COMPENDIUM POLITICUM, OR; THE Distempers of Government, Under these two Heads, The Nobilities Desire of RULE. The Commons Desire of LIBERTY. With their proper Remedies, in a brief Essay on the long Reign of King HENRY III. By J. Y. of Grays-inn, Esq 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist: Ethic. lib. 1. cap. 1. Ars omnis, itemque actio, & propositum aliquod bonum experete videtur. LONDON, Printed for Robert Clavel, at the Sign of the Peacock in St. Paul's Churchyard 1680. To his most Honoured Uncle, but more worthy Friend, Mr. THOMAS STOCK of Upham in the County of Southampton, Gent. WHither should we fly for succour against approaching dangers but to such whose goodness and ability hath both sheltered and protected us heretofore? 'Tis hard for a Cockboat to venture to confront a Storm, when the ablest Ship must be in a great deal of danger. These Tempestuous times seem to threaten Shipwreck to the Commonwealth herself, and what must a single member thereof expect, when he steers himself betwixt the violence of Opposite Interests and Factions? Liberty! Liberty! was too lately the Cry, when in the consequence the whole Kingdom laboured under the greatest Tyranny and Slavery; and those that affect the People with that, surprise them to their own purposes, in the unjust and covert propagation of their own affected Superiority: Thus you see the Rocks on both sides, and from your exemplary moderation I have studied and learned an impartial guidance in these distractions of time. Happy is he who can discriminate his Judgement, and (in these times) anchor his Affections in the blessed Haven of Peace, and infallible impartiality. We ought to be as solicitous about the lawfulness of the means, as about the goodness of the end; It is a rule in Ethics that Bonum oritur ex integris, and in Christ's School, that We must not do evil that good may come of it; and we may possibly prevent future cozenage, if we examine the Lawfulness of every circumstance leading to the end propounded, before we are tickled and transported with the beauty of the pretence. This Armour I have always thought and learned from your excellent Example, and from the Principles laid down by the best Authors to be Faction proof. This Compendium as your Relation claims your Care; and under that pretence the Author is emboldened to thrust it into your Closet. It claims your perusal, because it is Political, and strikes at the Root of such Errors as are too frequently visible both in the Prince and People: Under the Government of the first you are concerned in respect to the King's Care, as your Sovereign, and under the Obedience of the latter, with relation to your Duty, and Allegiance as his Subject. It had been needless to have writ any Epistle at all, had I had no design more necessary, than that of commenting on my Labour (the full Bulk whereof extending itself not beyond the bigness of a moderate Dedication) But the most enforcing enducement was that of taking hold on this occasion publicly to exert my gratitude. And that the World may know how much I am obliged always to render myself, Your most faithful Friend and affectionate Nephew JOHN YALDEN. Grays-inn Feb. 8. 1679. TO THE READER. READER, I Must first be so just to myself as to avoid Pliny's malediction against those Thiefs who will steal even an whole Author, and not so much as add to the sense one Paragraph, or alter one Syllable in the Phrase, Reprehensione dignum est, Majorum tacere nomina, & eorum sibi appropriare ingenia. Whereas (saith the same Author) Benignum etenim est & plenum ingenui pudoris fateri per quos profeceris; Nevertheless I can only tell thee this, that I have changed both the Phrase (to a finer Alloy) of my Author, I have added many whole Paragraphs and pages to pursue his excellent design, which he had only framed, not completed; and which came to my hands in the form of an old musty Manuscript, which was not capable to tell its Author's name, and very difficult to express its design, being in many places prejudiced by time (that Edax rerum) to a great imperfection. I thought it therefore best not to thrust it into the World crippled and injured as it was, nor to amend its old expressions with a new sort of Dialect, on purpose to avoid piecing and patching; And if yet any thing of Lameness shall remain, be thou not a Noverca, but rather a Nutrix, extenuate thy Candour and suppress thy prejudice and if thou pleasest to take the pains thou hast as much right to put it into a better dress, which I commend to thy sufficient ability. Yet nevertheless it is expected from some that this will be upbraided with Bastardy, and be despised and hated as Filius Populi, by that abounding and multitudinous sort of People who are called Partialists, who always wedded to their own particular Lusts and private Interests, that are factious even to Rebellion and Tyranny, that will neither give God nor Caesar his due: Notwithstanding it is resolved to venture, knowing that no sorrow is sudden to an expectation; And that it will find some (though but a few) that will both commend and protect it. It will Court all but Flatter none: It is the hand that points at The Princes Right and the People's Liberty. It is that little Costick which will twinge all such whose corruptions are ripe for separation; and though it may make them wince at the touch of their thwarted passions; yet it is the surest means to work the cure, if they will be persuaded to endure the Pain. The design of this is to sweeten the seeming bitter severities, yet just necessities of Government and render them plausible and palliable to the People, that so they may delight more in their Duty to obey than the Sovereign in his Power to Command (Legum servi sumus ut Libri esse possumus, saith Cicero) And the Prince (on whose Head is placed both at once the Weight and Glory of a Crown) and the People may both mutually know (since the burden of a Crown is first understood before the Glory is perceived) that Grandeur is both to compensate as well as dignify the toils and difficulties of Government. Bracton saith Nihil aliud potest Rex, in terris cum sit Dei Minister & Vicarius, nisi id solum quod de jure potest, which is an Axiom that puts reciprocal bounds of Justice and Goodness, both to instruct the Prince in his Duty and Behaviour towards God and his Subjects, and the People in their due Obedience to their Sovereign, since the King is none, but the Almighty's Substitute or Viceroy, and consequently to be questioned for his Actions, or punished by none but God himself, who is not to be hastened or directed in the disposition of his Vengeance, but rather entreated by hearty: Prayer for the removal of his Plagues and Judgements. I stand amazed when I consider the many Factions and Seditions amongst us, that these Kingdoms are not already the Subjects of irritated Justice: when I hear the open murmurs, and see the many Treasonable Libels in these licentious times; The Prince abused, and the People deceived by Instruments of Darkness and wicked practices, by such men, or rather Monsters, who when they most violently cry up the Kingdom's good under the necessity of reforming the manners of Magistracy, they only aim at the destruction of Peace and Innocence, which is the hated Object of such devouring Vultures. Hence I foresee the Imminent Dangers and miserable Calamities that every moment seems to threaten inevitable miseries on these divided Kingdoms. One may perceive the dreadful storm hanging, as it were, immediately over our Heads, We are confounded on all Hands, and the Disease seems almost Remediless; Rome's horrid Plots are not yet fully detected, and God knows how much of the Good old Cause remains yet to this day in the Hearts of partial and ill affected Puritans. These two are the Sylla and Charybdis of our misfortunes, and seem to make but one Body, because they aim at one end, the destruction of our Lives, Religion, and Government. Let the King and People therefore of the established Church of England take as much care against the hatred of a Puritan as against the malice of a Jesuit, the Contrivances of the latter (being commonly prevented) having never acted so vile a Tragedy, as the Principles and Practices of the former. The Pope in all his Bulls and Interdicts cannot fulminate more Maledictions than have been reduced into Practice amongst our Jesuited fanatics. Let us then beware of these two; Be obedient to our King; and his Majesty careful both of himself and us; let the Laws be duly practised and observed, and then the King, our Lives, Religion and Government will be safely preserved. Farewell. ERRATA. PAge 3. line 23. read such tortuous. p. 4. l. 17. r. would not. p. 12. l. 14. r. any matter. p. 16. l. 23. r. as the, l. 25. deal B. p. 18. l. 13. r. and popularity. p. 32. l. 7. r. the King's necessities. p. 45. l. 16. r. former restrictions. p. 47. l. 14. r. view of. p. 51. l. 2. r. enraged. p. 51. l. 12. r. So the. p. 60. l. ult. r. and precipitation. p. 61. l. 17. r. almost, l. 21. r. bestowing. COMPENDIUM POLITICUM, OR, The Distempers of Government, With their proper Remedies, in a short Essay on the long Reign of King HENRY III. SCarce was that unfortunate Prince, King John, entombed within the bowels of the Earth, but the People, wearied with the heavy burdens of his time, but more especially with the lingering Calamities of Civil Arms, and the affrighted fall of that Prince, their licentious and unhappy Sovereign; but all men stood at gaze expecting the event of their long desires, Peace, and the issue of their new hopes, their own particular benefits, for in all changes of Government, and in every shift of Princes, there are few either so mean or modest, that please not themselves with some probable object of preferment. But for the general satisfaction Mat. Paris Hist. minor. and composure of the minds of all, a Child (whose auspicious looks seemed to portend the common good) ascends the Throne; mild and gracious, but easy of nature, whole innocency and natural goodness (the paths of the Almighty's providence) led him safe along the various dangers of his Father's Reign: Happy was he in his Uncle William Martial Earl of Pembroke, the guide and moderator of his Infancy, and his most faithful Counsellor for no less than thirty years after, whilst De Burgo (that fast Servant of his Father's against the French both in Normandy and England) with Bigot Earl of Norfolk, and others of great gravity and experience, did govern, and by their Counsels conduct the whole affairs of the Kingdom. Few, and none others, were the Distempers of State, but such as are incident and concurrent in all, viz. The Nobility's desire of Rule, and the Commons of Liberty: Fulco de Brent, De Fortibus and some others, men that could only thrive by Wars, the Balance of whose Lives was their keenest Swords, ready at all adventures to abscind the right and peace of others; These, and such men misliked those days of Sloth (for so they termed the calmness and tranquillity of King Henry's Government) and the rather for that the Justice of quiet times urged from them to the lawful Owners, tortuous Possessions and unlawful seisins as the sury of War had unjustly given them, and finding that the King would make his Prerogatives as sacred in their use as they are in their Style, and that his Majesty would not suffer his Power of Protection to be made a Stalking-horse to the Rapines and Injustices of wicked men, making good that Maxim, Rex hoc solum non potest facere, quòd non potest injustè Co. 11. Rep. Magdalen College Case. Histor. S. Alb. agere: They fell out into the Rebellion that with it ended their Lives and Competitions, professing that the Swords which had set the Crown upon the Sovereign, when neither Majesty nor Law could, should secure those small pittances to their Masters, when Majesty and Law could not: Dangerous are too great benefits of Subjects to their Princes, when it maketh the mind capable of Merit, nothing of Duty: Ambitious men are dangerous in Councils, and disturb the quiet of the Commonweal, more than the passionate Winds can toss or prejudice a ship in the Ocean; No other turbulences did the State after feel but such as are incident in all, the Malice of Authority. Good and great men may secure themselves from Gild, but not Envy; for greatest in trust for public affairs are still shot at by the aspiring of those who deem themselves less in employment than merit. These vapours did ever and easily vanish, so long as the Helm was guided by temperate Spirits, and the King tied his actions to the rule of good Counsel, and not to young, passionate, or single advice. Thirty years now passed, and all the Guides of his youth dead but De Burgo, a man in whom nothing of worth was wanting but moderation, when length of days giving him advantage of sole Power, his ambition and age gave him desires and art to seclude others, which wrought him into the fatal envy of most, and that was increased in the title of Earl, and an Office the Earl of Kent. King gave him. Time by this had wrought, as in itself, so in the affections of the people a Revolution: The Affliction of their Fathers forgotten, and the Surfeit of long Peace (perchance) having led in some abuses; Hence the Commons, to whom days present seem ever worst, commend the foregone Ages they never remembered, and condemn the present, though they neither knew the Disease thereof nor the Remedy. To these idle and pernicious humours of the unwary and unsteady Rabble, some young and noble Spirits often adhere, who always covet Action and rarely consider the Consequence, who being as ignorant as the rest, first, by sullying the Wisdom and Conduct of the present and greatest Rulers (making each casual mishap their error) seem to decipher every blemish in Government, and by holding mere imaginary and fantastic forms of Government, flatter their own belief and abilities that they can mould any State to those general rules, which in particular application will prove idle and gross absurdities: Confirmed in their own worth by Somerie and Spencer, they take it a fit time to work themselves into Action and Authority, a thing very long desired, and now (though unwilling to seem so) sue for, and covet it, but the King taught them by the new Earl Consilia Senum, hastas Juvenum esse. and that such wits (for so they would be styled) Novandis quam gerendis rebus aptiores. fitter in being factious to disorder than to settle affairs, either delayed or denied their desires, for wise Princes will ever choose them Ministers, Par negotiis & non supra. Creatures that are only theirs, otherwise without Friends or Power; It is not the least happiness for Princes to be served with good Subjects equal to their affairs, for those abilities that are above their employments cause negligence, and those that are beneath, ruin of the Agent: Amongst this unequal medley, there were of the Nobility Richard Marshal Earl Mat. Paris Hist. minor. of Pembroke, Gloucester, and Hereford, Darlings of the Multitude, some for the merits of their Fathers, whose memory they held sacred, as Pillars of public Liberty, and Opposers of encroaching Monarchy at Rumney Meade; and of the Gentry, Fitz-Geffery, Bardolfe, Gresley, Maunsel, and Fitz-John, Spirits of as much acrimony and arrogant Spleen as the places from whence they were elected, (Camp, Court and Country) could afford any, these design to compass their ends by force, whilst the others effect their purposes by obscure arts and cunning contrivances, too well knowing that Ars Vim superat, yet though the latter by their subtle policies could overreach their Competitors, they could never prevail over wholesome and honest Counsels: But all minds being as much disturbed as their interests were divided, and designs frivolous and fruitless, and that so long as the King followed the Counsels and Directions of the Earl of Kent, they had small hopes of their desires and mischievous purposes, they made frequent and often meetings, and as one saith of them Clam & nocturnis colloquiis. Mat. Paris Hist. minor. In the end Somerie and Spencer, two that were far in opinion with the rest, whose Education qualified them in all respects for greater employments than any of their times, they having the advantages of foreign experience in their Travels abroad, and well understanding the individual interests of the King and his Neighbours; upon these grounds they glossed their own merits, and set upon their own deserts, the best places when the stream should turn, which one of them (Spencer) did most unworthily obtain, for he raised in actual Rebellion Justiciarios Angliae against his Sovereign, and advised that the best means to remove that great and good Obstacle, the Earl of Kent, out of the way of their preferment, was by sifting into his actions and siding with his opposite, and most implacable enemy Peter Bishop of Winchester, an evil man but gracious with the King, aiming to drive out the most worthy by the worst of men: That being their Maxim, they made no doubt they should be able to remove the Instrument of their intended villainies (the haughty Bishop) by dilating his particular Vices, and making them conspicuous, and him notorious both to King and People, which will be ever more possible as he is more potent, and so conclude to remove him at their pleasure, or else this must be the way, to give the King over to such Ministers as would certainly cut off the affections of his people, and consequently render the Government odious: So they doubt not (though the first stratagem miss) that this must certainly hit the mark, and light them the way to their dark and evil purposes, Honours quos quieta Republica desperant, perturbata consequi se posse arbitrantur. This Counsel being heard and approved must now be put in practice, the corrupt and ambititious Bishop is drawn to their party by Money and an opinion of increase of Power; men are most easily corrupted in the supremest Fortunes, where Lusts may have the advantage of being armed with Power: Articles are in all hast forged and urged against the good and innocent Earl, as, Sale of the Crown-lands, Wast of the King's Treasure, and Lastly that (which those ambiguous times held Capital) giving allowance to any that might breed a rupture between the Sovereign and the Subject, which they charged to be his design (to work some machinations of his own against the Government) and to have been done by him, in working the King to annihilate all Patents granted during his minority, and enforcing the Subject to pay as the Record itself mentions, Non juxta singulorum facultatem, sed quicquid Justiciarius estimabat. But the good Earl stood upon his own legs and opposed his innocence singly to shield him from the mischiefs of their wicked purposes, and he cleared himself of all their false accusations; but they did worthily perish by their own Swords, for Arts that fit Princes, end ever in the ruin of the first inventors: Bad times corrupt good Counsel and make the best Ministers yield to the Lusts of Princes, Irridenda est eorum socordia, qui Tacit. l. 4. presenti potentia credunt extingui posse sequentis aevi memoriam. Therefore this King cannot pass blameless, that would so easily banish all former merit of so good a Servant for that wherein himself was chief in fault: But Prince's natures are more voluble and sooner cloyed than others, their Favours transitory; and as their minds are large, so they easily out-look their first elections, having no farther necessity in the fastness of their affections than their own satisfactions: When it is once past Noon with a Court-favourite, it is suddenly Night with him. The eminent Virtue of men, if it be Marq. Virgil. Malvezzi. not the cause of their natural, is frequently of their civil and political destruction; at first they are sought to, and raised by the necessities of the Prince, and under colour of the same pretext, or cause, they meet with ruin; The Tree that was esteemed for its Shadow to shelter us from the heat of the Summer, is afterwards cut down to defend us from the cold of the Winter; the same man whom Princes advance, and embrace in the heat of their necessity, is he whom they cut down in the cold of their jealousy. The Bishop now sits at Helm and mannageth the State as he pleases, Chron. de Litchfield. having chosen for his Instruments, Peter Rivalis, a man like himself; he displaceth the Natives, and obtrudes the Britain's and other Foreiners into Offices and Places of the largest benefit and greatest trust: by whose conduct in Affairs, the King is drawn into an evil opinion of his people: For nothing is more intolerable with and against the nature of the English, than to have Strangers rule over them. Of these times Wendover an Author then living, saith, Judicia committuntur injustis, Leges ex legibus, justitia injuriosis. Thus the Plot of the tumultuous Barons went clear, and had not the discreter Bishops calmed all by dutiful persuasions, informing the King of the pernicious consequences that must inevitably follow this bad man's counsels and power, whose carriage before had lost his Father Normandy, his Treasure, the love of the People, and in that the Crown, and would (by teaching the Son passionately to reject the just Petitions and Rights of his loyal Subjects, as of late the Earl of Pembroke Earl Marshal of England, the due of his Office) drive the whole Commonweal into distraction and discontent, by his bad advice and corrupt manners; and doubtless the rebellious Lords had ended this Distemper as they designed in a Civil War, had not these and the like wholesome Counsels stopped them in their career. Denials of Princes must be supplied with gracious usage, that though they cure not the Sore, yet they abate the sense of it: But it is best that all Favours flow directly from the Princes themselves, as the proper Fountains of principal goodness and mercy: Denials, and things of bitterness from their Ministers, are the proper Heralds of their Justice. Thus are the strangers all displaced and banished: B. Rivalis Extortions, ransacked by many strict Commissions of Inquiry, the Bishop himself sent disgraced to his See, finds now that Nulla quesita scelere potentia diuturna: And that in Prince's Favours there is no subsistence betwixt a mediocrity and precipitation; so dangerous are the ways of Majesty, and men so foolish as to quicken their approaching ruins, by their partial Counsels, the effects of their own indulgence to their wicked Politics: Policy is a Sea so inconstant and so turbulent, that there is no place to be found in it where we have not seen one or other cast away; it is a piece of Architecture so decayed, that it always threatens to tumble. The affections of a corrupt mind, like those of a diseased body, are always pernicious: The Lords begin now to sow upon this late ground of the people's discontent, Querelas & ambiguos de principe sermons; Monac. de Bur. and take the readiest way to destroy the Government, by slandering the King and his Counsels, which is the best Expedient for them to procure the people's affection, who always love change; and those who have the greatest tyranny in projection, will be the most vehement and earnest Assertors of the people's liberties and power, or popularity acquired by fraud or violence, will never be employed in the exercise of Justice: The King whose Nature was too gentle for such insolent Spirits, was forced as Fre. saith) to seek as he Regist. de Ma. Paris. presently did the advice and counsels of strangers, seeing his diligent care and greatest merits could not procure or purchase it within his own Dominions; all bearing and behaving themselves more like Tutors and Controllers, than like Lib. de Bermonsey. Subjects and Counsellors. 'Tis the Almighty that rules the hearts of Princes, and 'tis he alone that can pry into, prosper, or divert their purposes: Nihil est quod Deus efficere non potest, & ullo sine labour; 'Tis he whose auspicious Providence ever works, and yet never labours, but is eternally concerned in the preservation of all Sublunary Being's; more especially of those whose eminence exceeds all others (as Princes do) and stands next in relation (in respect of their Office) to the same Providence that finds means both to preserve and direct them: Whilst by the former Factions, the Affairs of State seem to go retrograde; Heaven sends the King such a Counsellor as the necessity of those times required: Mountfort a Frenchman is now become the Subject of the King's Favours; and the choicest Object of his delight; a Gentleman of noble blood, and ample education; whose comely features and exact delineaments seemed nevertheless to adapt him more for a Mistress than a Counsellor. The King seemed to be never more concerned than when this Favourite seemed to be troubled, and on this man's content, the strongest affections of his Prince did so dote, that at the first essay of the King's Favours and grace, his Majesty (in spite of the Nobility) created him Earl of Leicester, and in no less offence of the Clergy (by violating the Rites of holy Church) gave him his vowed veiled Sister to Wife. More of art than usual, some have deemed this Act of the Ma. Par. Rog. Wend. Kings making the tye of such dependency, and the strength of this assurance both at his will. Mountfort made wanton thus with the dalliance of his Master, sorgetteth his moderation; for discretion in youth seldom attends great and sudden Fortunes: He draweth all public Affairs into his own hands; all favours must pass from him, all preferments by him: the King stands but as a cipher to add the greater Number to this Figure; and his Majesty thought himself Chron. Jo. de Salgr. never more secure and glorious, than when this State-Statue was most adored; there was such a perfect union betwixt them, that the crosses and prosperities of the one, were bewailed and accepted by the other, and the King looked upon him no more as a Subject, but as his dearest Friend and most familiar Companion. Great is the Sovereign's error, and dangerous his condition, when the hope of Subjects must acknowledge itself beholding to the Servant for matters of the greatest importance, and acts of the greatest grace, which ought always to be owned as the immediate bounty and good election of himself. The most eminent Exertions of the Sovereign's Grandeur, is always conspicuous in the most elevated choice of great Actions; for, Non vacat exiguis rebus adesse Jovi; The Poets feign, that the Universe is born on the Shoulders of Atlas. So great Actions (which ought always to be the Princes own work) are the best Supporters of universal Sovereignty: Though Princes may take above others some Cabinet Friend, with whom they may participate their nearest Passions, yet 'tis their greatest prudence, so to moderate and temperate the Affairs of their Favourite, that they corrupt not the effects of their Principalities: Mountfort is this Minion which grated the Spirits of the great men, and they conclude him unworthy to deal alone in those Matters which should pass through their hands, and are implacably incensed to see him leap over all their Heads to the greatest Honours and Offices; they presently run along with the rising Grace of the King's half-brethrens, (though Strangers) hoping thereby to divide that power which otherwise they saw impossible to break. Leicester confident of his Master's love, and impatient to bear either Rival in Favour, or Partner in Rule, opposeth them all, and arrays his audacity against their malice; yet he found in the ebb of his Fortunes the mischance of others; that this King could as easily transfer his Fancy, as he had unadvisedly settled his Choice. Great (we see) must be the experience and cunning of that man that can Pilot himself amidst the various streams and sudden gusts of Prince's Favours, since the mutability of their Affections are as certain, as their Resolutions are difficult to be fixed: whosoever intends to effect this, must not aim only at the Honour and Service of his Master, despoiled of all other respects, transform himself into his inward inclinations, work into a necessity of emplyoment, by undergoing the Offices of greatest Secrecy, either of public Service, or Prince's Pleasures, he must tumble down Competitors of worth by others hands, conceal his own Grandeur in public, with a pretended humility, and what in Popularity or Government he affecteth, let it rather seem the work of others, than any appetite of his own. Thus were the Reigns of Government (by this advantage) made by the rebellious Lords, put solely into the hands of the King's half-brethrens, Adam Guydo, and Godfrey, and William himself as before; Ex magnâ fortuna licentiam tantam usurpans: H. Kinston So now to act his own part was warily withdrawn, when he had such eminent and worthy Relators of all his Actions about the King, as would frequently for his honour and advantage opportunely urge them. These Masters (as Wallingford termed them) Tanta elati jactantia quod nec superiorem sibi intelligunt nec parem, mellitis, & mollitis adulationibus animum Regis pro libito voluntatis ex rationis tramite declinantes, do alone what they list, they fill up the Courts and places of Justice, and trust their Countrymen under the conduct and rule of Foreiners, exact on whom and how they please, consume the King's Treasure, and dispose the Crown-lands upon themselves and followers, set prices on all Offences, darraign the Justice of the Law within the rule of their own breast, the usual reply of their Creatures or Servants, being to the complaints of the King's Subjects. Quis tibi rectum faciet, Dominus Rex vult quod Dominus meus vult? W. Bishang. These Strangers seemed in their lawless carriage not to have been invited, but to have entered the State by conquest, exercising rather the Severities of Conquerors; than behaving themselves as good Magistrates or Friends, knowing that such power as is acquired by fraud, must be maintained by violence: The Nobility they compel not to obey but serve, and the meaner sort to live so as they may justly say, they had nothing, bringing in the greatest miseries that an unlimited power could inflict. Plenitudo potestatis est plenitudo tempestatis: Yet lest the King should hear the groans of his people (which able and honest men would tell him) they bar all possibility of access to such men, suspicion and jealousy being the best means to conceal their own defects, always aiming at the ruin of those who have more of virtue than themselves, having the greatest cause to fear them most. Omnis facultas gubernandi quae est Grot. de jure B. & P. l. 1. c. 4. Sect. 6. in Magistratibus, summae potestati ita subjicitur, ut quicquid contra voluntatem summi Imperantis faciant, id defectum sit ea facultate, ac proinde pro actu privato habendum. Thus happens the incapacity of Government in Princes, when it falleth to be a prey to such lawless Minions, the ground of all corruption in all the members of King Henry's State. Contagions easily attaque the fairest Fortunes, and men take example generally from their Prince's Weakness and Licentious Liberty; and Greatness frequently makes Gain a Monopoly, which gives way to the growth of evils, and they matter nothing more than their own private Lucre. A Famine accompanieth these Corruptions, and that so violent, that the King is enforced to direct Writs to all the Shires, Ad pauperes mortuos sepeliendos faucis media deficientis, (Famine Rot. clang. 42 H. 3. proceedeth) & secutus est Gladius tam terribilis ut nemo inermis secure possit Provincias pervagari. For all places within the Realm were left a Prey to the Fury of the lawless and irresistible multitude (Plebs aut humiliter servit aut superbe dominatur) who, Per diversas parts itinerantes velut per consensum aliorum (as the Record saith) did imply that the factious Lords suspected by the King, had given some heat to that Commotion, Seditious Peers being too frequently the fomenters, but ever Fuel to such popular Conflagrations. Neither were the Churchmen without their parts in this Tragic work, as, Walter Bishop of Worcester, and Robert of Lincoln (to whom Mountfort and his Faction percordialiter adherebant) were much engaged: These Contagions infect the Church as well as the State, and the Clergy in such designs are rarely backward: and the disgust of the present Government in the Church as well as in the Commonwealth, will be but one design carried on by the united Will. Rishanger. resolutions in the members of both; for such turbulent and unquiet Spirits, who propose to themselves a better fortune in the new modeling, or clean extirpation of the old, and introducing some new form of Government, which always in the minds of the giddy multitude winneth an applause both for the Design and the Projectors, and did at this time fitly suit the people's humour, so much distasted at the new Courts of the Clergy, their Pomp, their Avarice, and the Pope's Extortions: Fair pretext it was to these Factious Bishops to use their embittered Pens and Speeches, which they did so severely against some Religious Orders, Ceremonies, and State of the Church, that one of them incurred the Sentence of Excommunication at Rome, and Treason at home; for he enjoined the Earl of Leicester, In remissionem Peccatorum ut causam Mat. Paris Will. Rishanger. illam (meaning the rebellion) usque ad mortem assumerit, asserens pacem Ecclesiae Anglorum sine Gladio materiali nunquam firmari. Falsely grounding his opinion and practices on the saying of St. Isidore, Quod non praevalet Sacerdos efficere Isidor. sent. li. 3. ca 15. per doctrinae Sermonem, Potestas hoc imperet per disciplina terrorem. It was not the best Doctrine this man might plant to preach its firmation and establishment by a disordered Liberty, and Civil Wars, when the first Church propagated its Discipline and Doctrine by Fasting and Prayer: True Piety bindeth the Subject to deliver a good Sovereign, to bear with a Bad, and to take up the burden of Princes with a bended Knee, hoping rather in time to merit Abatement than resist Authority: The Vices of bad Princes are to be born with the like patience as we endure Dearths and Tempests, or such like Deviations of Nature from her usual course; because though Princes (as they are men) may be vicious, yet as such are not immortal; and a pious Successor may repair the ruins of a former Oppressor. Churchmen ought not to lead us in the rule of Loyalty, but instruct us in the knowledge of our Christian and Spiritual Duties, in difficult points of Religion (where an humble ignorance is a safe and secure knowledge) we may rely on them. To suppress these troubles, and supply the King's enormities, a Parliament was summoned much to the liking of these Lords, who as little meant to relieve the King's wants as they did desire, and endeavour to quiet His Majesty's Realms, their end at this time being only to discover the Nakedness or Poverty of their Master at home, that so they may be able to diminish his Credit and Glory abroad, and so the better to brave out their inclinations freely; which those licentious times did permit. Here Chron de Worcester. they began to be bare-faced, and audaciously to tell their Sovereign that he had wronged his Subjects, and injured the public good, in that he had taken to his private choice the Chief Justice, Chancellor, and Treasurer, that should be only by the Common Council of the Realm, commending much the Bishop of Chichester for denying M. Paris. R. Wendov. the delivery of the Great Seal but in Parliament where he received it. They blame him to have bestowed the best Places of trust and benefit (that were in his gift) upon Strangers, and to leave the English unrewarded. To have Jo. Wallingford. M. Paris. Ma. Paris. ruined the Trade of Merchants by bringing Maltolts, and Customs, and to have invaded the Liberty of the Subject by Non Obstantes in his Patents to make good Monopolies for private Favourites. That he hath taken from his Subjects, Quicquid habuerunt in esculentis & poculentis. Rusticorum enim Equos, Bigas, Vina, victualia ad Libitum caepit. That his Judges in their Circuits under colour of Justice do Fleece the People Causis fictitiis quoscunque poterunt diripuerunt. And Sir Robert de Parslaw had Chron. de S. Albani. wrong from the Borders of his Forests under pretence of Encroachments, and Asserts great sums of Money, and therefore they wonder he should now demand Relief from his so peeled and polled Commons, alleging the saying of Tiberius, Quod boni Pastoris est pecus tondere non deglubere, Sueton. And that by these, and such like former extremities, Et per auxiliae prius data, ita depauperentur, ut nihil habeant in Will. Rishanger. bonis. And therefore they advise him that since his needless Expense (posteaquam Regni caepit esse dilapidator) was summed up by them to above 800000 lib. It were most just and expedient to retrench or resume from his Favourites who had degluberated the Kingdom's Treasure, divided the old Lands of the Crown, for, and amongst, themselves. Some of them they undertake to describe: Saying one is Clericus militaris, or, Literatus Chron de Litchfield. Miles, that in a short space from the possession of an Acre had grown up to the Inheritance of an Earldom. And that Maunsell Mat. Paris Hist. minor. W. Rishang. another inferior Clerk did constantly expend 4000 marks, as the Product of his yearly Revenue, whereas a more compendious Stipend would have more aptly suited the dignity of Clerks better qualified than with the mean and ordinary fruits of a Writing-school. Notwithstanding all which grievances, if a moderate supply would suit with the King's occasions they were content to perform Relief in obedience, and as the * Ad Reges potestas omnium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas. desert of his carriage towards them should merit, and so (as the Record saith) Dies datus fuit in tres septimanas Mat. Paris Regist. R. de Waling. ut interim Rex excessus suos corrigeret, & magnates voluntati ejus obtemperarent. At which day upon his Majesty's new grant of the Great Charter, admittance to his Council of some persons elected by the Commons, and promise to rely upon natural Subjects of England, and not upon strangers for his Counsellors hereafter, they grant him such a Supply as his occasions must shortly after oblige him again to their Devotion for another. Thus Parliaments that were ever before the most infallible medicine to heal up any Distempers or Malignities, are now grown worse, and almost less desirous, than the Maladies themselves, since malevolent humours and factious Spirits did most of all sway in them, and the well-composed Tempers had the least share and prevalency in all their Consultations. Thus the King did demonstratively experience the purposes of his Rebellious Subjects, and finding that the ebb of his Treasure caused his Calamities to flow the higher, he begins to play the good Husband, conclude all Extravagances, and close the mouth of his overspending and over-open Purse, and resolveth himself, though too late, to stand alone. Such experience is always pernicious to the private and dangerous to the public good of the State, when it never learns to do but by undoing, and never sees Order but when Confusion shows it: Yet still, alas, such was his flexibility that he could not refrain his assent to the vast, and as it were unlimited desires and importunities of his Foreigners, tending to endless waist and destruction, so that an Author living in those times saith it became a Hist. minor. S. Albani. by word amongst the Natives, Our Inheritance is converted to Aliens, and our houses to Strangers. Servants to a King excessive in Gifts, measure their demands by his bounty, and put them not out by reason but by example. Men naturally affect no bounty but what is merely future, the more that a prince weakeneth himself by giving, the poorer he is of Friends, for prodigality in the Sovereign seldom ends without the Spoil and rapine of the Subject, self-interested Ministers ever building their Power, and conceive themselves to be as Arbitrary as their Master's Liberality to them is profuse. The King's Treasure is again exhausted, and yet he resolves, that before he will submit himself again to and bear as he had done the last Parliament; so many bravadoes and strict inquiries, and severe scrutinies of his factious and disobedient Subjects, he resolves to pass through all the shifts that extremity of need with greatness of mind could lay before him. He 46 H. 3. beginneth first, with the Sale of Crown-lands, and then of Jewels, pawneth Gascoigne, and after that his Imperial Crown: And when he had neither credit to borrow, (having too often failed the reputation he had gotten) nor pawns of his own to procure any more, he then engaged the Jewels, and other Ornaments of Saint Edward's 49 H. 3. Shrine: And in the end, being destitute both of Means and Money to defray the ordinary Expenses of his Court; was constrained to break up house: and (as Paris saith) with his Wife and Children: Hist. minor. Cum abatibus & prioribus satis humilibus hospitia quaerunt & prandia. This Exigence (that again the King's improvidence had reduced him to) gave great assurance to the rebellious Lords, they should now have the sovereign power left a prey to their ambitious designs; And (as the quickest expedition to such their machinations) they covet nothing more, than that the King's necessities might be so many and so great, as to constrain him to call a Parliament; for at such times Monarches are ever less than they should, Subjects more: For as the Moon is furthest off from the Sun which giveth her light, when she is at the Full; so bad Subjects are remotest from the interest of their Prince, when they are fullest of riches and ambition, and so by consequence further off from that justice and equity, which ought to give them light in all their proceedings. To hasten on the time then for this Session from whence they expect so much, and to fit the means to compass their ends, there are cast abroad certain seditious rumours, that the King's necessity must supply itself upon the estates and liberties of the people; That his Majesty having nothing of his own left; he might and meant to take from others what his own occasions did require; for Kings must not want as long as their Subjects have means to supply: This neverfailing Touchwood took fire just to their Minds, and wrought a little moving in the State, which doubtless had gone further if the King had not timely prevented by his Proclamations, Quod quidam Claus. An. 49 H. 3. malevoli sinistra praedicantes illis falso suggesserant illum velle eos de debito gravari ac jura, & libertates regni subvertere, ut per suggestiones dolosas & omnino falsas eorum corda à sua dilectione & fidelitate averterent: But desireth them, hujusmodi animorum suorum perturbatoribus ne fidem adhiberent; for that he was ready to defend them from the oppression of the great Lords, Et omnia jura & libertates eorum debitas bonas & consuetas in omnibus & per omnia plenius observare. But the King seeing that he could neither right himself nor his Subjects, without means and power, and himself had of neither so much as would stop the present breach in his own wants, or his Subject's loyalty, he flieth to the Bosom of his people for relief and counsel: At Oxford they met in Parliament, where his necessities met with so many undutiful demands, that he was forced to give up to their rebellious will his Regal power, and lay down his Prerogative to their unjust desires. Here the Commons knowing, that Cum eligere inceperunt, they were Ma. Paris. loco libertatis, required of the King to have the management of the Affairs of the public put into the hands and under the care of Twenty four, whereof Twelve by their Chron de Worcest. Election (to which they look strictly) and the other twelve to be nominated by the King, who in all things else stood but as a cipher, and in this, whether by fear or remissness, filled out his number with Mountfort, Gloucester, and Spencer: which besides the weakening of his own part, won to these late Opposites an opinion of great interest they had in his Favour: He hath now left neither election of public Office or private Attendant: He is now constrained to despoil his Brethren and their Friends and followers of all their Estates and Fortunes, and by a Writing under his own hand to banish them his Dominions, commanding the Ports Pro tranfretatione Claus. An. 49. H. 3. fratrum suorum to be guided and directed by the Earls of Hereford and Surry, and not to suffer them to export with themselves, either Money, Arms, or Ornament, Nisi in forma quam dicti Comites injunxerunt: And after their departure, enjoined the men of Bristol that they should not permit any Strangers, sive propinquos ipsius regis applicare in porta; but so to behave themselves herein, that as well the King quam magnates sui merito debeant commendare. Thus we see how difficult a thing it is to apply ill Acquisitions to a good use, and how hard it is to fix the wavering dispositions of chance on a firm basis. Richard Elect of the Empire, the King's full Chron. St. Albani. Brother, and then beyond the Seas, must be wrought by his own Letter, and (at his free desire) to confirm by Oath these former 11 restrictions Claus. An. 49 H. 3. of Regal power, which when he had performed, yet would the Lords suffer neither the one nor the other to enter Dover Castle (the Key of the Kingdom) which they had furnished, (as likewise most of the other Forts of strength in the Realm) with Guardians of their own, sworn respectively to the Common State and them, taking the like assurance for the good behaviour of many towards their Cause by strict Commission upon Oath to gain opinion in show among the Vulgar who groaned Wil Rishanger. under their late Extortions, whereas their design was truly (as it after appeared) by displacing the most faithful Servants of the King, to make the way easy for their own Dependants. This change of sole Power from the nature and right of the ancient Government into the hands of a seeming democracy set up by popular Election, made the Kingdom believe (or rather imagine) that by this form of limited Policy, they had utterly suppressed the hopes or expectation of any one man, for ever aspiring to, or dreaming more upon the imaginary humours of licentious Sovereignty: But it fell out nothing so, for every man began to estimate his own worth now, and to humour his brain on every design which might increase his power and command. The great men (as being first in Rot. Scotii. strength) begin now to rend their Master's Coat, and most arbitrarily to oppress their Neighbours, by seizing the King and his Subjects Signories, upon none other pretence then because they lay convenient for, and bordered on their Seats; And enforce the Tenants, (as the Record saith) Ad sectas indebitas & servitutes intolerabiles subditos regis compulerunt. Thus they unjustly acquired great Manors to support their greater intended Honours, and by misguiding the Royal Justice, make themselves of so many Subjects (whilst they lived within the bounds of their Allegiance) so many Tyrants (as the Book of S. Alban saith) when they had renounced their Loyalty, Magnas induxerunt magnates regni Rot. Scotii. super subditos Regis servitutes & oppressiones, which they bear with the greatest patience; for excess of misery finding no ease but on the shoulders of Custom, made men satisfied with their hardest servitude by the length of Sufferance, which found neither ease nor end, until the calm of this King's Reign: For in all changes it is the people's miseries that first happen, and are last redressed; and yet the people's destruction is the surest perspective through which the Prince may have the nearest viewing of his own approaching ruin, the calamities of both being so individually concomitant, that they ever observe this order in their progress, (viz.) That the Sovereign brings up the Rear of his Subjects misfortunes, and leads the Van of his own and their prosperities. Mountfort, Gloucester, and Spencer, Jo. de Wallingford. the Heads of this rebellious design, having by the late provisions drawn to the hands of their Twenty four Tribunes the sole management of the Royal Authority, yet finding this power too much dispersed to accomplish the end of their purposes, force again the King at London to call a Parliament, where they purchase and procure the power of the Twenty four to be delivered unto themselves, and create a Triumvirate Non constituendae reipub, causa as they pretended, but that they might the better facilitate the means to effect their own private ends. One of them is made (which proved fatal to him) Dictator perpetuus, Ambition is never so high, but she thinks ever to mount that Station which seemed lately the top, is but a step to her now, and what before was great in desire seems little when it is in power. These three elect Nine Counsellors, and appoint Quodtres ad minus alternatim semper in Curia sint, ro appoint Governors for his Majesty's Forts and Castles, Et de aliis omnibus regni negotiis, of the chief Justice, Chancellor, and Treasurer, with all Officers both great and small, the choice of which they reserve to themselves, and bind the King to this hard Bargain upon such strong Security, that he is constrained to confirm it under the Great Seal; and for his stricter observance thereof to bind himself by an Oath, which was in effect, to remit to them the ties of their Allegiance and bounden duty, whensoever he assumed the exercise of his Royal Dignity; insomuch that Liceat omnes de regno nostro contra Cart. Orig. sub Sigilio. nos resurgere, & ad gravamen nostrum opem & operam dare, ac si nobis in nullo tenerentur. Hence we may see, that Riches are the firmest and most steady bottom whereon to build the safety as well as glory of a happy Monarchy, whose report terrifies our Enemies beyond the roaring of the greatest Cannons: 'Tis therefore the prudence of every Prince not to be lavish of his Purse, since the basis of Government (the glory of the Prince) is quite overwhelmed in the gulf of an empty Fortune: And it is not enough for a man in Authority to have a Power that may awe the judgement of the wise to subjection, unless he have a pomp or purse to, that may dazzle the eyes of the Vulgar into veneration. This Prince, this Prodigy of Fortune whom she had affronted with the most pitiful and insolent Examples of her inconstancy, finding no part of his Sovereignty left, but the naked Title (which he enjoyed neither but by the permission of the rebellious Lords) beggeth succour from Urban the Fourth against his disloyal Subjects; The Pope by his Bull cancelleth his Oath and Contract, and armed him with Excommunication against all such as returned not with speed to their due and old obedience. The Lords at this grow encouraged, and resolve, since promises made by men (that cannot say they are at Chro. Lei●●● field. Will. Rishander, Chron. de Brit. liberty) are light, and Oaths of so a little moment, to be contented now with no gain but what they should rake out of the ashes of that Monarchy they meant to destroy: They make head now against their Sovereign, and the better to confront him call in to their assistance the French Forces: Thus the Commonwealth turned her Sword into her own bowels, and invited her ancient Enemy to the funerals of her liberty; So that it was a wonder she did not at this time undergo the rigorous severities of an arbitrary foreign Servitude. And although these men were more truly sensible of their own disgrace than others miseries, yet found they no better cloak to cover their unjust Designs, than that of asserting the public good; and Chro. Dunstable. Will. Rishanger. therefore at the beginning of this unhappy War, they cried out, Liberty! Liberty! although when they had finished it, they threw off that cloak of the Public Good, and made that very Liberty they so much cried up, give place to their own private interest and lust. Those that have the extremest Tyranny in projection, will be the greatest Pretenders of the Public good, and the most importunate and implacable Assertors of the People's Rights and Liberties; And it is the most compendious way of imposing slavery, to raise in the multitude too passionate and eager desires of Liberty: And when success attends the Tyrant's Euterprizes, it is not the indulgence of Heaven to him, but the indignation thereof towards the people. At Lewis the Armies met, where the King endeavours a reconciliation, but to no purpose, for persuasions are ever unprofitable, when Justice is inferior to force; The Lords resolve to decide the difference by Battle, the fatal consequence of which was the captivity of the King and his two eldest Sons, and so Mountfort and Gloucester trampling on the Misfortunes of their Prince mounted with the more facility into the place (though not the Throne) of Regal Power, (the effect of their long-laboured and wished for ends.) Thus all Authority being devolved into the hands of these two, from whose ambition the King could neither expect safety or liberty, unless the emulous competition of Grandeur (which now began to break out between these mighty Rivals) might produce it, by verifying the old Proverb, That when Thiefs fall out, the honest man comes to his right; For Leicester meaning to engross from his Partner to himself, the King's person, and to his Followers, the best part of the Spoil, and so reap more Fruit from the Advantage when divided, than he conceived was possible to be produced, so long as he was coupled in fellowship with Gloucester, where, fore he dissolved all former Obligations of Amity and Friendship betwixt them: Thus equal Authority with the same Power is always fatal in great Erterprises, for to fit minds to so even a temper, that both should round the same circle, and never out-look the Horizon of their reciprocal Interest, is a work altogether impossible. Mountfort having now broken all Faith with his Confederate, and renounced his Allegiance to his Sovereign, forsook the paths of integrity and moderation to come to the King by those of pride and distrust; to whom he feigneth, that he never assumed Arms for, and his ambition and desires never had any other object, but the settlement of the Weal-public, and ease of his Majesty's Subjects: That he did not in this carry his affection against duty, but knew well how to limit his desires to his just power, and so no less to the King's content, if his Majesty would be ruled and guided by his Counsels, which was to summon and command all the Forts and Castles of his Competitor Gloucester and the rest, into the custody of himself, and to be disposed of as he should direct and advise. The Discontent and Insurrections of the Multitude is always grounded on the evil actions of some great Minister, or Court-Minion: But if great men rebel, it is not so much for that they dislike the Government, but because they would be Governors themselves: To yield to their Demands is to resign the Sovereignty, seeing such will not be satisfied till they obtain it; which is visible in the Fortunes and behaviour of this man: He has now climbed the Summit of Regal Power, and sits at the Helm of State to govern and direct Affairs according as he pleaseth; and still thought to dissemble his purposes with the King, but thought of nothing less than the performance of his promises: Such was his insatiable lust after Superiority, that it became a matter almost impossible for him to be honest, he was so completely stuffed with improbity, that he had no room left for honesty; and his own base Interest so pricked him forward, that he trampled on the miseries of his Prince without the least pity or remorse; and resolves (as it were) from the heart of Monarchy to spin out the long thread of his endless ambition, and make no other use of a King, than to lead him as the Stalking-horse to the deprivation of his Crown and Dignity. But his purposes are shortly prevented in his own fatal overthrow; for God gave the King better Counsels: Nevertheless Majesty as yet is forced to truckle under Inferiority, and the necessities of the time (which in Sovereign Affairs doth often force away all Formalities) compels the King to embrace his Proposals, and much against his own thoughts to look upon him as his Friend: And therefore this poor Prince who (now at the Victor's discretion) seemed to have been only raised to show the inconstancy of Fortune, and vanity of man, suited himself nevertheless with incomparable humility and wisdom to the emergency of his misfortunes: Neither did that humility at this time wrong the Splendours of Majesty, since there were none other means left to subdue Spirits that were so insolent, but dissimulation: His Majesty therefore in his own person summoned the Forces of his fastest Friends to yield to his greatest Enemy. Thus Leicester became the Darling of the common Rout, who easily change to every new Master, and whose Favours are so inconstant that they are never to be fixed; so that he could not sail long amidst the tenebrous Designs of his Enemies, by the light and splendour of his new acquired Glory: For as the ascent of Usurped Royalty is slippery, so that the top is tottering, and the fall fearful; Altius evexit quam te fortuna, ruinam Majorem timeas— Juven. To hold this man then completely happy at the entrance of his false felicity, was but to give the name of the Image to the Mettle, which was not yet molten; For by this the Imprisoned Prince had broke his Fetters, and makes his first resort to Gloucester, who covered any, but more especially this ●●portunity of the King's pres●●●● to revenge the injuries and affronts that Leicester had before done to his Interest and Honour, and having form another out of the torn remains of the loyal Army, by a speedy march they arrived, unlooked for, at Evesham, where the un armed troops of the secure Rebels than lay, whom they instantly assail, for it was no fit season to give time, when no time could assure so much as expedition did promise: De Spencer, and other Lords of that faction came towards their Prince with the best speed, for mercy, but could not break out being hurried along with the scorn of the giddy multitude. Public Motions depend on the conduct of Fortune, private in our own carriage; we must be wary therefore of running down steep hills with mighty bodies, they once in motion, Sua feruntur pondere, stops are not then voluntary: But Mountfort, at that time with the King and out of the Tempest, might have escaped, if his timerity and hope had not made him more resolute by misfortune, so that he could neither desert his Followers, nor relinquish his Ambition. Thus fell this Usurper by making Adversity the exercise of his Virtue, or rather desperate in the loss of his hopes, is resolved not to survive their funerals, but to die with his designs, accounting it more glorious to be killed in defence of his Power than than by submission tamely to renounce himself (his ambitious nature) and live within the bounds of his allegiance. Private contemplations may be satisfied with more or less of Fortune, but aspiring thoughts we see once raised to the height of Rule are no longer in our own power, having no mean to step upon between the highest of all and the precipitation. Thus the King by these happy occurrences of Providence being delivered from the severities of his former miseries, and his Royal Authority returned into its Channel by the Reduction of his people to their due and wont obedience, he began to be more careful, and to make a stricter scrutiny into the grounds and causes of his former Misery, and why that Virtue which had both settled and upheld the Glory of the Empire so long under his Ancestors had cast herself off in his time, and conspired with her Enemies to her most ruin, as if the Genius of the State had utterly renounced her. Here he finds his Bounty had been too profuse in too liberally bealstowing W. Rishang. Rot. Pat. 53 Hen. 3. what was his own, and his Subjects Fortunes: the griping Avarice of his civil Ministers, and lawless Liberty of his Followers: The neglect of Grace, and breach of his word, to have lost his Nobility at home, and necessity his Reputation abroad by making merchandise of Peace and War, as his last refuge; so leaving his old Allies became himself enforced to betake himself to persons ambiguous or injurious, and that by giving over himself to sensual Security, and referring the conduct of all affairs to base, greedy, and unworthy Ministers, whose Counsels were always more subtle than substantial; so that now perfectly perceiving by these misguidances and evil Counsels he had thrown down those two main Pillars of Sovereignty and Safety, Reputation Jo. de T●●etor. Monac. de Bury. abroad, and Obedience at home. He now therefore moderateth the first entrance of his restored Sovereignty with Sweetness and Clemency, he passeth an Act of Oblivion on the misprisions of most of the late Rebels, others he forgave that they might live to acknowledge his goodness, always deeming that the fewer he destroyed the more remained to adorn his Trophy. Tyrant's shed blood for pleasure and revenge, Kings for necessity, the latter delighting as little in the death of a Subject, as God himself (the universal Monarch) doth in that of a Sinner, whose Glory is always most conspicuous in the benign attribute of his Mercy; where as his Justice is not always to be exercised, unless it be to exert the terrors of his offended Majesty in the destruction of an unrelenting and implacable Sinner. Even so this Prince, lest his Justice and Power might too much suffer by his acts of Grace, some few he punished by small Fines, and others by Banishment, as the two guiltless yet unpitied Sons of the Arch-Traitor: For Treason is Claus. 53 H. 3. a Crime that draws Posterity under the odium of the Ancestor; and what would be but a bare suspicion in others, is a positive guilt in them; and that Crime merits the highest resentment which in its consequence is most pernicious to the Supremest Power. The Spawn of a Traitor ought as little to be nourished (in the Garden of a Commonwealth by the hand of Policy) as the discrete Gardener does that weed which he roots up and destroys, because in its own nature it is destructive to the growth of those Herbs, which are of a more excellent quality: And he that first preached that Doctrine to Princes of grafting their Enemies in those places due only to the merit (and only proper for the care) of their Friends, is certainly he who designed to suppress the growth of Friends and increase that of Enemies; for he took no regard to that common Orthology, Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa diu— which the State hath often experienced, and which is too visible in the actions of a great many, even in these very times. And if this impolicy be persisted in, and the King's Enemies must still be produced from the sufferings of his Friends, and this increase be watered by the Dew of his Majesties own bounty on the greatest Malignants to his Government, where will be the Friends in time of need? All aught, but those that are most willing cannot, and those that have been most obliged will not. And you may gild a Traitor with your Gold, and make him seem another thing in show, but if you cast the Good old Cause before him, he will be like the transformed Cat in the Fable, or rather (to adapt the Simile) like the Cur that will return to his Vomit. Unto the constant followers of his broken fortune he giveth (but with a more wary hand) the forfeitures of his Enemies, having found profuse Bounty but a weak means to procure affection, for it lost more in the gathering than it gained in the giving; for that liberality which is bestowed without respect, is taken without grace; it discredits the Receiver, detracts from the Judgement of the Giver, and blunts the appetites of such as carry their hopes by their Virtue and Service; Thus at last he learned that Reward and Reprehension do balance Government, and that it much importeth a Prince The hand be equal that holdeth the Scale. In himself he reform his natural errors, for Prince's Manners have more of life and vigour in their Example, and become a Law sooner observed and obeyed Chron. de Dunstable. than those of Letters: and although he did sometimes touch upon the verge of Vice, he forbore ever after to enter the Circle. And his Court, wherein at this time the faults of great men did not only by approbation but imitation also receive encouragement and authority, he purged severely, since from thence proceeds either the regular or disorderly condition of the State. Expense of house he measured by the just rule of his proper Revenue, and was heard frequently to say, that his excess of waist had caused the greatest issue of his Subjects blood. The insolence of the Soldiers (made lawless by the late liberty of Civil Arms) he spendeth in Foreign Expeditions, having seen that the most temperate Spirits bore the rigour of all the former miseries, and that the other never were satisfied but in the Calamities of the Innocent, and knowing that if he did not find an Enemy for them abroad, they would procure one to themselves at home. The rigours and corruptions of Civil and Judicial Anno 53. Hen. 3. Officers he examineth and redresseth by strict Commission, for the sense of their Severity became the murmur of his own cruelty. The Seats of Judgement and Counsels Chron. de Trailbaston. he filled up with men nobly descended, for such attract with less offence the generous Spirit, to respect and reverence; Their ability he measureth not by favour, nor by private information (as before) but by general voice; for every one in particular may deceive and be deceived, but no one can all, nor all deceive one. Now therefore to discover his own Capacity, that so he might know what part to bear hereafter in all deliberate enterprises, he daily sits in Council, and in his own person manageth all affairs of the greatest weight and moment; for Counsellors be they never so wise are but accessaries in the guidance of the Commonwealth; their Office must be subjection, not fellowship, in Consultations, and to have ability to vice, not authority to resolve; for as the natural Body cannot subsist unagitated by the Soul, no more can the politic part or grandeur of a Prince always support itself without sometimes giving a Sic Volo, Sic Jubeo, for unless he be positive in some things to the manifestation of his Power, he is unfit to be obeyed in any thing, to the prostration of his Prerogative; For it offendeth as well the Minister of merit as the People, to be obedient to one incapable of his own Greatness and unworthy of his Fortune. This wonderful change to the Kingdom in general, lately destitute of all hopes or expectations to recover their ancient Rights and former Liberty, that they wished and sought for nothing but the mildest Servitude, did bring them back (without the least Commotion) miraculously to their Duty, and their Allegiance lovingly embraced their new recovered and restored Rights and Liberties. He that will lay (we see) the foundation of Greatness upon popular esteem must give his Subjects ease and justice, for they measure the Bond of their obedience by the Good always they receive. This calm serenity ever after blessed his old age, and attended his person to the period of his days. And now he ransacks the various calamities and changes of his own Reign, purposing to prepare his Successor with the best rules (from Principles which himself had drawn from experience) for the settling of an happy Government, and with the best remedies against evil times. The negligence and intemperance of youth, which experience and old age had both amended and worn out in himself, he advises his Son to avoid, as the greatest stimulations to all the incommodities of trouble and infelicity. And the better to instruct and enable him, he made him partner both of his Experience and Authority; and farther advised him as the most approved Antidote against the Venom of every passion, and as the surest Compass to steer himself by amidst all occurring anxieties and dangers; to learn in Prosperity to be silent and not transported; in Adversity, to be patient and not dejected: In neither to be discontented or dissatisfied: but in both to be discreetly and Philosophically affected. In fine, all the Actions of his future Reign were exact grounds of Discipline and Policy, (the best patterns for his Successor's imitation.) And, as he was the first that settled the Law, and State, deserving to wear the stile of England's Justinian, and the Great and Glorious Title, To have delivered the Crown from the Subjection and Wardship of the Nobility, showing himself in all his Actions after capable to command not the Realm only, but the whole World. Thus frequently doth the wrongs and malice of our Enemies, beyond the conduct of our own prudence, make us sometime both Wise and Fortunate. And as no Man was ever truly Miserable but by his own miscarriage, so none can ever be truly Happy without putting a Ne plus ultra to the career of his unruly Passions, and exorbitant Lusts: The first of which is truly visible in the Fortunes and Fate of Mountfort the King's Minion, and the latter conspicuous in the bad and good Fortune of this King himself. That man who becomes the subject of his Prince's delight and favours, must have in him a correspondent worth as well of Wisdom and Obedience, as of Sincerity and Truth, which makes none other use of this so great a blessing but to his Sovereign's Honour and his own Credit; and not to advantage himself by the oppression of others. Sudorem ferro abstergere tetrum facinus; saith Pythagoras. To curvet and dance on the top of a Pinnacle is the readiest way to tumble, and it is as dangerous for a man to walk on the Summit of Honour, which is so glaciated and slippery by the over-tumid passions and temptations (the constant companions of a Supreme Fortune) without the indispensable support of moderation. Let the Favourite always taste the King's bounty, but not devour it; let him enjoy his Master's Ear, but not engross it; let him participate his Love, but not enchant it. If he must be a Moat in the Eye of the Commonwealth, let him not be a Monster. And Lastly, if he must hold the Reigns of the Government, let him not ride it with the Spurs of Ambition: 'Tis that alone makes a subject sally beyond the bounds of his Duty, and at one instant to become both a Caesar and Pompey, to endure neither Equal nor Superior; the dismal consequences of which is too frequently an irretrievable misery both to his Prince and Country. Let the King's Actions be as pure and immaculate as Truth and Innocence, yet if his affection either blind or transport him to become the Asylum of his Servants insolences and evil actions, than Majesty itself becomes guilty, and must expect to share both in the grievance and hatred of the poor distressed Subject. The general Cry seeing the Stream polluted ascribe it to the Fountain head, where is the Spring and Power that may reform and cleanse it. He that will read the History of our own, or those of Foreign Nations, shall find (that by this one particular error of protection) a number of memorable Examples which have produced Deposition of Kings, Ruin of Kingdoms, the effusion of Christian Blood, and the general distractions of that part of the World, all grounded on this occasion. Prince's should put limits to their own affections, and the Power Majestic is or aught to be bounded, and the obedience due to the King should reciprocally correspond with the equal Right and Justice due to the subject, by which they claim a property in his actions. If either of these prove defective by wilful Error, the State is in imminent danger of a following mischief. The Balance therefore must be kept even betwixt the Prince's Power and the People's Liberty, which is the firm Basis of a quiet Government. Let the People abstain from Faction and Discontent (the Dams that at length bring forth Consusion and Rebellion) and no doubt the Prince will from Tyranny and Oppression. It is the Interest as well as Duty of every Subject to pay an entire obedience to the Government under which he lives, and that without murmur or grumbling; for his obedience is a Condition annexed to that Security which he hath of his Life and Liberty; for no Prince is obliged to protect his Subjects any longer than they continue in their Obedience to him, since Rebellion and faction cannot be nourished, but as a Viper in the Bosom of Government. And a prospect of danger does often necessitate a Prince to become a Tyrant in his own defence; and it was a wise saying of Ptolemy King of Egypt, That good Subjects might easily of a bad make a good Prince, but he could never of bad Subjects make good. The King in his Throne is like the Sun in the Firmament whose influence animates all sublunary beings. So the Authority of a Prince gives life and vigour to every particular Member of the Body politic; and he is not only Caput but also Anima Reipublicae, and no member ought to move from his proper station, or against that Soul which is the life of its being, or presume to accede too near this resplendent Head (by intermeddling with the scorching influences of the State Arcana, but leave them to their own orderly course and natural guidance) lest the brightness thereof should dazzle the Adventurers into Blindness and Faction, and the heat thereof scorch them into Rebellion and Destruction. But suppose a Magistrate really Tyrannical; it is no contemptible question, Whether the evils of the Redress may not be equivolent to the mischiefs? I remember Livy's Nec morbum ferre possumus nec remedium. And Tacitus, Ferenda Regum ingenia, neque usui esse crebras mutationes: vitia erunt donec homines, sed neque haec continua, & meliorum interventu pensantur; and Seneca, Infaeliciter aegrotat, cui plus periculi à Medico quam Morbo. Poise the Miseries of a Civil War with the Grievances of an unjust Magistrate, and the Balance seems to me so unequal, that if my Christianity fail, the apprehension of the inevitable miseries by the Sword is sufficient to deter from such a practice; for though the fury of incensed Tyranny may fall heavy upon many particulars, yet the bloody consequences of an intestine Sword are more epidemical and lasting: And Tacitus commends to Subjects rather Scutum than Gladium, the Shield of Patience and Toleration to be more excellent than the Sword. But if there be such distempers in a State, as shall necessarily require amendment, let it be left to the course of Providence, and not (against the disposition of Heaven) be attempted by the Sword of Violence, for I never read that Illegal, or Tumultuous, or Rebellious were fit Epithets for Reformation: And 'tis fit Christians should forbear the use of such surly Physic till they have levied a Fine in the Court of Heaven, and cut off the entail of the seventh Beatitude. It is manifest that we are fallen into the dregs of time, we live in the rust of the Iron age, and must accordingly expect to feel Ultima senescentis mundi deliria, the dotages of a decrepit World, and the many miseries that attend an hardened and dissenting people; wherefore I will conclude with the saying of the Philosopher: Novi ego hoc Saeculum quibus moribus sit; Malus bonum, malum esse vult, ut sit sui similis; turban, miscent mores mali; Rapax, Avarus, Invidus, sacrum profanum, publicum privatum habebit; Hiulca gens, etc. FINIS.