AN answer To a Scandalous lying Pamphlet, entitled PRINCE Rupert His DECLARATION.  
Published in the vindication of the honour of the High Court of Parliament and their Army, from the untrue and malicious aspersions cast on them in the said Pamphlet.  
And dedicated to the Right Honourable the Lords and Commons now assembled in that sacred Senat.  
By their humblest Honourer the Author G. H.  
Invidia Siculi non invenere Tyranni Majus tormentum—  
LONDON, Printed for John Matthewes.   

An Answer to a scandalous flying Pamphlet, entitled Prince Rupert his Declaration.  
IT may appear a strange and presumptuous insolence in a private person of almost no name nor knowledge, to engage himself as it were the champion of the public Fame, wounded and delacerated by this Declaration (if his it be) of Prince Rupert's▪ But since no man of more eminence has undertaken the quarrel, though my modesty deterred me, as that of the Prince of Poets Virgil, when he was to write his AEneiads:  
Cum canerem Reges & praelia, Cinthius aurem  
Vellit & admonuit, &c.  
Yet my reason assured me it was a dire and dreadful injustice that such a malicious aspersion should be intruded on the best ornament of the High Court of Parliament, (its innocence) and so resolved, as the Poet speaks of one;  

— ausus concurrere Comminus hosti  
Retorqueo jaculum.—   
I am entered the Lists against that mighty Mars of the Malignants, Prince Rupert, and doubt not having Minerva's shield, the buckler of truth, to protect me, not only to come safe off (but in the eyes of all indifferent Judges) victorious from this combat.  
Briefly then to his preamble, I shall only note in it the turbulent acrimony and unjust malice of his spirit, that dares so manifestly and falsely charge the time with odious and impossible untruths against His sacred Majesty, when surely no time has ever been more careful to preserve His majesty's honour, no persons more diligent in searching out the Authors of scandalous Pamphlets against His Majesty, nor punishing them when found, than the High Court of Parliament. Witness their exemplary justice on Walker the Ironmonger, and their serious endeavours to have found out the writer as well as the Printer of that calumnious Pamphlet, entitled King James His judgement; because there were some clauses in it that might be interpreted reflective on the honour of His Majesty, which Prince Rupert surely more afflicts in striving to fix those supposed aspersions on His credit, than ever His people here have done, who have been always ready to defend it: Nor could he have ever had occasion, to say the King is only guilty of being too good to be our King. Surely His subject's duty had according to its quality answered His royal goodness, had not such perverse, though more crafty Malignants than Prince Rupert is, by their sinister counsels infascinated as it were the royal and gracious disposition of His majesty, and alienated him from harkening to the advice of that supreme council, which hath always been the glory and safety of his royal Progenitors, the Honourable the high Court of Parliament.  
Next, for his particular challenging the right Honourable the Lord Wharton, of deluding the City with an untruth, concerning the battle at Edge-hill, and casting aspersions of inhumanity and desire of plunder on the Prince Rupert and his Troopers; for the last, Ex factis tuis iudicabo te, O princeps: Could there be a greater or more juculent expression of desire to plunder, than was at that battle demonstrated in the said Prince and his Troopers; when forgetful of their own and their companions safety, in the heat and fury of the fight they fell to pillaging the wagons, where surely some boys and women, left there, not to guard the Carriages, but to be secured by their guards, were barbarously murdered. For the other clause of the victory, it was not only testified by my Lord Wharton, but justified by the general and the whole Army: Nay Prince Rupert himself convinceth himself of untruth in that business, when he saith ironically, (For that they slew as many of ours as we did of theirs, is as true as that they beat us at Sherburn Castle, &c.) That we beat them at Sherburne Castle is apparent, why else did the marquess quit it, but that he was vanquished? It must needs be granted then by his own confession, that we were victorious over them at Keinton also. And surely though the Prince in threatning language seems to upbraid my Lord Wharton of faintheartedness, that Nobleman (bating the reverence he bears the Prince's blood, as he is the King's Nephew) dares let him understand, even in the way of personal encounter, that a real English Baron as much detests to utter untruths, as any titular German Prince whatsoever.  
For his extenuating the guilt of himself and soldiers, concerning inhumanity to women and children, though we may in a charitable modesty believe more hath been imputed to the Prince himself than he hath committed, yet we can no way acquit his soldiers, whose rapacity and barbarism no Tartars have ever equalled: and if when any conquest is won, or victory in a battle, the glory of it is only devolved on the general, as it is; the soldier's valour being no theme for Fame to discourse on: it is in my opinion a kind of justice, that the soldier's infamy as well as honour should be cast on the general. So that our Pamphlets may be excused, for saying Prince Rupert perpetrated such and such villainies, they by that intended his soldiers did them. Which questionless was no falsehood, as their divers rapines in Leicester-shire may sufficiently testify. And I much admire the Prince should so much forget the Nobility of his extract, as to strive to acquit his men of plundering; an untruth so manifest, that impudence itself would blush to patronize it; witness their demeanour at Alisbury, Abington, Ockingham: nay, Oxford itself, which with all hospitality entertained them, hath not escaped their avaricious cruelty, as that good Alderman Nickson can sufficiently testify; whom they rifled of at least six hundred pounds. And for our soldiers rifling the Countess rivers and Lady Lucas house, soldiers they were not, nor any of them at that time listed in his excellency's army, but rude Country people, that knowing those houses to be receptacles of Delinquents, thought it was just to rifle them: Not that they were abetted by the Parliament to do so, but led on by their own fury; the Parliament daily setting out Proclamations to restrain the insolence of their soldiers, and which I am certain was never yet done nor thought on by Prince Rupert; promising and taking order for restitution of such moneys and goods as have by their soldiers been ravished from the righteous owners.  
But were there no grosser errors (I am loath even implicitly to give the Prince the lie in the most modest phrase) included in that Declaration, these were pardonable: Hominesque Deosque invadet, (like the giants that waged war with Heaven) nothing escapes its malice; It taxes our party for imprisoning those for Delinquents, who stand loyal to their Prince. Who shall be judge of their loyalty, Prince Rupert, or the Parliament? Surely that which is the original of our laws, the fountain of our municipal constitutions (the Parliament) is better acquainted with those laws and Constitutions than any stranger, though it were Lycurgus himself; and therefore, can fullier censure and define when those laws and Constitutions are violated.  
For the Earls, Judges, Lords, Bishops, Knights, and the like, that he says stuff the prisons in London, are they not open Delinquents or principal Abettors of this kingdom's miserable distractions? Wild Beasts, that it were very fit should be chained up, lest they should destroy us, and yet suffer they no more or stricter imprisonment here, than those whom they have as prisoners do there; witness captain White's inthralment and others.  
For the 〈…〉 ling the mouths of the most grave and learned Divines, or else imprisoning them whom the Prince hath named, I will in charity impute it to misinformation; the world knows there is no such matter. 'Tis true; Doctor Heywood and some other of the Arminian faction, that preached and printed divers things against the peace of the commonwealth, are worthily therefore in durance; but for our only countenancing of ignorant and sedious teachers, none but those who are the sources of sedition themselves will cast that unworthy appellation on those reverent and learned Divines.  
For the looseness and incivility which the Prince would excuse in himself and soldiers, with the generality and community of such vices in all great armies, it is the only thing in his Declaration that may seem to challenge the privilege of being admitted for a truth; were it not immediately attainted by the succeeding falsehood, viz. His wish that there were no more Papists in the Parliaments Army then in theirs. I shall now have occasion to overcome the Prince at his own weapons, and dare him to name one Papist of quality or trust, nay, one soldier of that sect in all the Parliament Army. In theirs, sergeant Major Ashton is conspicuous, besides my Lord Herbert, who (not in the Army is a member of it) is a notorious Papist, so are divers of his Commanders. With my Lord of Newcastle, birds of that feather flock together in numbers: and I would fain know of Prince Rupert, of what Religion he takes the Earl Rivers to be, surely a Church-papist at least in all the world's opinion. For his gracious Majesty, none ever durst be so disloyally impious, to deny him to be the true and best defender of the Protestant Faith, and therefore Prince Rupert's testimony of it to us, who already believe it, is unnecessary and useless: And for the trophies the Prince boasts of his own sufferings for the Protestant Cause in Germany, what honours he refused, and what close imprisonment he was threatened if he would not change his Religion, in God's name let him enjoy the glory of that constancy, none will be so malicious to deprive him of the least scruple of his merit; yet is this no sufficient proof that he fights now for the same Cause as he seems to intimate.  
For the exercise of his valour against the Irish rebels, I believe every man may join with him in his wishes; but whereas he maliciously says, he fights to defend the King, Religion and laws of a kingdom, against Subjects who are up in arms against their Lord and sovereign; paralleling the Cause of this kingdom with that of Ireland; there he showed all those former aspersions to be but molehills to this mountain of calumny.  
First, the Irish are Papists, and have been ever on all occasions rebellious, took up arms, as the sequel hath witnessed, to reinvest their own nation with the soucraignty of that kingdom; we are Protestants, his majesty's most faithful Subjects, the Parliament here, not taking up arms for any other end, then to secure their own lives, and the Subjects Liberties, the known laws of the kingdom, nay, to preserve the King himself, and rescue him from those seditious and malignant councillors, who have enthralled, as it were, both his body and mind. And so much in answer to Prince Rupert's Declaration, wherein, if I have not sufficiently vindicated the credit of the Cause from his calumny, I submit to censure, and hope to meet an indulgent remission for my error.  
FINIS.