AN answer TO A PAMPHLET entitled The Lord George Digby His apology for himself; Plainly discovering the cunning untruths, and implicit Malice in the said Pamphlet against the Just and legal proceedings of the Honourable the High Court of Parliament.  
London, Printed for Thomas Johnson, Anno Dom. 1643.   

An Answer, to a Pamphlet, entitled The Lord George Digby's apology for himself.  
MEeting with a Pamphlet, entitled the Lord George Digby's apology for himself; and being well acquainted with the excellent gifts and natural endowments of the man, I could not choose but with a great deal of desire venture on the perusal of the said Pamphlet, which indeed began with so much modesty and harmlessness, that I did begin to entertain a very good opinion of the rest; but therein the said Lord played his masterpiece of craft, to make his sufferings, as it were, the preamble to that Discourse; so to beguile the minds of the vulgar Readers, and allure them to commiserate his misfortunes, by the displaying and protesting his innocency, and consequently his injuries: and surely so subject is man's nature, especially the wavering multitudes, to pity misfortunes, even in the most desperate malefactors, whom before in their wishes they had devoted to a thousand deaths and torments; that when they evidently see them suffer, they are very apt to compassionate their dist●●●●. So I believe it is with this young Lord, who having with his fair andspecious apology, as the ancient used (even their capital offenders) provare ad populam appealed to the people's censure, he ho●es) he shall by the winning and imploring language of his said apology, entice and persuade them to an absolute belief of his innocence, nothing being more uncertain than the minds and votes of that giddy and blatant beast, the multitude.  
But to judicious and discerning eyes, who weigh every circumstance by judgement, not passion, this his apologetical discourse will rather appear an absolute accusation than a disingagement of him from his crimes, that goodly and verdant grass being not of height enough to hide the swelling and envenomed Serpent that lurks under it, which in spite of my Lords' feigned modesty will break out and declare the rancour of his heart towards the good of the commonwealth, and the proceedings of the honourable the High Court of Parliament of which he says, he was once a Member, and demeaned himself with that free and just deportment for the good and advancement of the public affairs, that he had gained a very good opinion whilst he was in the lower House, still associating himself with such of the said House, as were most forward in the commonwealth's cause. That he did all this, is confessed: For men can never gain any thing by detracting from an enemy; and that he did proceed with much zeal and diligence in that which befitted him in the public affairs; in especial, about the triennial Parliament, and the business of my Lord of S●●fford, against whom he declaimed with much judgement and discretion, but afterwards in that very business which with so much acrimony and and courage he had pursued, to wit, the att●inder of the said Earl, he fell off, even against his own conscience, being then touched with that first some of the angels, ambition, which makes men like poisoned Rats, who, when they have once swallowed the pleasing bane, rest not until they drink, and then can rest much less, until they burst with it: For about this time, divers of those subtle Malignants, taking special notice of the growing virtues and admirable abilities of that young L●rd, thought it advantageous for their purpose, by drawing him with the line of honour to their purpose, to withdraw him from the service of his country, which he had so courageously undertaken; and therefore intimating to his Majesty his abilities, he was instantly by writ called out of the lower House, where he was by election a burgess, into the upper House, where by that new creation he was to sit as a Baron and a peer of the realm. Besides, as himself confesses in his apology, there was notice taken, and advisement given him by a friend, that he was lost in the opinion of many by his frequenting the Court; and indeed, he was so, for then the young man's nature being wrought upon by the persuasions and promises of those subtle Malignants, and puffed up by their manifesting his immense deserts and hopes of a signal and sudden preferment, he then turned recreant to his former virtue and care of the commonwealth, declining it, in regard of his private advancement and profit; and then, to the wonder of all, and grief of most good men, he fell off from his opinion in that case of which he had formerly been so great a patron, and then made that infamous and unhonourable Speech, so much detested of all true lovers of the commonwealth, which by order from the honourable the high Court of PARLIAMENT was publicly burned by the common hangman; a Speech indeed deserving no better destiny, then to be sacrificed by the fire to oblivion; and neither the fineness of my Lord Digby's wit, nor the comptness of his phrase, can by both their endeavours excise that Speech of absolute apostasy to his former integrity; nor incite to believe that so many honourable and wise men as were then resident in the House of Commons, would have condemned that Speech to so much infamy, and proscribed the Author incapable of honour and office in the commonwealth, had it not been stuffed with unpardonable and apparent abuses, both to the honour and utility of the State; and therefore to no reasonable man can my Lord's Vindication of that Speech appear valid. But not to insist too long upon this Article, let us descend to the examination of that which declared him a professed enemy to the State, namely, the business at Kingston, whither he protests he only went by his majesty's command, to deliver a message to some soldiers and Cavaliers, not with any intention or act of hostility, or rancour against the Parliament: Let us but rightly consider the men with whom he went to treat, and out of that will appear my Lord's equivocation at least, if not absolute falsehood in this point: First, these forty men he talks of, were at least eight score, all of them of the Commanders that were in the Northern expedition, men for the most part of as desperate souls as fortunes; and that these men were drawn thither, either by the Lord Digby's persuasions, or some others of his stamp and condition, is evident, in that the said Commanders were destined as a lief guard to his Majesty, into whose head my Lord Digby, and such other Malignants, had subtly instilled fears and jealousies of his sacred persons security, against which no man would ever be so audacious as to have a thought of harm; and so got his majesty to entertain those Cavaliers, being indeed aptly to be resembled to those desperate Gladiators among the Romans.  
And whereas my Lord excuses himself, or at least thinks he does so, of all these machinations and practices, by alleging he is not of his majesty's council; grant it, yet having his majesty's ear as well as Master Porter and the rest of his Cabinet-councellors, it is cer●●ine his Lordship might give as dangerous advices as the most perverse Malignant among them: virtuous men, when they once decline to vice, are of all others the most vicious: as among the Turks none are so deadly and desperate enemies to the Christians as Christian Runnegadoes; and whereas my Lord says, if he had been of the council he could have detected divers, who said the King was not worthy to live, and words of the like barbarous and disloyal consequence; why did not his Lordship declare and appeach those persons, that they might have been given up to the law's punishment, which certainly the honourable the High Court of Parliament would have seen with all severity inflicted on them. And though his Lordship does so much stomach his being called and declared traitor to the King; if he had committed nothing else, cerrainly this concealment so long of the author of such words is safficient to convince him of Treason; but if actually to levy war against the King's people, be Treason against the King, as my Lord apparently did at Kingston, then is my Lord Digby guilty of Treason, not otherwise; if to be the author and abetter of ill counsels to the King, and dangerous and destructive to the peace of the kingdom, as is evident my Lord is, by his intercepted Letters, wherein he required his Majesty to withdraw to some place of strength and safety from this Parliament, be to be a traitor, than is my Lord so, otherwise innocent. And for his Lordships withdrawing by the King's licence out of his discontents into Holland, in hope that tract of time might reconcile him to the good opinion of the people, and abolish the memory of his disgraces; the falsehood of this pretention is more apparent them any of the former; and that my Lord went over merely as an agent to promote and advance the distractions between his Majesty and his Parliament, by procuring foreign aids, which by his own Letters is testified against him, that he endeavoured both in the Netherlands, and in other parts; as also by the information of sundry Merchants of good credit from thence, my Lord desiring to have himself written unto by the name of Baron of Sherburne. Next from whence came all those supplies of ammunition and arms to Newcastle, but from my Lord Digby and his accomplices. Finally, there is nothing in all my Lord's well-penned apology, that is worthy any judicious man's belief or pity, unless they may in Christian charity grieve that so many rare● and excellent parts as are in the man, should be so misemployed: for past question by this that is here set down in answer to his said apology, it is manifested perspicuously how ill a title my Lord can lay to innocence, and how evidently malicious guilt hath been contiguated with all his actions, since his revolt from his duty to his mother the commonwealth, from whom he can deserve no better a● stile then that which the honourable the High Court of Parliament hath affixed upon him.  
FINIS.