sheriffs and Constables; his right to Tonnage and Poundage must be disclaimed by Act of Parliament; the Bill of the Attainder of the Earl of Strafford, and that for the continuance of this Parliament during the pleasure of the Houses, are extorted by tumults. And by the terror of the like, the Act for Knighthood is repealed, and the imposition for ship-money condemned as an illegal Tax, and abolished also. The like Acts passed against the office of the Clerk of the Market, the Court of Stanneries, his propriety in the making of gunpowder, the authority of the Council-Table, the Courts of Star-Chamber and High Commission, the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical Courts, as also the presidial Courts held for a long time in York and the Marches of Wales. And finally, that he might lose both his strength in Parliament, and his power with the People, they extorted the passing of two Acts, the one for taking away the Bishops Votes and place in the House of Peers, the other for disclaiming of his power in pressing soldiers (enjoyed by all his Predecessors) for defence of his Person and the Realm.  
And that they might the better awe the King to their Concessions, the Army of the Scots must be maintained with pay and plunder, till there was almost nothing left for them to crave, or the King to grant. But being at the last sent home, his Majesty followed not long after to settle his affairs in that broken kingdom; where to oblige that Nation to him, he confirmed not only all his former concessions by Act of Parliament, but all such things also as had been acted by them in their Assembly held at Glasco. And more than so, he parted with so much of his Eoyall Prerogative (invaded & usurped by them in the late Confusions) that he had almost nothing left remaining to him, but the empty title, the having of a Sword carried before him, and some other outward pomps of Court, which signify just nothing when the power is gone.  
This good success of the Scots encouraged the Irish Papists to attempt the like, and to attempt it in the same way as the Scots had gone; that is to say, by seizing his Towns, Forts, and Castles, putting themselves into the body of an Army, banishing or imprisoning all such as oppose their practices, and then petitioning the King for a public Exercise of their Religion. The 23. of October Anno 1641. was the day designed for the seizing of the City and Castle of Dublin, and many places of great importance in the Kingdom. But failing in the main design which had been discovered the night before by one Ocanelle, they break out into open arms, dealing no better with the Protestants there then the Covenanters had done with the royal party in Scotland,  
Of this Rebellion (for it must be called a Rebellion in the Irish, though not in the Scots) the King gives present notice to his Houses of Parliament, requiring their counsel and assistance for the extinguishing of that flame before it had wasted and consumed that kingdom. But neither the necessity of the Protestants there, nor the King's importunity here, could persuade them to levy one man towards the suppression of those Rebels, till the King had disclaimed his power of pressing soldiers in an Act of Parliament, and thereby laid himself open to such acts of violence as were then hammering against him. Which having done, they put an army of Scots (their most assured Friends) into the Northern parts of Ireland, delivering up into their hands the strong Town and Port of Carickfergus, one of the chief keys of that Kingdom; and afterwards sent a small body of English to preserve the South, which English forces having done notable service there against the Rebels, were kept so short both in respect of pay and other necessaries by the Houses of Parliament, (who had made use of the money raised for the relief of Ireland to maintain a War against their King) that they were forced to come to a Cessation, and cheerfully returned home again to assist the King in that just War which he had undertaken for his own defence. The ground and occasion of which War we are next to show.  
At such time as he was in Scotland and expostulated with some of the chiefs among them, touching their coming into England in an hostile manner, he found that some who were now leading men in the Houses of Parliament had invited them to it. And having furnished himself with some proofs for it, he commanded his Attorney general to impeach some of them of high Treason; that is to say, the L. Kimbolton, a Member of the House of Peers, Mr. Hollis, Sir Arthur Haslerig, Mr. Hambden, Mr. Pym, and Mr. Strode, of the House of Commons. But sending his sergeant at Arms to arrest their persons, there came a countermand from the House of Commons, by which the sergeant was deterred from doing his office, and the Members had the opportunity of putting themselves into the Sanctuary of the City. The next day, being the 4. of January, his Majesty being no otherwise attended then with his ordinary Guard, went to the House of Commons to demand the five Members of that House, that he might proceed against them in a way of justice; but his intention was discovered, and the birds flown before his coming.  
This was voted by the Commons for such an inexpiable breach of privilege, that neither the King's qualifying of that Action, nor his desisting from the prosecution of that impeachment, nor any thing that he could either say or do, would give satisfaction. Nothing must satisfy their jealousies and secure their fears, but the putting of the tower of London into their hands, together with the command of the Royal navy, as also all the Forts, Castles, and the Train-bands of the kingdom, all comprehended under the name of the Militia; which if his Majesty would fling after all the rest, they would continue his most loyal subjects. On this the King demurs a while, but having shipped the Queen for Holland, and got the Prince into his own power, he becomes more resolute, and stoutly holds on the denial.  
Finding the Members too strong for him, and London, by reason of the continual Tumults, to be a dangerous neighbour to him, he withdraws to York, that being in a place of safety, he might the better find a way to compose those differences which now began to embroil the kingdom. At Hull he had a Magazine of arms and ammunition provided for the late intended war against the Scots, and laid up there when the occasion of that War was taken away. Of this Town he intended to possess himself, and to make use of his own Arms and Ammunition for his own preservation; but coming before the gates of the town, he was denied entrance by Sir John Hotham, who by the appointment of the House of Commons had took charge of that place.  
The Gentry of Yorkshire who had petitioned the King to secure that magazine, became hereby more firmly united to him. The like had been done also by the yeomanry, and those of the inferior sort, if his proceedings had not been undermined by the Committee of four Gentlemen, all Members of the House, and all of them Natives of that country, sent thither purposely (in a new and unprecedent, way) to lie as Spies upon his Counsels, and as controllers to his actions.  
Some Messages there were betwixt him and the Houses of Parliament, concerning the atoning of these differences, whilst he was at York. But the XIX Propositions sent thither to him, did declare sufficiently that there was no peace to be expected on his part, unless he had made himself a cipher, a thing of no signification in the arithmetic of State.  
And now the War begins to open. The Parliament had their Guards already, and the Affront which Hotham had put upon his Majesty at Hull, prompted the Gentlemen of Yorkshire to tender themselves for a Guard to his Person. This presently voted by both Houses to be a levying of War against the Parliament, for whose defence, not only the Train-bands of London must be in readiness, and the good people of the country required to put themselves into a posture of arms; but Regiments of Horse and Foot are listed, a general appointed, great sums of Money raised, and all this under pretence of taking the King out of the hands of his evil counsellors.  
The noise of these preparations hastens the King from York to Nottingham, where he sets up his Standard, inviting all his good Subjects to repair unto him, for defence of their King, the laws and Religion of their country. He increased his Forces as he marched, which could not come unto the reputation of an Army, till he came into Shropshire, where great bodies of the loyal and stouthearted Welsh resorted to him.  
Strengthened with these, and furnished sufficiently with Field Pieces, arms and Ammunition, which the Queen had sent to him out of Holland, he resolves upon his march towards London; but on Sunday the twenty third of October was encountered in the way, at a place called Edge-Hill, by the Parliament Forces. The Fight very terrible for the time, no fewer than five thousand men slain upon the place; the Prologue to a greater slaughter, if the dark night had not put an end unto that dispute.  
Each part pretended to the victory, but it went clearly on the King's side, who though he lost his general, yet he kept the Field, and possessed himself of the dead bodies; and not so only, but he made his way open unto London, and ●n his way forced Banbury Castle, in the very sight as it were of the Earl of Essex, who with his flying Army made all the haste he could towards the City (that ●e might be there before the King) to ●ecure the Parliament. More certain ●gns there could not be of an absolute ●ictory.  
In the battle of Taro, between the Con●derates of Italy and Charles the eight ●f France, it happened so that the Confederates kept the Field, possessed themselves of the Camp, Baggage and Artillery, which the French in their breaking through had left behind them. Hereupon a dispute was raised, to whom the Honour of that day did of right belong; which all knowing and impartial men gave unto the French For though they lost the Field, their Camp, Artillery and Baggage, yet they obtained what they fought for, which was the opening of their way to France, and which the Confederates did intend to deprive them of. Which resolution in that case may be a ruling case to this; the Ki●g having not only kept the Field, posse●● himself of the dead bodies, pillaged the car●iages of the enemy, but forci●●y op●●e● his way towards London, which the enemy endeavoured to hinder, and finally entered triumphantly into Oxford, with no fewer than a● hundred and twenty Colours taken in the Fig●●.  
Having assured himself of Oxford fo● his Winter Quarters, he resolved on hi● Advance towards London, but had made so many halts in the way, that Essex was got thither before him; who had disposed of his Forces at Kingston, Brentford, Acton, and some other places there abouts, not only to stop his march, but to fall upon him in the Rear, as occasion served. Yet he goes forward notwithstanding as far as Brentford, out of which he beats two of their best Regiments, takes five hundred Prisoners, sinks their Ordnance, with an intent to march forwards on the morrow after being Sunday, and the thirteenth of November. But understanding that the Earl of Essex had drawn his Forces out of Kingston, and joining with the London Auxiliaries, lay in the way before him at a place called Turnham-Green near Cheswick, it was thought safer to retreat towards Oxford while the way was open, then to venture his Army to the fortune of a second battle, which if it were lost ●t would be utterly impossible for him ●o raise another.  
At Oxford he receives Propositions of peace from the Houses of Parliament, but such as rather did beseem a conquering then a losing side. But being resolved to treat upon them howsoever, he found the Commissioners so straightened in time, and so tied to such particular instructions as the Houses had given them, that nothing could be yielded to which might conduce to the composing of the present Distempers.  
At the opening of the Spring, the Queen came to him, who had landed at a place in Yorkshire called Burlington-Bay in the end of February, and now brought with her unto Oxford some supplies of men with a considerable stock of Powder, Arms, and Ammunition.   

1643.  
The next Summer makes him master of the North and West, some few places only being excepted. The Earl of Newcastle with his Northern Army had cleared all parts beyond Trent (but the Town of Hull) of the enemies Forces. And with his own Army under the command of Prince Rupert, and Prince Maurice (two of the younger Sons of his Sister Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia) he reduced the Cities of Bristol, and Exeter, the Port Town of Waymouth, and all the Towns of any importance in the Western parts, except Pool, Lime and Plymouth. So that he was in a manner the absolute Commander of the Counties of Wilts, Dorset, Summersault, Devon, and Cornwall. And though the Towns of Plymouth, Lime, and Pool still held out against him, yet were they so bridled by his neighbouring Garrisons, that they were not able to create him any great Disturbance.  
The noise of these successes was so loud at London, that most of the leading men in both Houses of Parliament prepared for quitting of the kingdom, and had undoubtedly so done, if the King had followed his good fortunes, and advanced towards London. But unhappily diverting upon Gloucester, he lay so long there, without doing any thing to the purpose, that the Earl of Essex came time enough to raise the Siege and relieve the Town, though he made not haste enough to recover London without blows. For besides some skirmishes on the by, which fell out to his loss, the King with the whole body of his Army overtook him at Newberry, where after a sharp fight (with the loss of the Earl of Carnarvan, the Earl of Sunderland, and the Lord Viscount Falkland on his majesty's side) he had the worst of the day, and had much ado to save his Canon, and march off orderly from the place; followed so hotly the next morning▪ that his own Horse, which were in the rear, were fain to make their way over a great part of his Foot, to preserve themselves.  
Being returned to Oxford with success and Honour, he Summons the Lords and Commons of Parliament to attend there on the twenty second day of January than next following; and they came accordingly. And for their better welcome▪ he advances Prince Rupert to the Titles of Earl of Holdernes and Duke of Cumberland, and creates James his second Son (born the Thirteenth day of October, Anno 1633) Duke of York, by which name he had been appointed to be called at the time of his Birth, that they might sit and vote amongst them. But being come, they neither would take upon themselves the name of a Parliament, nor acted much in order to his majesty's designs; but stood so much upon their terms, and made so many unhandsome motions to him upon all occasions, that he had more reason to call them a Morgrel Parliament in one of his Letters to the Queen, than they were willing to allow of.   

1644.  
And now the Summer coming on, and the time fit for Action, he dismisses them to their several dwellings, and betakes himself unto the Field. The frequent traverses whereof, the interchangeable taking and losing of Towns by the chance of war, are too many in number to be comprised in this short Abstract. It must suffice if I take notice of those only which are most considerable.  
His Majesty prevailing in the North and West, 'Twas thought fit by the ruling party in the Houses of Parliament, to crave aid of the Scots, whom they drew in the second time, by the temptations of entering into Covenant with them, for conforming of this Church with that, sharing amongst them all the Lands of the Bishops, and sacrificing to their malice the Archbishop of Canterbury, as formerly they had done the Earl of Strafford▪ But besides these plausible allurements, the Commissioners of that kingdom were to have so great a stroke in the Government of this, that the Houses could act nothing in order to the present war, no, not so much as to hold a Treaty with the King, without their consent.  
Upon these baits they entered England with a puissant Army consisting of one and twenty thousand men well armed, and fitted for the service: and having made themselves Masters of Barwick, Alnwick, and all other places of importance on the other side of the Tweed, they laid Siege to York, where they were seconded by the Army of the Earl of Manchester drawn out of the associated Counties, and the remaining Yorkshire forces under the Command of the Lord Fairfax.  
The news whereof being brought to Oxford, Prince Rupert is dispatched with as much of the King's forces as could well be spared, with a Commission to ●aise more out of the Counties of Che●ter, Salop, Stafford, Darby, Leicester, and Lancaster. So that he came before York with an Army of twelve thousand Men, relieved the Town with all things necessary, and might have gone away unfought with, but that such counsel was too cold for so hot a stomach. Resolved upon the onset, he encountered with the enemy at a place called Marston-Moor, where the left Wing of his Hor●e gave such a fierce Charge on the right Wing of the enemy, consisting of Sir Thomas Fairfax his Horse in the Van, and the Scots Horse in the rear, that they fell foul on that part of their own Foot which was made up of the Lord Fairfax his Regiments, and a reserve of the Scots, which they broke wholly, and trod most of them under their horse's feet. But the Prince's Horse following the execution too far, and none advancing to make good the place which they had left, the enemy had the opportunity to rally again, and got the better of the day; taking some Prisoners of good note, and making themselves masters of his Canon. So that not being able to do any thing in order to the regaining of the Field, he marched off ingloriously, squandered away the greatest part of his Army, and retired to Bristol.  
After this blow the Affairs of the North growing more desperate every day then other, York yielded upon composition on the sixteenth of July (being a just fortnight after the fight) the marquess of Newcastle and some principal Gentlemen past over the Seas, and the strong Town of Newcastle was taken by the Scots on the nineteenth of October following.  
In the mean time, the Queen being with child, began to draw near the time of her Delivery. And it was generally believed that the Earl of Essex with his Forces had some aim on Oxford, as the Seat royal of the King, the Residence of his Court and Council, and the Sanctuary of a considerable part of the Nobility, Gentry and Clergy. In which respect it was thought fit that the Queen should remove to Exeter, as a place more remote from danger, and not far from the Sea, by which she might take shipping for France as occasion served.  
On the sixteenth of April she began her journey, the King bearing her company as far as Abingdon, where they took leave of one another, neither of them having any the least presage, that the parting kiss which they then took was to be their last. Convoied with a sufficient strength of Horse for her security on the way, she was received there with as much magnificence as that City was able to express; and on the sixteenth day of June was safely delivered of a Daughter, whom she Christened by the name of Henrietta.  
Assoon as she had well passed over the weaknesses and infirmities incident to childbed, she committed the young Princess to the Lady Dalkeith, a Daughter of Sir Edward Villiers, one of the half Brothers of the Duke of Buckingham, and wife unto the Lord Dalkeith, the eldest Son of the Earl of Morton. Which having done (according to some instructions which she had received from the King) she took shipping at Pendennis Castle on the fifteenth of July, and passed into France, there to negotiate for some supplies of money, arms and Ammunition for the advance of his majesty's service, and to continue howsoever in the Court of the King her Brother, till she might return again in Honour and safety.  
And to say truth, her removal from Oxford was not only seasonable, but exceeding necessary at that time, the Earl of Essex, and Sir William W●ller with their several Forces not long after her departure drawing near to Oxford; on whose approach his Majesty leaving the greatest part of his Army for defence of that place, marched on directly towards Wales. Upon the News whereof, it was thought fit by the two generals, to divide their Armies; it being agreed upon that Sir William Waller should pursue the King, and that the Earl of Essex should march toward the West, for the regaining of those Countries.  
And now the mystery of iniquity appeared in its proper colours: For whereas it was formerly given out by the Houses of Parliament, that they had undertaken the war, for no other reason, but to remove the King from his evil counsellors: those evil counsellors were left at Oxford unmolested, and the King's Person only hunted.  
But the King understanding of this division, thought himself able enough to deal with Waller, and giving him the go by, returned towards Oxford, drew thence the remainder of his Army, and gave him a sharp meeting at a place called Cropredy bridge, where he obtained a signal victory on the twenty eighth of June, and entered triumphantly into Oxford. This done he marched after the Earl of Essex, who had made himself master of some places in the West of good importance.  
During this march, it happened that one of the Carriages broke in a long narrow lane which they were to pass, and gave His Majesty a stop at a time of an intolerable shower of rain which fell upon him: Some of his Courtiers, and others which were near about him, offered to hew him out a way through the hedges with their swords, that he might get shelter in some of the Villages adjoining; but he resolved not to forsake his Canon upon any occasion. At which when some about him seemed to admire, and marvelled at the patience which he showed in that extremity, His Majesty lifting up his Hat, made answer, That as God had given him Afflictions to exercise his patience, so he had given him patience to bear his Afflictions. A speech so heavenly and Divine, that it is hardly to be paralleled by any of the men of God in all the Scripture.  
The carriage being mended, he went forward again, and trod so close upon the heels of the Earl of Essex, that at last he drove him into Cornwell, and there reduced him to that point, that he put himself into a cockboat with Sir Philip Stapleton and some others, and left his whole army to his majesty's mercy. His Horse taking the advantage of a dark night, made a shift to escape, but the Commanders of the Foot came to this capitulation with his Majesty, that they should depart without their Arms, which with their Canon, Baggage and Ammunition, being of very great consideration, were left wholly to his disposing.  
Immediately after this success, his Majesty dispatched a message from Tavestock to the two houses of Parliament, in which he laid before them the miserable condition of the kingdom; remembering them of those many messages which he had formerly sent unto them, for an accommondation of the present Differences; and now desiring them to be think themselves of some expedient by which this issue of blood might be dried up, the distraction of the Kingdom settled, and the whole Nation put into an hope of Peace and happiness.  
To which Message, as to many others before, they either gave no answer, or such an one as rather served to widen, than close the breach, falsely conceiving that all his majesty's Offers of Grace and Favour proceeded either from an inability to hold out the War, or from the weakness and irresolution of his Counsels. So that the tragicomedy of the two Harlots in the first of Kings, may seem to have been acted over again on the Stage of England. The King, like the true Mother, compassionately desired that the life of the poor infant might be preserved; the Houses, like the false Mother, considering that they could not have the whole, voted that it should be neither mine nor thine, but divided betwixt them.  
But if instead of this Message from Tavestock, his Majesty had gone on his own errand, and marched with his Army towards London, it was conceived that in all probability he might have made an end of the War▪ the Army of Essex being thus broken, and that of Manchester not returned from the Northern service. But sitting down before Plymouth, and staying there to perfect an Association of the Western Counties, he spent so much time, that Essex was again in the head of his Army; and being seconded by the Earl of Manchester and Sir William Waller, made a stand at Newberry, where after a very hot fight, with variable success on both sides, each party drew off by degrees, so that neither of them could find cause to boast of the victory.  
Winter comes on, which though it be not ordinarily a time of Action, will notwithstanding afford us some variety which will not be unworthy of our observation. And first, a Garrison is formed at Abington, (a Town within five miles of Oxford) by order from the two Houses of Parliament, under the command of colonel Brown; the King and council looking on, and suffering the entrenchments to be made, the Works to be raised, and the Ordnance to be planted on the same.  
It cannot be denied, but that Sir Henry G●ge, governor at that time of Oxford, and many of the chief Commanders which were then in and about that City, offered their service to the King, and earnestly desired leave to prevent that mischief which by the entrenchments of this Town must needs fall upon them. But the Lord George Digby, not long before made principal Secretary of Estate, had persuaded the King unto the contrary, upon assurance that he held intelligence with Brown and that as soon as the Town was fortified and furnished with victual, Arms and Ammunition, at the charges of the Houses of Parliament, it would immediately be delivered into His majesty's hand. In which design he was outwitted, and consequently exposed unto some loss of reputation with all sorts of People. For Brown having brought his project to the highest round of the ladder (as himself expressed it) thought it high time to turn it off, and to declare himself for the two Houses against the King; printing not long after all the Letters which passed between him and the Lord Digby upon this occasion.  
After this followed the taking of Shrewsbury, a place of very great importance to the King, as the Gate which opened into Wales, situate on a rising ground, and almost encompassed round about by the river Severn; that part which is not environed by water, being wholly taken up and made good by a very strong Castle. By the loss of which Town the King's former intercourse with His loyal Subjects of North-Wales was not only hindered, but a present stop was given to an Association, which was then upon the point of concluding between the Counties of Salop, Flint, Chester, Worcester, &c. to the great prejudice of the King's Affairs in those Parts of the kingdom.  
Then comes the lamentable death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, kept for four years a prisoner in the Tower of London, as before was said; but reserved only as a bait to bring in the Scots, whensoever the Houses should have occasion for their second coming; as formerly on the like temptation they had drawn them in, with reference to the Earl of Strafford. The Scots being come, and doing good service in the North, it was thought fit they should be gratified with that blood which they so greedily thirsted after. And thereupon the Archbishop being voted guilty of High Treason by the House of Commons, was condemned to die in such a slender House of Lords, that only seven (viz. the Earls of Kent, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Bullingbrook, the Lord's North, Gray and brews,) were present at the passing of the sentence of his condemnation. Which being past, he was brought unto the Scaffold on Tower-hill on the tenth of January, where he ended his life with such a modest confidence, and so much piety, that his greatest enemies then present, who came to behold the Execution with hearts full of joy, returned back with eyes as full of tears.  
Last of all, comes another Treaty solicited by the King consented to by the Houses with no small difficulty, and that upon condition to have the Treaty held at Uxb●idge, a Town about fifteen miles from London, and more than twice as much from Oxford. According unto which appointment the Commissioners met on the thirtieth of January accompanied with some Divines, for debating the point of Church Government, when it came in question. But this Treaty proved as unsuccessful as that at Oxford had done before; the Commissioners for the Houses offering no expedient for an Accommodation, nor harkening unto such as were tendered to them in the name of the King. So that there being no hope of bringing the war unto an end this way, both parties were resolved to proceed in the other.  
The King having wintered his Army at Oxford and the Towns adjoining, it was thought fit to send the Prince into the West to perfect the Association which had been begun in the end of the last summer; and in those Countries to advance such further forces as might not only serve for the defence of themselves, but give some reasonable increase to His M●jesties Army.  
In the beginning of April he set forwards towards Bristol, accompanied with the Lord Culpeper and Sir Edward Hide, as his principal counsellors, and some of the chief Gentry of the West, who were of most authority in their several countries. But before he had made himself Master of any considerable strength, news c●me of the unfortunate success of the Ba●tel of Nasby, which much retarded his proceedings; and hearing afterwards that Sir Thomas Fairfax with his victorious Army was marching towards him, he quitted Somersetshire, and drew more Westward into the middle of Devonshire.  
Bristol being taken, and his majesty's affairs growing worse and worse, both there and elsewhere, he sent a Message unto Fairfax, desiring a safe conduct for the Lord Hopton, and the Lord Culpeper to go to the King and mediate with him for a Treaty with the Parliament. To which, after a fortnight's deliberation, he receives an answer the eight of November to this effect, That if he would disband his Army, and apply himself unto the Parliament, the general himself in person would conduct him thither.  
No hopes of doing good this way, and less the other, Exeter being besieged, and Barnstable taken by the enemy's forces, he leaves his Army to the Lord Hopton, and withdraws into the dukedom of Cornwall. But finding that country unable to protect him long, he passeth into the Isle of Scilly, and from thence unto the Queen his Mother, whom he found at Paris, not doubting but to receive such entertainment in that Court, as might be justly looked for by the eldest Son of a Daughter of France. Which passages I have laid together in this place, that I might follow his majesty's affairs elsewhere with the less interruption.  
The Prince being gone for Bristol, as before is said, his Majesty resolved on the approach of Summer, to relieve such of his Northern Garrisons; as had been left untaken the year before, and from thence to bestow a visit on the associated Counties. But being on his march, and having stormed the Town of Leicester in his way, he returned again so far as Daventry, upon the news that Sir Thomas Fairfax newly made general in the place of Essex, was sat down before Oxford.  
Concerning which we are to know, that not long after the beginning of this everlasting Parliament, the Puritan Faction became subdivided into Presbyterians and Independents; of which the Presbyterians at the first carried all before them. The Independents growing up by little and little, and being better studied in the arts of dissimulation, easily undermined the others, and outed their lord-general, and all that commanded under him, of their several places, under colour of an Ordinance for self-denial. That done, they conferred that command on Sir Thomas Fairfax, a man of more Precipitation than Prudence, not so fit for counsel as Execution, and better to charge on an Enemy then command an Army. With him they joined colonel Oliver Cromwell (whom they dispensed with in the point of self-denial) by the name of Lieutenant General; but so that he disposed of all things as Commander in chief, and left Fairfax to his old trade of Execution, to which he had been accustomed.  
The like alteration happened also in the King's Army; colonel Sir Patrick Ruthen, a man of approved valour and Fidelity, being by his Majesty made Earl of Forth in Scotland, was on the death of the Earl of Lindsey made the Lord Lieutenant of his Armies; and the next year made Earl of Brentfort, for the good service he had done in that place. Having both fortunately and faithfully discharged that office for two years and more, he was outed of his place by a Court-contrivement made in the favour of Prince Rupert, who a little before Christmas last was declared Generallissimo of his majesty's Forces: which he most ambitiously aspired unto, and at last obtained, notwithstanding his late defeat at Marston-Moor, his squandring away so brave an army, and his apparent want of Age, Experience and Moderation for so great a trust.  
By these new Generals the fortune of the War, and the whole estate of the kingdom, which lay then at stake, came to be decided. For Fairfax hearing that the King was come back as far as Daventry (which was the matter he desired) made directly towards him, with an intent to give him battle, and at a place near Naseby in Northamptonshire, the two Armies met on Saturday the 14. of June. The King had the better at the first, but Prince Rupert having routed one wing of the enemy's Horse, followed the chase so unadvisedly, that he left the foot open to the other wing; who pressing hotly on them, put them to an absolute rout, and made themselves Masters of his Camp, Carriage and Canon, and amongst other things, of his majesty's Cabinet, in which they found many of his Letters, most of them written to the Queen, which were after published with little honour to them that did it. For whereas the Athenians on the like success had intercepted a packet of Letters from Philp King of Macedon, their most bitter enemy, unto several friends, all the rest of those Letters being broke open before the Common Council of Athens, one of which was subscribed to the Queen Olympias, was returned untouched; the whole Senate thinking it a shameful and dishonest act to discover and betray the conjugal secrets betwixt man and wife. A modesty in which those of Athens stand as much commended by Helladius Bisantinus, an ancient Writer, as the chief leading men of the Houses of Parliament are like to stand condemned for the want of it in succeeding Histories.  
But we return unto the King; who having saved himself by flight, gathered together some part of his scattered Forces, but never was able to make head against the conquerors; losing one place after another, till his whole strength was almost reduced to Oxford, and some few Garrisons adjoining. I shall take notice only of some of the principal, viz. Chester, Conway, Hereford, Bristol, and Exeter, on which so great a part of his affairs did most especially depend.  
Chester first comes within the danger, a City of great importance in those parts of the Kingdom. To the relief of this place then besieged by Sir William Brereton, colonel Jones, and others of that party, and at that time brought to some distress, he made all the convenient speed he could; but was pursued upon the way, and charged in front by the besiegers, betwixt whom this small Army was routed at a place called Bauton-Heath, and the Lord Bernard Stuart (newly created Earl of Lichfield) killed upon the place; the last of three brethren that had lost their lives in their Prince's quarrel.  
On this discomfiture, the King draws towards the North-East, and commands the Lord Digby with the Remainder of his Horse to march for Scotland, and there to join with the marquess of Montrosse, who with small strengths had acted Miracles in that kingdom. But at a Village in Yorkshire called Sherbourn (a fatal name, but pointing to another place) where he surprised 700 of the Parliaments Foot, he he was set upon by colonel Cotly, his Forces made drunk with the good fortune of the day very easily mastered, and he himself compelled to fly into Ireland, never returning since that time to his Native Country.  
But notwithstanding the King's misfortune before mentioned, which happened on the twenty ninth of September; the Lord Byron, who had the command of the Garrison in Chester, held it out gallantly till the first of February; and then perceiving that there was no hopes of any Succour, came to an honourable composition, and gave up the Town, the greatest part of the country falling into the same condition with their mother City.  
Before we leave the northwest parts, we must look upon the fortune of the Town and Castle of Conway, a place of principal Command on that narrow channel which runneth between the County of Carnarvan and the Isle of Anglesey. Before this Town, being then besieged by colonel Mitton came Doctor John Williams, formerly Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England, and at that time Archbishop of York: Who to ingratiate himself with the Houses of Parliament, and to save the charges of compounding for Delinquency, came with some forces to the aid of the Besiegers (some say in Armour) and encamped there till the place was taken; to the Amazement of the world and the eternal infamy and reproach of his Person.  
Bristol comes next, a place conveniently seated for the Trade of Spain, the River capable of great Ships, and the port well guarded. At the taking of this City by the King's Forces, to such strengths as before it had, there was added a Fort royal (as they called it) then conceived impregnable; into this City Prince Rupert (who had spent there too much of the year before) had put himself at the present, and was besieged not long after by Sir Thomas Fairfax, who came before it on the twenty fourth of August, and had it surrendered to him without any memorable resistance, together with the old Castle and royal Fort, on the thirteenth of September.  
The quick surrendry of which place, being so well fortified and furnished with victual, Arms and Ammunition, and the weak defences which were made to preserve the same, created some suspicion of disloyalty in Prince Rupert towards the King his Uncle. There had before passed some Letters betwixt the King and him, touching the Kings coming to a speedy agreement with his Houses of Parliament, in which the King was pressed so far, that he seemed to be displeased at it. And now this news coming on the neck of those Letters, startled him into such a distrust of his nephew's Loyalty, that he dispatched a messenger with all speed to the Lords at Oxford, to displace colonel William Legg (one of the Confidents of Prince Rupert) who had succeeded Sir Henry Gage in the Government of that City, and to put into his place Sir Thomas Glenham, a Gentleman of known extraction, and more known fidelity.  
Nor were the Lords of the Council less amazed at the news than his Majesty was, who thereupon, when Prince Rupert and his Brother Maurice returned to Oxford, commanded them to be disarmed, and would not suffer them to walk the streets with their Swords by their sides, as they had done formerly; though afterwards by the King's great goodness, they were restored to all apparences of favour, though not to any special places of Command or Trust.  
Hereford follows the same fortune, which having in vain been besieged by the Scots, from the 13 of July to the first of September, was suddenly surprised by colonel Birch and colonel Morgan (this last than governor of Glocster) on the eighteenth of December.  
Exeter holds out longest, and was last attempted, such blocks as lay in the way between Fairfax his Army and that City being first in the course of war to be removed. Which took up so much time that it was the twenty fifth day of January before Fairefax could come near enough to give it a Summons, and being summoned it held out till the thirteenth of April, and then was yielded upon as honourable Conditions as any other whatsoever; all other Garrisons in the West being first surrendered, the Prince's forces worsted at Torrington, not long after disbanded upon Composition, and he himself retired into France for his personal safety.  
All these mischances thus happening on the neck of one another, all the King's hopes and expectation rested upon the coming of Sir Jacob Astley, created Lord Astley of Reading two years since; Who having kept together some Remainders of the King's Forces since the Fight near Chester, and increasing them with the Accession of some fresh supplies, marched towards the King, and was to have been met upon the way by Sir John Campsfield with the Oxford Horse. But either through the want of intelligence, or the necessity of fate, or some occasional delays, it was so long before Campsfield was upon his march, that the news came of the Lord Astleys being vanquished at a place called Donnington near Stow on the Wold, on the 21 of March. In which fight himself was taken prisoner, and with him all the King's hopes lost of preserving Oxford, till he could better his condition.   

1646.  
In this extremity he left that City in disguise on the 27 day of April, Anno 1646. and on the fourth of May put himself into the hands of the Scots, then lying at the siege of Newark. After the taking of which Town, they carried him to Newcastle, and there kept him under a Restraint.  
The news hereof being brought to Oxford, and seconded by the coming of the whole Army of Sir Thomas Fairfax, who laid siege unto it, disposed the Lords of the Council, and such of the principal Gentry who had the conduct of the Affair, to come to a speedy Composition. According whereunto, that City was surrendered on midsummer day; James Duke of York the King's second Son, together with the Great Seal, Privy Seal, and Signet, were delivered up into the hands of the enemy: by whom the young Duke was sent to Westminster, and kept in the House of S. James under a guard with his Brother and Sisters; the Seals being carried into the House of Peers, and there broke in pieces.  
But long these young Princes were not kept together under that restraint, the Princess Henrietta being in a short time after conveyed into France by the Lady Dalkieth; and the Duke of York, attired in the habit of a young Lady transported into Holland by one Captain Bamfield.  
The Scots in the mean time being desirous to make even with their Masters, to receive the wages of their iniquity, and to get home in safety, with that spoil and plunder which they had gotten in their marching and remarching betwixt Tweed and Hereford, had not the patience to attend the leisure of any more voluntary surrendries They therefore pressed the King to give order to the marquess of Ormond in Ireland, and to all the governors of his Garrisons in England, to give up all the Towns and Castles which remained untaken, to such as should be appointed to receive them for the Houses of Parliament, assuring him that otherwise they neither could nor durst continue him in their protection.  
To this necessity he submitted, but found not such a general obedience to his commands as the Scots expected. For not the marquess of Ormand only, but many of the governors of Towns and Castles in England considered him as being under a constraint and speaking rather the sense of others then his own; upon which grounds they continued still upon their guard, in hope of better times or of better conditions.  
But nothing was more hotly pressed by the Scots, then that the marquess of Montrosse should lay down his Commission, who with small strength in the beginning, and inconsiderable forces when they were at the best, had acted things in Scotland even unto admiration. For besides many victories of less consequence, he had twice beaten the marquess of Argile out of the field, followed him home, and wasted his country with Fire and Sword. He vanquished Baily, one of the best soldiers of the Faction, commanding over a well-formed Army in a set battle fought between them; followed his blow, and made himself Master of the City and Castle of Edinburgh, releasing divers of his Friends who had been seized and imprisoned there when he first took Arms. Have the Lord Digby's Horse come to him, he had not only perfected, but assured the conquest of that kingdom. But instead of those aids which he expected, he was unexpectedly set upon, and his whole Army broken by David Lesley, sent from the Scots Army in England with six thousand Horse to oppose the progress of his fortune; whose coming being known to the Earl of Roxborow and Traquair, (in whom the King continued still his wonted confidence) was purposely concealed from him; to the end that he being once suppressed, and in him the King's power destroyed in Scotland, they might be sure from being called to an account of their former Treasons: however he began to make head again, and was in a way of well-doing, when he received the Kings command to disband his Forces; to which he readily conformed, took ship, and put himself into a voluntary exile.  
These Obstacles removed, his Majesty conceived some thoughts of finding Sanctuary in Scotland, the Scots having first assured him, (as he signified by Letter to the marquess of Ormond) before he put himself into their hands, that they would not only take his person, but so many of his party also as repaired unto him, into their protection, and stand to him with their lives and fortune. According to which hopes on his part, and those assurances on theirs, he had a great mind to return to his Native country, his Ancient and Native kingdom, as he used to call it, there to expect the bettering of his condition in the changes of time.  
But the Scots hearing of his purpose, and having long ago cast off the yoke of Subjection, voted against his coming to them in a full Assembly; so that we may affirm of him as the Scripture doth of Christ our Saviour, viz. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. The like resolution also was entertained by the Commissioners of that Nation, and the chief Leaders of their Army, who had contracted with the Houses of Parliament, and for the sum of two hundred thousand pounds in ready money, sold and betrayed him into the hands of his Enemies, as certainly they would have done with the Lord Christ himself for half the money, if he had bowed the Heavens and came down to visit them.  
By the Commissioners sent from the Houses to receive him, he was conducted to Holdenby a fair house of his own, and one of the goodliest Piles in England, situate not far from Naseby, (to the intent that he might be continually grieved with the sight of the fatal place of his overthrow) but kept so close that none of his domestic servants, no, not so much as any of his own Chaplains were suffered to have access unto him.  
In the mean time a breach began betwixt the Presbyterian Party in both Houses and some chief Officers of the Army, which growing every day wider and wider, one Cornet Joice, with a considerable party of Horse, was sent to seize on his majesty's Person, and bring him safe to their head Quarters. There at the first he was received with all possible demonstrations of Love and Duty, some of his Chaplains licenced to repair unto him, and read the Book of commonprayer, as in former times, and the way open to all those of his party who desired to see him.  
This made the Animosities between those of the two Houses and the Army to be far greater than before, the City closing with that party of the Houses which desired the Kings coming to the Parliament, and going down in a tumultuous manner required the present voting of a Personal Treaty. This made the Speaker and such of both Houses, as either held for the Army, or had no mind to see the King's Return to London, to quit the Parliament, and to betake themselves to their Protection; encouraged wherewith they resolved upon their march towards London, to restore those members to their Houses, and those Houses to the Power and Freedom of Parliaments. Upon the noise of whose Approach, the Citizens who before spoke big, and had begun to raise an Army, under the Command of the Lord Willowby of Parham, sent their Petitions for a peace, and gladly opened all their works between Hyde-park Corner and the Thames, to make an entrance for the Army; who having placed their Speakers in their several chairs, and suppressed those of the opposite party, made a triumphant passage through the chief Streets of the City, with Trumpets sounding, Drums beating, and Colours flying.  
The King removed from one place to another, was brought in the course of those Removes to Casam Lodge, an House of the Lord Cravens not far from Reading, where he obtained the favour of giving a meeting to his Children at Maydenhith, and there they dined together; the general willingly consenting, and the Houses then not daring to make any denial.  
From thence he was at last brought to his own Palace of Hampton Court, where being terrified with the Apprehension of some Dangers, which were given out to be designed against his person by the Agitators, who for a time much governed the lower part of the Army, he left that place, accompanied only with two or three of his servants, and put himself unfortunately into the power of colonel Hammond in the Isle of Wight, where no relief could come unto him.  
Being secured in Carisbrook Castle, Propositions are sent to him from the Houses of Parliament, as had been done before at Newcastle, and Holdenby-House: to which he returned the same Answer now as he did before, their Demands being nothing bettered, and his condition nothing worse than before it was. Provoked wherewith, the Houses past their Votes of Non-Addresses to his Majesty, and take the Government upon themselves, as in the times of Vacancy and Inter-regnum in the State of Rome; wherein they were confirmed by a Declaration from the Army, binding themselves to stand to them in defence of those Votes.  
During the time of these restraints, he betook himself to meditation, and then composed that most excellent Book entitled {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, or the portraiture of his sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings. The Honour of this work some mercenary Sticklers for the two Houses of Parliament have laboured to deprive him of, and to transfer it to some other, though they know not whom. But it is well known to all that knew him, that his Majesty had always a fine stroke with his pen, which he practised at all times of leisure and recess from business, from before his coming to the Crown, to these last extremities. By which means he became Master of a pure and elegant style, as both his intercepted Letters, and those to Mr. Henderson at Newcastle in the point of Episcopacy (where he could have no other helps but what he found in himself) do most clearly evidence.   

1648.  
And now the Subjects of both Kingdoms, which before had joined in Arms against him, began to look upon his Estate with Commiseration; and seeing they could obtain no favour, or freedom for him in the way of Petition, they resolved to try their fortunes in the way of Force.  
And first a very considerable part of the royal Navy, encouraged by Captain Batten, formerly vice-admiral to the Earl of Warwick, was put into the power of the Prince of wales to be made use of for his majesty's service in that sad condition; and next the Kentish, who twice or thrice before had showed their readiness to appear in Arms on his behalf, put themselves into a posture of War under the conduct of one Master Hales (an Heir of great hope and expectation) and after under the command of George Lord Goring Earl of Norwich. The ●arl of Holland, whom he had cherished in his bosom, and who unworthily deserted him in the first beginning of his troubles, repenting when it was too late, of his great disloyalties, began to raise some small Forces in the County of Surrey; Langhern, Poyer, and Powel, who before had served under the pay of the Houses, seized on some strong Towns and Castles in South-wales, and declared against them; the Castle of Pomfret was surprised by Stratagem, and kept by them who had surprised it, for his majesty's service. And finally the marquess of Hamilton (not long before created Duke Hamilton of Arran) having raised a strong Army of Scots, confederated himself with Sir Marmaduke Langdale, and Sir Thomas Glenham and others of the King's party in the North, and having Garrisoned the Towns of Berwick and Carlisle, past into England with his Forces under colour of restoring the King to his Crown and Liberty.  
But these eruptions in both Kingdoms, though they might give hi● Majesty some hopes of a better condition, yet did they not take him off from looking seriously into himself, and taking into Consideration those things which had formerly passed him, and which might seem most to have provoked God's displeasure against him.  
And what they were which most particularly grated on his Conscience appeareth by the Prayer and Confession which he made for the times of his Affliction; and is this that followeth, viz. Almighty and most merciful Father, as it is only thy goodness that admits of our imperfect Prayers, and the knowledge that thy mercies are infinite, which can give us any hope of thy accepting or granting them; so it is our bounden and necessary Duty to confess our Sins freely unto thee: and of all men living, I have most need, most reason so to do, no man having been so much obliged by thee, no man more grievously offending thee: that Degree of knowledge which thou hast given me, adding likewise to the guilt of my Transgressions. For was it through ignorance that I suffered innocent blood to be shed by a false pretended way of Justice? Or that I permitted a wrong way of thy worship to be set up in Scotland, and injured the Bishops in England? O no; but with shame and grief I confess, that I therein followed the persuasions of worldly wisdom, forsaking the Dictates of a right-informed Conscience. Wherefore O Lord, I have no excuse to make, no hope left but the multitude of thy mercies; for I know my repentance weak, and my Prayers faulty. Grant therefore, merciful Father, so to strengthen my repentance, and amend my Prayers, that thou Mayst clear the way for Thine own mercies; to which O let thy Justice at last give place, putting a speedy end to my deserved Afflictions. In the mean time, give me Patience to endure, Constancy against temptations, and a Discerning Spirit to choose what is best for thy Church and People which thou hast committed to my charge. Grant this, O most merciful Father, for thy Son Jesus Christ's sake, our only Saviour, Amen.  
Now as the King thus armed himself against all future events, in the middle of these hopes and expectations; so the Houses of Parliament were not wanting to themselves in their care and diligence to destroy those hopes, and make those expectations fruitless and of no effect. For the Storm thus breaking out on all sides, Lieutenant general Cromwell with some part of the Army is ordered to march into Wales; where he reduced such Towns and Castles under his command as had before been manned against them, the three chief Captains above named yielding themselves upon the hopes of that mercy which they never tasted. This done he hasteneth towards the Scots, whom he found in Lancashire, discomfits them, takes all their Foot, with their Canon, Arms, and Ammunition. The Duke or marquess, with his Horse, which had escaped out of the fight, were so closely followed by the diligence of the pursuers, that most of his Horse being slain or taken, himself was sent Prisoner unto London.  
Following his blow, Cromwell bestows a visit on Scotland, suppresses all those in that kingdom, who stood in any sort suspected of the crime of Loyalty, the Towns of Berwick and Carlisle being delivered into his hands without blows or bloodshed. An expedition which he made good use of in his following Counsels, discovering by this means the weakness and condition of the country, the irreconcilable Factions and part-takings amongst the great ones of that Realm, on whose divided wills and pleasures all the rest depended; and on what side they lay most open and assaultable, when any further occasion should be taken (as there after was) to attempt upon them.  
In the mean time some Troops of the other part of the Army scatter the weak forces of the Earl of Holland, who flying towards the North, is taken at Saint Neots in the County of Huntingdon, and sent Prisoner unto London also. The Kentish being either scattered, or forced over the Thames, put themselves into the Town of Colchester, and are there besieged by Sir Thomas Fairfax himself with his part of the Army. The issue of which Siege was this, that after some extremities endured by the besieged, the place was yielded upon composition, the Townsmen to be safe from plunder, the soldiers and their Commanders to yield themselves Prisoners absolutely without any Conditions. The Principal of these were the Lord Capel, Sir Charles Lucas, and Sir George Lisle, all of them of approved valour and fidelity: of which the two last were shot to death upon the place, the first reserved for the Scaffold; on which he looked death in the face with as much magnanimity, as Hamilton and Holland (who suffered at the same time with him) entertained it with a poorness and Dejection of Spirit.  
And which was worst (because it lost some Reputation to the Prince in his first Attempt) the mariners growing discontented that Prince Rupert was appointed to be their admiral, instead of the Lord Willobie of Parham, by whom they desired to be commanded, fell off with many of their Ships, and returned again to their old admiral the Earl of Warwick. By the withdrawing of which Ships he was rendered the less able to do any thing considerable on the Sea, and landing with some Forces near Deal-Castle in Kent, sped not so fortunately as both his Friends hoped and himself expected.  
But notwithstanding these Successes, the Houses seeing how desirous the whole Nation was of a personal Treaty, recalled their Votes of No-Address, and ordered that a personal Treaty should be held with his Majesty at Newport in the Isle of wight, to begin on the eighteenth day of September next following. But the Commissioners which were sent to manage this Treaty, spent so much time upon each Nicety and punctilio of the Propositions, before they drew towards a Conclusion, that they gave the Officers of the Army too much opportunity to frame and publish a Remonstrance, bearing date at S. Albans on the sixteenth of November. In which it was declared that the King was the sole cause of all that bloodshed which had been made in the kingdom, that he was incapable of any further trust in the public government, and that nothing could be more expedient to the safety of the commonwealth, then to bring him to the Bar of Justice. Nor stayed they there, but in pursuit of this Design, some of the Officers were appointed to go into the Isle of Wight, and having seized upon his Person to bring him over to Hurst Castle in Hampshire, from whence they brought him by degrees to Windsor, and at last to Westminster. And on the other side, the Independent Party in the House of Commons (holding intelligence with the Army) voted his majesty's Concessions to be so unsatisfactory, that no well-grounded Peace could be built upon them.  
In the next place, a care was taken by the Army to purge the House of all those members to whom his majesty's condescensions had given satisfaction. Which done, a New Court, called the High Court of Justice, is to be set up, a precedent of the same appointed, certain Commissioners nominated to Act as Judges, and a set time designed to call his Majesty to a trial, in an unprecedented way, before his Subjects.  
It is reported that at his going from the Bar, one of the soldiers most barbarously spit in his face, and used very reproachful words against him. Which though his Majesty suffered with his wonted patience, yet the Divine vengeance would not suffer it to go unrevenged; that wretch being not long after condemned in a Court of War, for some endeavours to make a Mutiny in the Army, and openly sho● to death in S. Paul's churchyard.  
And now Saturday the 20 of January, the day of his appearing being come, his Majesty was brought from the Palace of Saint James unto Westminster Hall, to appear before the new Judges, and answer unto all particulars which are thought fit to be objected.  
His appearance could not be avoided, in regard he was under a constraint; but no constraint could force his will to make him acknowledge their Authority, or submit himself unto their judgement. He would not so betray the Liberty of the English Subject (as he plainly told them) to any arbitrary and lawless Power, as he must needs do by submitting unto their proceedings; and therefore since the Laws and Liberties of the Land were now in question, he stood resolved to die a Martyr for them both. For which contempt (having stood resolutely on the same term, as oft as he was brought before them) he was sentenced on Saturday the twenty seventh of the same month to lose his life, by the dividing of his head from his body.  
That fatal morning being come, the Bishop of London, who attended on him in that sad exigent, read the morning Prayers, and for the first Lesson thereof, the 27 Chapter of S. Matthews Gospel, relating the History of our saviour's Sufferings under Pontius Pilate, by the practice of the chief Priests, the Scribes and Pharisees, and others of the Great Council of the Jewish Nation. At first his Majesty conceived that the Bishop had made choice of that Chapter, as being very agreeable to his present condition; But when he understood that it was the Chapter which the Church had appointed for that day in her public calendar, he seemed to apprehend it with some signs of rejoicing.  
No sooner had he done his Devotions, but he is hurried to White-hall, out of the Banqueting-house, whereof a way was forced to a Seaffold on which he was to act the last part of his Tragedy in the sight of the people. Having declared that he died a Martyr for the laws of this kingdom, and the Liberties of the Subjects, he made a Confession of his Faith, insinuating that he died a true Son of the Church of England, he betook himself to his private Devotions, and patiently submitted that Royal Head to an Executioner, which had before been crowned with so much outward Pomp and Splendour.  
The Members of both Houses had often promised him in their Petitions, Messages and Declarations, that they would make him a great and glorious King, and now they were as good as their words, changing his fading but painful Crown of Thorns, which they first plaited for him, to an immarcessible Crown of Glory.  
At his first coming to the Crown, one of his Chaplains in Ordinary, and now a Bishop in this Church, taking good heed unto the close contrivances of some, and the seditious actings of others in his two first Parliaments, thought fit to give him and his Council such an item of it, as might awaken them to prevent those mischiefs which otherwise might ensue upon it. And thereupon he preached before them on these words of S. Matthews Gospel, viz, But when the husbandmen saw the Son, they said among themselves, This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance, Mat. 21.38. In the dissecting of which Text, he made such an Anatomy of the Husbandmen, whom he had in hand (with reference to some Plots and practices which were then on foot) and his whole discourse upon the same, that he gave the King and those about him such Remembrances, as might make them have an eye unto themselves and the public safety. But then withal (though he carried on the matter with great care and prudence) he drew so much danger on himself from some leading Members in the second Parliament, who thought themselves as much concerned in the Sermon as the chief Priest and Pharisees did in the Parable, that he was upon the point of leaving the kingdom, when he had news that his Majesty had dissolved the second Parliament in no small displeasure.  
What he then preached concerning the said Husbandmen, was after practised, and that he then foresignified was accomplished now. Which shows him to have been both a Priest and a Prophet, if at the least the name of a Prophet may be given unto any man who foretelleth not of things to come by Divine Revelation, but out of a deep insight into business.  
But we return unto the King, whom if we look on in his Children (the most lively Images and Representations of deceased Parents) we shall find him to have been the Father of four Sons and five Daughters.  
1. CHARLES-JAMES born at Greenwich on Wednesday the 13. of May, 1629. but died almost as soon as born, having been first christened by Dr. Web, one of the Chaplains in Attendance, and afterwards a Bishop in Ireland.  
2. CHARLES Duke of Cornwall by Birth, Prince of Wales in Designation, and Knight of the Garter, born at his majesty's house of Saint James near Westminster, May 29. 1630. solemnly crowned King of the Scots at Edinburgh on the first day of January, Anno 1650. But being invaded by an Army from England, under the command of general Cromwell, he was forced to quit that kingdom and try his fortunes in the other; so closely followed by the Army, which compelled him to that Expedition, he was fought with near Worcester on the third of September 1651. before the Earl of Darby and some others of his party here could come to aid him with their Forces. In which battle, though he acted beyond the expectation of his Friends, and to the great applause of his very Enemies; yet it so pleased the Divine Providence that he lost the day, and being miraculously preserved (notwithstanding the diligent search which was made after him) he passed safely over into France to the Queen his Mother. Finding that Court unsafe for him, he passed into Flanders, accompanied with his Brother the Duke of York, Anno 1654. where they have continued ever since.  
3. JAMES born in the same place on the 13. day of October Anno 1633 entitled Duke of York by his majesty's command at the time of his birth; created so by Letters Patents, bearing date at Oxford, January 27. Anno 1643. and not long after made Knight of the Garter. Taken prisoner at the surrendry of Oxford, June 24. 1646. he was carried to his majesty's house of Saint James, and there kept under a Guard with his Brother and Sister; but being attired in the habit of a young Lady, he was conveyed thence about two years after by one colonel Bamfield, who brought him safely into Holland, and presented him a most welcome guest to the Princess of Orange, from whence he passed afterwards into France to his Mother and Brother.  
4 HENRY born on the eighth of July, designed to the dukedom of Gloucester, and so commanded to be called. Left by his Majesty at the House of Saint James (the place of his birth) at such time as he withdrew towards the North, Anno 1642, he remained there till the Death of his Father, and some years after, and then upon the promise of an Annual pension, was permitted to go into France to his Mother and the rest of the King's Children. But in the year 1654. almost as soon as his two elder Brethren had removed themselves into Flanders, he found a strong practice in some of the Queen's Court to seduce him to the Church of Rome, whose Temptations he resisted beyond his years, and thereupon was sent for by them into Flanders.  
5. MARY born on the fourth of November, 1631. and married to Count William of Nassau Eldest Son to HENRY Prince of Orange, on Sunday the second of May, Anno 1641. conveyed by the Queen her Mother into Holland in February following, where she still remains. Her Husband having succeeded his Father in all his Titles and Estates, died young, and left her the hopeful Mother of a Son, now Prince of Orange.  
6. ELIZABETH born the twenty eighth of January 1635. survived her Father, but died with heart's grief not long after.  
7. ANNE born the seventeenth of March 1637. died before her Father.  
8. Katherine, who died almost as soon as born.  
9 HENRIETTA born at Exeter June the sixteenth 1644. conveyed not long after into France by the Lady Dalkeith to the Queen her Mother, where she still remains.  
It is observed of the wolf, that as soon as he is once full he begins to howl, and such a howling fit fell at this time on the Presbyterians. They had carried on this Tragedy to the very last Act from the first bringing in of the Scots to the beginning of the war, and from the beginning of the war till they had brought him prisoner into Holmby-House, and then quarrelled with the Independents for taking the work out of their hands, and robbing them of the long-expected fruits of their Plots and practices. They cried out against them in their Pulpits, and clamoured against them in their Pamphlets for this most execrable fact, of which themselves were parcel-guilty at the least, Et si non re, at voto pariter Regicidae, &c.  
On the other side, the Independents, who had washed their hands in the blood of the King, seemed as desirous as the Presbyterians to wash their hands of it. By them it was alleged more calmly, that they had put Charles Stuart to death, against whom they had proceeded as the sole cause of so much bloodshed; but that the King had been murdered a long time before by the Presbyterians, when they deprived him of his Crown, his Sword and his sceptre; of his Crown, by forcing from him those Prerogatives which placed him in a Throne of Eminence above his People; of his Sword, by wresting the Militia out of his hands, by which he was made unable to protect them; and finally, of his sceptre, in divesting him of the power of calling Parliaments, and of his Negative voice in making those Laws by which he was to govern all estates of men under his Dominion. And more than so, that they had deprived him of his natural Liberty, as he was a Man, of the society of his Wife, as he was a Husband, of conversation with his Children, as he was a Father, of the attendance of his Servants, as he was a Master, and in a word, of all those comforts which might make life valued for a Blessing. So that there was nothing left for the Independents to do, but to put an end to those Calamities, into which this miserable man, this vir dolorum (as he might very well be called) had been so accursedly plunged by the Presbyterians.  
Thus did each party seek to shift the guilt of this most execrable Act upon one another, and thus fell CHARLES the meekest of Men and the best of Princes, leaving behind him an example of Christian fortitude, in suffering patiently that blow, which neither the Law of God or man, nor any deservings of his own could inflict upon him.  
His body being removed to Windsor was there interred in the same Vault with K. Henry the 8. but not interred with that solemnity, nor in that public form and manner which is appointed in the Liturgy of the Church of England, of which he had been always a devout Observer, and to the last a resolute Patron and Defender. His funeral solemnised and his Death lamented with fewer tears than can be easily imagined; men bleeding inwardly from their hearts, when their eyes durst not express outwardly what grief they felt. So dangerous were the times, Vt suspiria etiam subscriberentur (as Tacitus affirmeth of the times of Domitian a most cruel Tyrant) that men's very sighs were registered and kept upon account toward the undoing of many in the time to come.  
But though he died thus in the strength of his years, he still lives in the memories of all good men, and by that most excellent Portraiture which he hath made of himself, will be preserved alive amongst all Nations, and unto all succeeding Ages. The portraiture of King Charles in his Solitudes and Sufferings, will be a Character of his Parts and Piety beyond all expressions but his own; a Monument of richer metal than all the Tombs of brass or Marble erected to the honour of his Predecessors; which no Inscription whatsoever, though in Letters of Gold, and engraven with a pen of Diamonds, can be able to parallel.  
And so I shut up this short View of the Life and Reign of this glorious King, as Tacitus doth the Life of Julius Agricola, a right noble Roman (the names of the persons only changed) viz. Quiquid ex Carolo amavimus, quicquid mirati sumus, manet mansurumque est in animis hominum, in aeternitate temporum, fama rerum.  Horat. Carm. lib. 1. Ode 24. 
Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit,  
Nulli flebilior quam mihi—   
THE END.