A JUST APOLOGY For His Sacred MAJESTY OR, AN ANSWER TO A Late Lying and Scandalous Pamphlet, ENTITLED, BEHOLD TWO LETTERS, THE ONE written by the Pope to the (then) Prince of Wales, now King of England. The other, an Answer to the said Letter, by the said Prince, now his Majesty of ENGLAND.  
Printed in the Year of Discoveries, 1642.  
By which is Discovered unto His Majesty's Loyal Subjects, how our Sovereign hath been basely abused, both by the Penner and printer thereof to the scandal and derogation of his most Excellent Majesty.  
By J. L. Acad. Cant. in Art. Mag.  
july 8. Printed for Robert Wood, 1642.   

A Just APOLOGJE For His Sacred MAJESTY.  
OF all Kingdoms in Christendom, there is none comparable to this of England, and of all Princes in the vast world, there is none to be paralleled to our gracious Sovereign; who for his Piety and Clemency, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, may be a Pattern to other Potentates, and a Precedent to succeeding Monarches. This is our felicity, but hinc illae lachrymae, here's our misery; Never did any King or Kingdom suffer more than this Kingdom hath done. What with the Romish Rebels in Ireland, and the seditious schismatics in England, the King is grievously discontented, and the Kingdom miserably distracted. Masses amongst the Romanists, and Conventicles amongst the Separatists, the Popish Superstitions of the one, and the Factious Innovations of the other are the two main grounds of all the disturbances of the peace and tranquillity of this Church and State. The Papists and the Sectaries are the two malignant parties. These are the jonahs' that have raised the tempest, these are the Achans that have troubled our Israel.  
'tis true, there is a malignant party on both sides, both in the North, and in the South: The former is not so far distant from us but we easily see the storm is a coming (from little Spring flow great streams) and the latter is so near us, that we have long discerned the Clouds gathering together.  
I pray God in his good time stay the violence of the one, and dissipate the disaster of the other, that the glory may be his, and the comfort ours.  
It cannot be denied, that the Parliament (being the representative body of the whole Nation, the great Council of the King and His Kingdom) is the supremest Court of Judicature, to which all other Courts are inferior, and therefore it is impossible that such an aggregate body as that Honourable Assembly is, should do any injury, vel ex ●dio, vel ex livore; yet there may be some obstructions, which haply may intercept and hinder the free intercourse of their proceed.  
In like manner we must acknowledge that the King can do no wrong, it is a maxim in the Law. If injury be committed, we must not impute it to His Majesty, but reflect it upon the desperate Cavaleirs, those illaffected spirits, who may justly be termed the malignant Party.  
Always we must be circumspect and careful to preserve the Honour and Dignity of His Majesty: For he is Fons Justitiae; in which sense we may as truly say that he is Sol justitiae. Like the Sun he shines gloriously in the Meridian of His Splendour; and yet sometimes by the Interposition of the Clouds, he doth not appear so comfortably (as oterwise he would) to his people. What those Clouds are, which at this time are about His Majesty we are not so dim-sighted, but we may quickly discern. Caetera quis nescit? That our Sun hath of late days been obnubilated and Eclipsed, the cause is not in himself, but in the Clouds, those wand'ring Clouds, that have too much presumed upon the glory and splendour of his grace and goodness.  
These at York, and many more here in London, are the malignant Party (in whom we may not confide) who have bereaved and robbed his Majesty of his Native and wont Luster, They have injua●ously distempered the head and the whole body, and they have furiously made the breaches wider, and the wounds deeper.  
In the number of these I shall rank a Calumniating Pamphleteir, whose impudence was grown to that height of impiety, that he durst with those Giant's Theoumakein, strike at Majesty itself, the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of our Nostrils.  
He who his King affronts, the like would do,  
Toth' King of Kings, could he come at him too.  
He was not ashamed first to compose, then to expose to the public view of the world two feigned Letters, with an impious intent to defame His Majesty, for his so long absence in person, fare distance in residence, and much difference in Counsels from his great Council, the Parliament, I am persuaded, that this plot was first invented at Rome next transported to France, from thence brought over to England, and here arrived at London, with a malicious purpose of this detracting Conspirator, to make our King distasteful to the ears and hearts of his people. Sure, he was some illaffected Papist or some malignant Btownist, that durst attempt such a design against our most gracious Sovereign, who as he hath been formerly educated from his cradle, so he hath ever since continued, and to his dying day always will (for the honour of his Crown) in the true Reformed Religion of the Church of England. Certainly, he was no good Christian to God, nor true Subject to the King, that dares say or think his Majesty is not of the true Protestant Religion.  
There are two things remarkable in the Frontispiece of that Pamphlet, both above and below. That above is, Behold! a word of attention and admiration. In which Ecce you may behold (and I do as much admire at) the Pamphleteers spleen and malice. The word sometimes is used Ironice, in a deriding and vilifying way: So Pilate said of our Saviour, Ecce: Rex, Behold your goodly and hopeful King. That below is, in the year of Discoveries, intimating what an Act he had performed in the Discovery of his Novelty. I do not a little wonder at the Printer, how he durst venture upon the Impression; and yet I need not much marvel, for quid non mortalia pectora cogit Auri sacra fames? what will not the cursed love of money make men do in these days? But I pray God that all those who conjecture or harbour ill in their private thoughts of or to the King, be brought most deservedly to public shame. This is my wish, and this is my hope, many will say that thought is free, and there are too many (I know) that dare speak what they think, and what they will, breaking forth into most ignominous speeches, such reproachful and most odious terms, that our ears may tingle to hear them, and our hearts tremble to think on them. 'tis now grown an ordinary sin, and the common crime of these times (even at our very Commons and Ordinaries) to talk irreverently and disgracefully of the Kings Majestly. There was a Rascal (some call him Round-head) the same day that scandalous Pamphlet came forth, was not ashamed to say that his Majesty was a Papist when he was Prince of Wales, and is little better now he is King of England. Hence it is, that in love and loyalty to my gracious and Royal Sovereign, I was instigated to vindicate His Majesty's honour from such fowl aspersions of calumny and detraction, which by factious and seditious spirits have of late been cast upon him.  
The impudence of some slaves is so frontless, that they no more mind the King than I do a mechanic, and dare prate treason in their cups, as confidently, frequently, and familiarly amons●● their Comrades, as they will take tobacco upon their Alebenches. This is the iniquity of the bas●… sort of people, whose practice is to despise Dominion, and speak evil of Dignities, as St jude speaketh. O the cursed malice of this Generation! Oh the mischievous multitude of this truly malignant Party. They may be aptly assimulated to the Devil himself, for they are Leg on many. They are so many in number, that like the flies of Egypt, they swarm in all places of this Land. The action (or ●●ther faction) of these men is such, as proclaims them to affect an Ataxy, and to hate all order and conformity. Let them pretend what they will, they intent all that is ill. Their Religion is nothing but Rebellion, their sincerity sedition, their Faith Faction, their Conscience conspiracy, their zeal fury, their devotion distraction, and (in the end to themselves) destruction, and there I leave them  
Let me now direct these subsequent lines to my native Countrymen, that as they are all Subjects to one King, so they would submit themselves to his legal Commands. Let them not by tumultuous uproars provoke his Majesty: let them endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, and let us all pray unto the King of Kings for a happy union between the King and his parliament, that they may both be of one mind and comply together. We are all bound by the law of God to honour our King as our dearest parent. The very name of K is illustrious, his Dignity glorious. there's a kind of Divinity in Monarchy. Divisum Imperium cum jove Caesar habet, Vno minor est jove. In all causes and over all persons, aswel Ecclesiastical as Civil, the King by God's grace is Supreme Head and Gubernator, next under his (reator: inferior to none but to God himself. To whose blessed tuition, let us daily commend him in our frequent Orisons.  
FINIS