PRINCE RUPERT HIS REPLY TO A PAMPHLET, ENTITLED, The Parliaments Vindication, in answer to Prince rupert's Declaration. Published by His Excellencies special command, To inform all His Majesty's good Subjects, what false aspersions have been cast upon him.  
Printed at Oxford by Leonard Lichfield, and now reprinted at London for Humphrey Blundevill. 1642.   

Prince Rupert his Reply to a Pamphlet, entitled, The Parliaments Vindication; in answer to Prince rupert's Declaration.  
I Made it almost a miracle that the world should see me in Print, when I set out my Declaration, to expurge myself, and disabuse the world from the calumnies which have been so maliciously cast upon me. But that which was voluntary before, is now enforced out of me against my disposition; I am engaged once more to appear in Print, to return bacl those notorious and scandalous lies which an unknown Esquire, ashamed to express his name more then S. W. in an answer to our Declaration, which he calls The Parliaments Vindication, hath fixed upon my name and honour, upon himself: and certainly were he known to me, or one worth my anger, I should shape him a language in another Dialect: but though the wretch be so worthless, I cannot so much decline my blood and birth, as to make it a business to inquire him out; yet slanders (like a fatal poison) defuses itself unseen, and blasts men's memories. And as an ambush against the contagious venom of his aspersions, I shall divulge to the world the apparent forgeries in that Vindication, and the impertinency of it, as an answer to our Declaration. And certainly, in conscience, the honest men of the world must needs rather credit me a Prince, than the bare assertions of a nameless fellow, who answers nothing at all positively, but circumstantially, and conjecturally to our former Declaration.  
First, he says (and thinks there he kills my integrity dead) that I spare the Press for publishing my Declarations, and am more merciful to Paper than to men; and that this Declaration penned in my own favour, can no way right me. Is this any the least show of reason? What can more right any man injured, than a real explanation of his innocence? It was all I aimed at, not to satisfy such worthy Gentlemen as this Pamphleter is, but to give the noble and brave spirits, and honest minded Gentlemen and Citizens that are against us, a full and true intelligence, how much my fame had been traduced and vituperated by such Rascals, as this seems to be; whose apparen tuntruths so honourably I conceive of the Parliament, though they love me not) could it know the audacious author of them, Its Justice would severely punish, and that he knew well enough, when he only set two doubtful letters instead of his whole name before his Pamphlet.  
And to that truth which I charged the Lord Wharton with, with an impertinent supposition he replies it may be answered, that my Lord Wharton knew the great advantage gotten at Edge Hill, had many concurrent Causes, and what that concerns my charge against that Lord, let all the world be Judge; and then in flat railing he comments upon, but not answers the sense of our Declaration; he tells the people that Prince Rupert and his troopers plundered the Country, and bids them ask the men whom we had plundered, and their general affirmation would confute our particular assertion, and certify the world, Prince Rupert cannot be innocent of these outrages; and that my Lord Wharton may be vindicated by that testimony, to have spoken nothing but truth: And that my Lord durst tell me to my face, that I was a plundering Prince, and with his sword make proof there is nothing but forgery and falsehood in my Declaration: but surely the fellow, though he may have been in my Lord wharton's company, is none of his Counsel, promising more in his behalf than I believe his Lordship will ever venture to perform. I could wish he durst or would verify his Champions words, I should, waving all the disparity betwixt our bloods, gladly entertain the motion and the success should speak who was guilty of the untruth; but I fear his Lordship is not yet furnished with so noble a resolution, in time perhaps he may be persuaded into it: but let my most severe enemies be my witness, how plain, and without the least blemish my Declaration yet stands: for all the tedious circumstance this Esquire (for aught I know of the Damsels) hath cried against its verity. It is a proof sufficient, that I have plundered houses, because he affirms it from the testimony of men in the Moon, for (surely upon this earth they have no residence. Where are those men that will affirm it? in what County or Town stood those houses, by me or my sufferance betrayed to that misery of rapine? let him but name them, and I shall not deny mine own act, when I am so palpably convinced; it were an impudence beyond all former examples. For the faintheartedness of their soldiers at Keynton, which I touch in my Declaration, it seems the answer of it would make men believe the goodness of their cause must in point of necessity exalt their courage to the height of daring; in God's name, let him strive to soothe the people with a conceit we were vanquished, I wish at no time better success against any of his Majesty's enemies than we had at Keynton, or at Worcester. But as if this gallant had a privilege for his railing untruths, he comes upon us with questions as ridiculous as false, namely, who it was that compelled divers of their eminent Captains to ride stark naked? who it was that drove their men like beasts before our Army? and then affirmatively he says, they took a religious Gentleman at Thisleworth, and fastened a cord to his feet, and dragged him about the town, and then shot him with a pistol. I shall do the good Gentleman the honour to answer his questions, which, if they were true, yet what am I concerned in them? For if the soldiers did as the law of arms allows them, strip some of their Captains, was I engaged either to prohibit them the making the best of their prisonem? or obliged to recloth those Captains that were devested of their apparel? For driving their men like beasts before our army, belike the said Gentleman imagines we are bound in courtesy to go a foot, and give their men (our prisoners) our horses. If we did drive them like beasts, we were not much to blame to use them according to what indeed they were; but that they took a religious Gentleman at Thisleworth, and used as aforesaid, what They those were, is altogether beyond my knowledge, much more therefore distant either from my command or connivance; but it should seem his ipse dixit is enough to render me guilty, because he affirms 'tis well known we continually use it in our army, and then with unnecessary digressions and repetitions he runs on railing at my particular cruelty, saying, that I would make them believe I am just and merciful, which they may sooner credit of a Butcher, who kills Sheep for the goodness of their flesh; and so Prince Rupert murders the King's Subjects for their good affections to the King and Parliament. An excellent purity, and worthy such an author as hath no name he dares be called by: where, or by what means, private or public, have I sought the death of any of his Majesty's Subjects? who is't can testify this against me? certainly, were I arraigned before the severest and most partial Juries in the world, they would acquit me, this man's bare asseveration would not condemn me. Perhaps, as it is warrantable both by the laws of heaven and nations, in a lawful war, to endeavour to destroy as many of ones enemies as come within his reach, that I must confess I did at Keynton, and elsewhere, when I was called to it by just occasion, but that is no way a confirmation to his Butcherly comparison. Then as if he would convince me for the notoriousest liar in the world; he tells me it doth not become the son of a King to stretch his words beyond belief beyond his belief, be means, who (only because himself fancies it so) will conclude and averrest to the world, that whatsoever I have protested is false, But I hope some man of quality, and all indifferent souls beside, will not let it be beyond their belief, and then I shall not trouble myself to think on so abject a persons calumny, who without fear of heaven or hell, or punishment for his impudence, goes on taxing me for an Incendiary of these wars, inciting his Majesty, my royal Uncle, to a civil war against his loving Subjects: but I attest heaven and his sacred Majesty, as my witness, it is a crime I never was guilty of in thought, but always desired that a fair atonement might (if it might with the honour of my royal Uncle have been effected) suddenly have proceeded betwixt him and his Parliament, and for that purpose have often been an humble intercessor to his Majesty: For my taking away the Mayor's plate at Reading, and other places, if I had done such an action, by the law of arms it might have been justified; but I must needs ask this fellow what those other places were? or where got he the intelligence of my plundering the Mayor of Reading? he will answer, they said it; but who they were, he knows not: in truth nor I neither, nor no man else; for if the Mayor of Reading were put to his oath, I have so much confidence in the honesty of the man, that he would not only acquit me of that action, but report honourably of me, that I used him with all respects befitted a person of his worth to receive from one of my quality: and whereas he says, my actions contradict my words, or else are not full of that sense they ought to be, surely the man is either very mad, or foolish, or both, he could never be so impudent else, or ignorant of the meaning of my words, which are plain and perspicuous in my Declaration, namely, That I will never fight in an unrighteous quarrel; nor have I hitherto, nor ever will hereafter violate that promise, whatsoever aspersion this or the like slanderous Pamphlet shall cast upon me.  
And whereas in the end of my Declaration I say, I should repute it the greatest victory in the world to see his Majesty enter London in peace without shedding one drop of blood or plundering any of one farthing: at that weapon he thinks to pay me home, demanding how any reasonable man can believe that I should desire it, when it is supposed I have been the chief agent to provoke the King to advance his Army so near it, and that I and my Cavaliers had divided the streets among us before our coming hither. This of all calumnies (with which his saucy false vindication is stuffed) is the most malicious and untrue, when I take heavens for my voucher in this truth, that there is no City in his Majesty's Dominions, nay not in Europe, that I bear more unfeigned respects to, then to that famous and noble City, which I have always accounted the most eminent appendix to my gracious Uncle's Crown, his Chamber and chief residence, and have always thought of its Citizens as loyal and valiant men, and as well exercised in martial discipline as any soldiers in Christendom. But I lose time in minding a thing so ridiculous as this vindication, much more in answering its contumelious falsehoods severally: nor might it beseem the dignity of a Prince to have taken notice of so infamous a Libeler as this unknown Esquire is, had not the importunity of some friends prevailed above mine own will with me, nor doubt I; but all the world will credit my asseverations, when they shall really consider the improbability and untruth of those of my accusers.  
FINIS.