THE Court Career, DEATH Shadowed to life. OR SHADOWS OF LIFE and DEATH. A Pasquil Dialogue Seriously perused and highly approved by the clearest Judgements. depiction of a naked long-haired male figure or Charles I, wearing a crown surrounded by a halo, holding a lit torch among classical columns; and a naked long-haired male figure or Oliver Cromwell, holding a lit torch in a cave surrounded by flames Printed in the Year 1659. The COURT Career. Charles. HOW now NOLL! what wind blew you thither? Noll. The fiercest and furiousest Whirlwind that ever breathed on the middle Region. Charles. Sure, Nol, you could not be sensible of any such Blast, having entered such straight Lists in your combat with Death: and after so many Parliamentary dissolutions, to prepare for your own. Nol. It is true, if any hope had been left to such a forlorn wretchling, it was high time for me to prepare for that which I never before thought on. Furies without me; fears and frights within me constantly encountered me: horror, horror; despair and horror, my sole disconsolate consorts at my departure. O how hard a task is it for that man to die, who has no other hope then to die for ever! And such was my irreparable condition. Char. In this so fiery and furious a conflict, your ears surely, Nol, were secured from the noise of any Whirlwind: your storm within barricadoed your senses from hearing any tempest abroad. Nol. It did so, but after my hapless and hopeless descent to this infernal Lake, the just portion of my usurped command; Eridamus an active nimble Spirit; by Pluto's express order, being appointed our State-Scout or Emissary, (this relation is true upon my Naked Honour) he returned me a Pasquil from the middle Region, writ by some stigmatising pen (as what quill now not set a work to divulge my shame?) in these lines: 'Tis an ill wind does good to no man bring, To Oliver Protector, upon the Whirlwind. Sep. 3. 1658. Which was made good by our usurping King; Whose braving pomp far lighter than a feather Flew in a Whirlwind, the Lord knows whither. Char. But by this, Nol, you know sufficiently to what coast the wind has blown you: and to what port Charon has brought you. Nol. O do not jeer me in my misery! your piety has seated you in a Throne of glory; my tyranny has stated me in a depth of boundless infelicity. Do not forget your former goodness: you had a heart richly endued with princely pity. Charl. So should it be hearty opened unto thee, though my professed enemy, if my pity could redeem thee, or that it were lawful for me to pity thee. I may safely appeal to those who have persecuted me and mine without a cause; if my heart has not been ever a stranger to revenge, but a ready harbourer of remorse: None ever came to me with a tear in their eye, which my hand could not wipe off. Oli. This is all true; yet the jealousy of our Council was such, as they durst not believe you. Which distrust, it was our part who were fishing with others lines in troubled waters, to foment and enlarge; lest those who by Covenant had made themselves ours, might by confiding in your clemency, fail and fall from us. It was mine highest artifice therefore to deliver other principles than they had till then received: such doctrinal grounds as I by the assistance of my faithful Chaplain Hugh Peter, (whom after the recovery of his wits, I hope to see here ere long) infused into the credulous ears and malleable hearts of our Church militant: as our godly hearers disavowed all trust to your promises; holding them only such as served for your own interest, and no further. Char. Pray thee Nol, what arguments or instances might thou and thine active complices use to caiole thy assembly into this belief. Oli. Surely you cannot forget your ingratitude to your wisest and faithfullest servant Strafford; in so highly approving and publicly attesting the actions of his life; and after all this in signing and subscribing his commission for death: this it was, I must freely tell you, that much disadvantaged your cause, and advanced ours. For we told them, and they easily acquiesced to our reasons, how could they possibly believe him, who deceived his own Creature, the Rudder of his State, who so constantly relied on him? Char. I must confess that was pressed to purpose: neither did any thing in my thoughts ever un-king me more than that unprincely action; but timing Rabbyes, God forgive them, if they may be prayed for, wrought too strongly by force of their opinions on my resenting conscience. Fathers and Doctors of the primitive Church they alleged, but whether truly or falsely quoted, the importunity of the state, and necessity of mine own condition would allot me no time to examine. Only one real Prelate I had, who well deserved that reverend Title: and like a person of a pious and conscientious quality advised me in that case to do what I ought, and not what I might. And how derogatory it was from the prerogative of a Prince, either to be enforced by menaces, or induced by promises, to act any thing below his Honour or course of judicature. In the recollection of these I have no less ingenuously then penitentially acknowledged my error; nay, so precious was the memory of his life, and so resentive the impression of his loss, as I be-became nothing amated at the sight of the Block, nor presentment of the Axe: holding the Sacrifice of my Head unfit to hold in competition, with the inexcusable though not inexpiable quality of his death. So much have I published to the whole world, wherewith I hope it rests satisfied: howsoever, sure I am, that His indignation, to whose mercy I appealed, became appeased. Ol. O my tormented soul; how happy thou, if thou were't in the same condition! Char. Yea, NOL, but all those wishes now will not make thee so happy an Houshoulder; thou seest now in that eternity of thy affliction, what difference there is betwixt a just Monarchy and an usurped Tyranny. Ol. O how I fry in the renewal of that ambitious story! Char. Desist then to aggravate my mistakes, in disesteeming my own; and fostering those Snakes in my Bosom, who designed my ruin. Thou feelest now by bitter experience that in the passage of injuries, it is far better to suffer, then inflict, to appear a patiented, than an Agent, be it in relation to ourselves never so important. This was my temper, and it has re-doubled mine honour. Ol. But my humour was clear of another nature; there was nothing of harder digestion with me, then bearing of an injury; one disgust once embosomed, would raze out an Iliad of years service. I was ever a serious observer of that example of Dionysius, who was said to use his friends, as he did his bottles; when he had use for them, he kept them by him; when he had none, that they should not trouble him and lie in his way, he hung them up. This might be instanced in my disregard to LAMBERT for whom, though I ever cunningly reserved a familiar hug, and a civil caress, yet I never appeared really the same I professed: witness my discommissionating of him, and the prejudice I did to his Relations: Not one of them scaped my scourge. Char. Trust me NOLL, this was ingratitude above all degrees of comparison; for how couldst thou in common civility so sleight or disvalue him, who had been such an incomparable assistant in all your State-service? Ol. It is confessed; no Commander exposed himself to more personal danger, advanced our State-service better, nor came off with more gallantry and accomplished honour: But whereto tended all this? All this, or whatsoever displated the Sails of his Victorious Fame, (as none ever archieved more with less strength) begot in me more hate than love. Envy is ever Ambition's Darling: Sovereignty partaks so much of self-interest, as it will admit of no Competition. Seianu's splendour struck him quite out of Tiberiu's favour Had not his success brought him to swell so high, he had never shrunk so low. And to unbosom myself unto you (for now it skills not much if all my thoughts were legible) it was my firm purpose, as I had intimated to T H. with others of my secretest and confidentest Favourites; not only to make his name odious, but all such as had performed any eminent service; that their Eclipse might enlarge my light, their contempt secure my rising. For howsoever I pretended or had formerly dis-avowed, a Diadem was my aim; so as Lambert's opposition of it, and his dissuading me from it, was the first occasional ground of that irreparable breach betwixt us; and had fallen heavy upon him, if Fate had not prevented me, and given him new breath. For so inveterate grew my hate, as my resolution was to change his plantation by removing him from Wimbleton: and bestowing on him an Habitation more obscure, and less popular. The Yorkshire General likewise, could not for all his retirement secure his person from censure; though I feared not his Head, I knew he had a doing hand, and a daring heart. In a word, I had a yellow eye over all such persons as had been observed to appear eminent in any action; and lest their spirits should rise above their just bounds, I brought them by one device or other under a cloud: or cooled their courage by enjoining them to more remote and inconsiderable quarters. The main work was done, which made me neglect the workmen; whom I removed from the building lest they should boast of the work they had done, and consequently detract from my fame, wherein my continued success reflecting on the glory of mine actions, would admit no Corrival. In making Barkstead Lieutenant o'th' Tower, I pleased my own fancy; holding him not much unlike those Beasts that were kept there: and usually shown rather for affrighting those that looked on them, then preserving those Places that kept them. In his advancement to that place, I had my design. It was my intendment to create him my jeweller: wherein as it was his office ignorantly to admire them, and numerously gather them; so was it in my thoughts when he least looked for it, to seize on them, and adorn my Relative Damasellas with them. Char. Mean time Nol, it seems you kept a brave Quarter at Court. Oli. Neither much state, nor great store. Not a dish but it was served up with more care than cost: More providence in preserving the scattered fragments of a needy reversion, then former times had done for a whole months' provision. Ch. It seems your frugal Court was wholly guiltless of surfeits. Olli. In very deed, it was more frugal than frolic, unless at the marriage of some of our own Relations, and then upse freze, He was not modish that would not be drunkish. Nol himself knew then how to lay aside his staff of state. No Page nor Lackey in the Lobby could play the Tomboy more nimbly nor actively; for throwing of cushions, ruffling young wenches, snatching Allamodian favours, scrambling of junkets, bowzing of bride-possets: (one draught now of such cooling liquor were worth an Empire:) all this I did to the honour of those Nuptial Revels, & to congratulate the airy happiness of my relations. For matter of entertainment nothing could be too dear for my new initiated Son in Laws, nor indeed more cheap for myself, for I paid them no Portions: my Exchequer was empty; so as they must rest satisfied with the enjoyment of a naked fancy: with some fruitless hopes and golden promises, which proved as windy. No matter; to enter marriage with the Protectors Daughter; was a portion without Exception: and to press the contrary, might no doubt in time have inclined to a Branch of treason. Char. O Nol, how unhappy it is to have been once happy! Nol. O how happy I, if I had never been happy! Since the stream of mine unhappiness runs through so many Channels, as it terminates not with me; but derives itself in a line to my Posterity. Char. That's not possible; it was your wisdom (as none could outstrip you in the dangerous tract of humane policy) to ordain and nominate your son Richard lineal Successor, or Successive usurper. Ol. Never any such matter; my Secretary highly traduced me. I left the Succession to Divine Providence: that as it had unexpectedly fallen, so it might descend to whom Fate had decreed it. And though many disturbances in the State, had bred desperate distempers and distractions in my brain; especially those sad meanacing and impressive admonitions which my dearest daughter BESS CLAIPOOL left with me, & near the hour of her departure, recommended to me, which I must freely confess, did most startle me. Notwithstanding all these madding occurrences & dis-passionate encounters, I never walked so irrationally as to make my cross-graind Progeny Heirs to your Family. Only a very little time before my landing at this Port (a place not to be compared to my Back-staires at Westminster) ambition had raised such a flame in my thoughts, as my only Note was a Crown, a Crown; neither did my ambition admit a period, till my breath expired. Such desire I had to own, what myself could not keep, nor my own attain. Neither indeed, did I hold any branch sprung from my extraction, in relation to their abilities, fitting to execute the place of an inferior officer, much less the office of a Protector: and rather born to be State-pensioners, than Commanders in a State. For I could never account of them, upon a due survey of their actions, and discovery of their tempers, for Cocks of Game, nor native Osiers of an Oliver. Thus justly might I play the part of an expert and bitterly-experienced Limner in portraying, and Herald in deblazoning my infelicity, not in myself alone, but in my degenerous Posterity. High Flyers, but their flight is for feathers in the air; the highest pitch of their ambition. So as (and for one of my Tortures I take it) my Divination touching them became true: for by Eridamus our Intelligencers transitive relation, they have already acquiesced to a weak mercenary submission. Whence I conclude, that as my blemished fame was formerly blasted; so the memory of our Family on earth is quite razed, my posterity shamefully debased; and all to their former obscurity reduced. Char. This was a just judgement, NOL, and you are to acknowledge it; It was your Design sometimes, and you pursued it by your power and policy to an Act, that none of the STUARTS Race or Line should ever be in a capacity of Election either of Protector, or any other office or place of Command in the Common-weal: and are you not now in your own discarded Name and Famiie justly requited? Sir T. W. The Speaker, you know, modestly opposed it: but so strong grew your Faction, and so despicable my condition, as poor CHARLES adn his were made Aliens to their own, and wholly excluded. And was not this hard measure? Ol. O me! this aggravates my torments above measure, especially when I recollect myself, and reflect upon you, seated in a sphere of glory; to take a view of my misery; where I am become a spectacle to Angels in my suffering, and a reproach to men in their censuring. Char. Surely NOL, thy fury appeared towards me implacable, not only in my life, but after my death: where in humanity hatred should sleep, Christiani nunquam inventi sum Cassiani. Tertul. and Revenge, were it never so deeply rooted, should resolve into remorse. For mine Head divided from its liveless Trunk could not satisfy thy groundless wrath: (for my innocence never wronged thee) but to insert this amongst many other of thy matchless cruelties, the relation whereof will require large Annals to succeeding ages; to mind, and it cannot choose but affright thee, how ingloriously thy domineering State insulted over my dislaughtered Corpse; using these words with a scornful contempt over it: Go to; thou were't shaped better for an honest Subject, than a good King. Ol. It is true, I sad so, and ever held so; for my opinion was from the first time I saw you, or took observation of you, that you would partake more of an honest then heroic temper. Char. This NOL, I impute rather to an error of your disaffection towards me, than any grounded reason for your aversion from me: But it was that turbulent spirit within you, which brewed those disloyal whimsies in your brain. My actions were so clear and harmless, as they could not fomentate in you such distempers. If Masks or Theatral presentments could so strangely operate, as by the free and frequent use of them, to depose Princes, and alien Subjects from their allegiance, it were an act that exceeded all Precedents. Ol. And this it was which the purity of our Zeal first wrought on: but your Corrupt Council epecially; the eager pursuit whereof afforded swifter wings to our Designs. Char. Unhappy wings that spread themselves to the ruin of the Flier, by making the Pursuer a prey to his Follower! But after thy pitiful Triumphal over my breathless Trunk, (the poor remainder of an unfortunate Prince) what might be the occasion of thy delaying of my Burial? Ol. That neither tended to your disadvantage nor dishonour, for your Tragical Scene was alreay acted; this was purposely done for the Soldier's benefit: where, as your enemies breathed nothing on your Corpse but words of ignominy; so your few Funeral Attendants made gain their aim, receiving money for sight of your Body. An useful Spectacle of Mortality. Char. How pitiful my usage! exposed to sale both living and dying! Ol. Yet never any less pitied: for the Scots, who were your first Chapmen, could not: and we who were the second, would not: so marble-tempered were we both, as our neglect to your Obsequies, expressed the coolness of our affection to yourself. Tears, unless they steamed in he eyes of your own Relations, were held too precious Victims for such Funerals. For mine own part, though I could feign a tear as well as any Crocodile, I was so infinitely pleased with your passage out of the world, as I could not change my countenance for a world. I was steeled all over: and as different to a Niobe, as compassion could be to the heart of an Enemy. Your death secured my Title: wherein, though many might by way of propriety challenge as much right, and show as fair Cards as myself, being equal sharers in the Conquest: yet it was ever my happy fate (O how unhappy now may I call it?) to be esteemed the prime Agent in that succeseful service. Char. It is true; yet I found others more destructive to my proceed: for it is well known how in the very first beginning or infancy of those Civil Wars, your account was but in the rank of inferior and inconsiderable Officers, ●●y, of so low and despicable a quality, as your place scarcely merited the Title of a Commander; being as then, not admitted to the trust of a Colours. Ol. That redounded more to mine honour. For it could not be ascribed to any thing less than my indefatigable industry or incomparable policy, or what else you please to term it, that raised me from that low quality, to such a pitch of humane felicity. Char. Miserable felicity, that for a blossom of humane glory, no sooner appearing than vanishing, forfeits his interest in that state of Eternity. For who is he, if sensible of a future condition, that for a moment of delight, would willingly suffer a perpetuity of torments: or lose his Claim in the fruition of Happiness, for the fading pleasure of one Night's dalliance? Ol. Why, Sir, you need not seek far for this till you find it; I myself have done it: and my honest Colleague too TOM PRIDE, (for I dare not call him Lord, for fear of the Prohibition) who now snorts in Lucifer's bosom, Tom. Pride did wisely in preventing Censure, and dying in his Honour. and laments nothing more than his Butchery of the Bears: cursing his rash valour in committing so hidelous a slaughter: wishing with all his scalded heart, that he had reprieved one Bear at least, if it had been but to stop the foul mouth of that bawling Cur cerberus, who keeps such a racket, as he will not suffer his Hon. Taplash, having discharged his shoulders of his barmy Dray, to take any rest: nor his ears nor eyes, hourly affrighted with Lightning and Lapland Thunder, to allay the horror of those affrights with one minutes slumber. Char. Alas, poor Tom. Ol. Not so poor neither. His Name is so anciently precious, and of such general alliance to our principal Grandees here in Tartary, as he is lately made Prime Tapster for the Regiment of the Scullery; an office of credit and profit: for nothing here so dear as liquor: nor can any courtesy be more thankfully tendered to a thirstly Sojourner, than a bottle of clear Stygian-water, lightly spiced or sprinkled with Sulphur. O had we such Wassel-cups, we should hold them more precious than Rivulets of delicious Nectar! Mean while, I cannot choose, amongst many other melacholly dumps which incessantly seize on me, but remember how pitifully (though destitute of pity) my servant PRIDE howled out last night: (as what is all our Plantation but a Region of Night? or the surface of our Sovereignty but a Tragic Stage hung round with Sable Ensigns of baleful melancholy?) Would you hear, I say, how that Infernal Lord bellowed, being seated, on a Kilderkin of Lethaean liquor? I shall not detract one tittle, nor vary in one syllable from that doleful complaint of his Honour. Oh that I were now (said he) haling those refractory Members, which sometimes displeased brave OLIVER, into Hell at WESTMINSTER! how cheerfully might I quench that thirst which now torments me! O then, so far had a blast of Honour transported me, or security belulled me, as I vainly thought there was none but that: but I feel One now of another nature: and which I never dreamed on, till I came thither? O that those Parishioners, who first found me, and charitably made me a Child of the Parish, had left me swathled as they found me: so had their care been less, and I less sensible of my misery! The shrieks of one to myself so well known, and who from his Mashfat had served me so long, inforc'd me to look back upon myself; and recall to mind that momentany shaback upon myself; and recall to mind that momentany shadow of earthly felicity which I here partaked: my frequent visits and progresses to HAMTON-Court and WINDSOR, where your incensed and unrevenged Ghost ofttimes affrighted me: which caused me to discontinue my visit of that place; so strongly did your Apparition work upon me? and so terribly did my guilty conscience check me, and combat within me, as that Progress which I took for pleasure, discomposed my soul, and made me in my return disconsolately heavy. Buy Music and frolic society, quickly cured the bite of this Tarantula.— Oh me! How now it gripes me to remember those Court-ayrs, Pavans, Almans, Corantoes, Sarabands, all my Court-frolicks, with that merry Musical air of my never to be forgotten Oliver; which though it spitefully played on me, it acted infinitely upon my fancy: being heated, and heightened with exquisite wines and sociable humorists, who held it their highest honour, to fit the humour of their OLIVER. But all that jollity is now past, and I alone left to myself (and well were it for me, were I so left:) the Courtgate shut, White-Hall made black with suffering, set at sale; Saint Imaes waits for a Purchaser; Greenwich to her for Materials become a sufferer: No access to Hyde-Park, nor Spring-garden, nor Oxford Kate may be admitted to friendless Oliver.— My Studds and Stallions dispatched by a Contagion: and their Master by a frenzy, to quicken his dissolution. My deserted Parasites, like Beetles or Dung-worms returned to their Ordure: My Family with infamy branded; my Race rooted; my Line razed; my Allies by marriage disgraced; my titular Lords degraded; my old Mab fooled into a Quaker. House & Household all indisorder. Char. Why, NOL, all this is nothing to what thine actions have deserved, if duly weighed, and answerable to their quality, judicially measured. Superior Powers, though they have leaden feet, they have iron hands. Their judgements may sleep, but they never slip. Thou exclaimest amongst other of thy aggrievances, how some Princely houses were set at sale; whereto thou couldst pretend no Title. While I reigned and on earth sojourned, the impudence of malapert Subjects was such, not long before these Civil Wars broke forth, as they sticked not to passed on my Gate at White-hall, This House is to be Let. Neither was it sufficient for them to derogate from my personal honour, but to throw aspersions on the purity of her fame, whose blameless demeanour had raised its splendour above the reach of censure. And for myself, to such an indigent condition hand my misfortunes brought me, as there was no House left me, which I might properly call mine own, to lodge in nor Bed to lie in; no, nor after my death, any other Burial Place for my dislaughtered Corpse to rest in, but an obscure and unprincely interment. Ol. There was good reason for that. I had read so much in Plutarch, How there was nothing that enraged the people more against the Actors of Caesar's murder, than the showing of Caesar's ghastly wounds by Mark Antony: that was the sight which begot in the people compaision generally. This it was that sprung a tear in every eye, and a now of revenge from every hand. The only was to bring discontents asleep, was to bring you to your rest in quiet. And for your bed of earth, sure I am your private unpolished vault accrued more to your honour, With this Inscription on the Wall: Great in Policy, but matchless in Tyranny. than all my costly forty thousand Funeral Structure. Mine was more magnificent; but yours more permanent. For our sprightly intelligencer Eridamus, informs me upon his return from that Coast, how my Shrine was no sooner raised, than it was razed; no sooner erected, then defaced: and upon the splinters of it, these wormwood lines endorsed: Upon his Shrine. NOLS' Statue broke in pieces! what hand could, Had it Briareus sinews, be so bold? Why not? It by those sractures nothing lost, Pieces were Emblems of the coin they cost. NOLS' Funerals are past, his shrine set up; hay Boys let's Cant it o'er our Wassal-Cup; Had NOL such liquor as we birle here, he'd think he were in Hell at Westminster: But such a censure has befallen this Hector, As he must Sulphur bouse instead of Nectar. — O Huntingdon, Huntingdon, little didst thou dream That NOL should by Charon lancho're the Stygian stream: Or become such a Brewer where now he remains, As to furnish all Tartary with Ala and Grains! O ye Ptotectors Brood, observe his Fate, And cease from seizing an usurped State! For though the Bait seem pleasing to Ambition, The wound is mortal, and disclaims Physician. Char. It seems NOL, thy cruelty had so far abroad spread thine infamy, as it whetted pens in all places to inveigh against thee. Neither was it wisdom in thine to bestow on thy Monument such cost; when the sight of it could present nothing less than an Object of scorn, or a Spectacle of shame, shose might be the charge? Ol. Only His, whose command might not unfitly be compared to those short-lived Flies that breed near the banks of Hymetus, who no sooner begin to quicken than they expire: for so it fared with the short life of his Protection. Whence I observe the levity of popular favour: and how inconsistent it is to the foundation of honour. O with what humble Addresses have I and mine been courted! what vows of Allegiance and Fidelity tendered! what left unpresented, that might either oblige them, or assure us of their zeal and devotion towards us? And these Congratulations came from all places and persons of all qualities. But sure, those Coasts are either sunk, or those good-pretending people dead; for those Addresses in very short time run themselves quite out of breath. Neither was this all; for some I had near me, and whom I had made mine by my bounty, (an act which I was never much addicted to) who knew how to protest, and seemingly to engage their persons in any action for my sake, while I was living; who could sport and skip like Satyrs at my dying: Yea, even in that last and longest conflict which I had with Nature, and wherein I expostulated with my Maker, saying, How dost thou now mean to deal with me! I might hear a soft whispering voice uttering these words near the Curtain, Roughly enough, if he mean to deal justly with you. Char. This was cold comfort from your own Family: but the Hare may insult safely over a dead Lion. Ol. Which a Critic of my Court, and to whom I had shown some civil favours, made use on: who, to ingratiate himself with one who never wished me well, bestowed his pen upon a Poem, enttling it my VISION; which he bitterly pursued in this manner. His Vision. Who are you that distract my Soul with fear? — Torture and horror!— What art thou stalksed there? Ay me! my Sovereign Liege reft of his head By thy perfidious hand.— Whence streams that blood, That Purple Ocean which environs me? From those pure hearts that died for Loyalty. What mean those Scarlet veils hung in that sort? The Sanguine Hang of thy justice Court. Who's he finds fuel to my boundless fury? THURLOE.— who dooms me? A supernal jury. — What hostile noise is this! whence may it come? It seems thy Guard's approaching by the Drum. 'Tis all in vain; what guards can shelter him Who has so many enemies within? — O how this Warr-charge doth my spleen provoke! Here he displays his various distempered passages during the time of his sickness. Send forth commands they do not strike a stroke. This sound of Drums and Trumpets which I hear Presents a frightful language to mine ear. Leave me; oh leave me; i'm for ever lost; And for a Crown in Baths of torments tossed. Farewell to earth; my Burden is so great, I find no Mercy, though I see the Seat. PETER'S be gone; I'm run upon that shelf, Thou canst not save me, nor I fear thyself. So raw's thy Doctrine, and so ripe my sin, PETER will find no keys to let us in. — Avaunt despair! my Convoy mounts to bliss, Quicquid ex me mihi deest, usurpo mihi ex visceribus domini mei. Aug. Manual. c. 21. Though Sin abound, Grace more abundant is. A brave exchange beyond comparison, For three rend Kingdoms, to inherit one. One, and a rich one too; a glorious Nation; Where th' state's secure, though got by Usurpation. Char. It seems, Nol, though he begun with you roughly, he ended smoothly. It had been happy for thee Nol, if this Poet might have had such influence over Pluto's Court, as to procure thy remove, or so much favour as to change thy lodging: or a fair progress after thy late exile from Hampton to the Elysian fields: but there is such a report of thy field-service, as it is much to be feared: that the keepers of those peaceful fields would appear shy in admitting so fiery and furious a blade into their society. Truth is, thou hadst not more right to England, than thou hadst to Elysium; who then could blame thee in doubling thy files, or aspiring to some new-created Protection in another region. Oli. O Sir, could I dispense with my suffering as I can now with Ambition, I should account myself happy, in the lowest and obscurest condition that could befall me. I should neither repine at others greatness, nor bemoan my own lowness. I should never spend time in remembering what I was, or how great I was, but in labouring to appear what I was not. But my heavy fate hasting my fall through the Career of my unexemplary actions, has thrown me upon that Prceipice; as my complaints would in all ages return me pitiless; and my forlorn condition remedless. Char. It is reported Nol, that thou hadst a Dream which divined no less. Oli. I had, indeed; than which none ever wrought more strongly nor strangely on the senses of a sleeping man: but imputing it to some melancholy fancy, whereto, by giving way to choler and other incident distempers, I was much inclined; I made so small account of it, as I would not suffer it to act, as it had done formerly upon my thoughts. Till one day, Ad Sceptrum manum, procax ambitio vertit; in Centrum fallax mentis conditio vergit. Emblem. being in a merry humour, I chanced to repeat it; wishing a quick wit then in presence, to render it in verse; which he did in this sort: NOLS' Dream. I road me thought, i'th' Chariot of the Sun, With six black Barbs, by journeying grown Dun. Impaled with Sunbeams was my Head to th' Navel; But waking, found those Beams resolved ' to Gravel. A Triple-Crown, me thought, was my adventure, But reaching failed, and made the Earth my Centre. Char. This was a good divination, and well rendered, if thou hadst seasonably made use of it; but the confluence of thy victories; the applause of thy flatterers: and the foreign fame of thine actions; begot in thee an oblivion of the injuries thou hadst done; with a secure confidence against all oppositions whensoever or wheresoever they came. Small doubt may be made, but that thou couldst wipe off all those matchless indignities done to me and my Distressed family with a light sponge. Thy continued success in affairs had not only estranged thy thoughts from a coneit of loyalty, but from a sense of thy Sovereign's injury. Oli. Nothing more true; long time were your wrongs steeped in Lethe, but now they return fresh to my memory. Neither shall I stick now to discover freely to you, what I should never have done, if I had lived Nestor's years, in the world. But my commands being now shut out o'th' House, and no hope of succession to my kace, I shall not be nice in discovering what did sometimes highly concern me, and which now concealed, would little avail me. Char. Thy Genius argues thee more ingenuous dead then living. hold on and be mindful of thy Catalogue. Oli. I shall go on in order, though I remain confined here, where there is no order but horror: You cannot, Sir, but remember the necessitated remove, which your misfortunes had forced you to, and with what mean equipage accommodated in your adventure from your dear Foster-mother the City of Oxford to Newark: and with what beamelings of hope you were enlivened (but those weak beams struck out from a Scottish Horizon) in that so tedious and incommodious a journey. There by means of mine useful agents did I set mine Engine on work. The hopes which you reposed in old LASHLEY and his adherents, were soon blown up by mine Ordinance, being loaden with no other shot, then fear of our power, and promise of reward; which being at Newcastle accordingly effected; your groundless hopes became frustrated, your trust betrayed; and your person to my commands delivered. Afterwards, having you then in my hands, and resolving to delude the world with a pretended clemency, or shroud of honesty; you were ordered, or rather cunningly trapan'd, for the Isle of WIGHT; where out of our tender zeal to your safety, you were to have your cause judiciously debated, and by convenient addresses to our Parliament, seasonably composed: But then and there, Sir, and never till then did I play my Master-prize. My Scene was acting along in that grand treaty. No action undertaken, no article of agreement proposed, whereon my negative voice, though not publicly, yet with a peaceful innocence and smooth privacy, (as a close conservator of the rules of policy, the main principles of my religion) ever had a special influence. The purchase of your peace was the only Rock to my aims. It behoved me then to obstruct all ways of condescension. Which I found to be an easy work by ploughing with your own Heifers: and making the neraest to your Person, the only instruments for mine advantage: and who were these, but those Divine Organs that sounded so sweetly in your ears? and was not this a gallant Prelacy, that could for self-interests, dispense with Loyalty! But truth is, Sir, promotion was their idol. This made them feed upon the better side o'th' hedge. They wisely considered, how by my thriving discipline and weakness of your forces, you were going down the weather: The only way then, as they conceived, both to secure their persons, and to feather their nests (a principal which they found not in all hooker's Ecclesiastical policy) was to imitate those Persian Priests, whose superstitious adoration became reserved only for the Suns rising, but none for his setting. Thus went the game on, but shuffled ever to your disadvantage. Solinus. In a word, I neither slept nor slipped any opportunity that might decline your peace, or advance mine aim. Your proposals, by my party were wholly slighted, your letters misconstrued; all future addresses barred; and this Treaty, contrary to all hope and loyal wishes, no less suddenly then unexpectedly dissolved. Which done; holding secrecy and celerity to be the main moving wheels of every weighty action: and that more advantage did arise by dispatch then delay; present course was taken for hurrying your from that Isle to Windsor; there to measure out your Grave; for so it was irrevocably intended. Char. I expected no less upon my first approach at that place. Nothing was presented to my sight; nothing sounded in mine ears, which rendered me not formidable Accents and Omens of my ensuing ruin. So sad was every object to my apprehension. Oli. You could look for nothing else. For it had been my care to fit to you with such Attendants, as presented nothing less than death, and horror in their countenance. And by these were you accompanied, as became a remorseless guard, to your judicial Doom, long resolved on, before you were sentenced. Char. I might easily understand that by the Charge drawn up against me; and the face of the jury impanneld to try me. Wherein none ever partaked of more justice with less equity or mercy. Oli. O Sir, you were no ordinary offender, and therefore not to be proceeded withal in ordinary manner. And in all these, it rejoiced me not a little, to be the principal Agent, and yet undiscovered or suspected. Wherein, me thought, (and this imagination pleased me) I might be compared, for my winding and subtle conveyances to the River Alpheus, that by subterranean passages runs a while unseen through the Country of Elis, but afterwards breaking out, repairs to the Sea, though with no great Stream. Such was my course: and as I then held it, no less prosperons my chance. For you found that our justice, were it right or wrong, and wings to quicken your dispatch for the Block. Where you had many spectators but few open mourners: for the Soldier's threats and fury attached them with that fear, as they stopped the Current of their tears: and stilled the noise of their groans. Char. I had once a purpose to resist your Executioner; till I was by my pious and Reverend Chaplain seasonably-disswaded from it. Ol. That would have availed you nothing: By my commands (being jealous of such resistance) secret Engines, Hooks and Pulleys were contrived, forcibly to hale you to the Block; if you had not submitted to it. You might rather wonder, how it could possibly come to pass, that you at your Court gate, and in the eye of your eminent'st City, where some could not choose but love you, should act such an unexemplary Tragedy, and have not one revenging hand held up to defend you: nor tender the zeal they ought you. Char. O blush at thyself, Nol, in this Relation. who more obliged to thy Sovereign than thyself, yet who more treacherously tyrannous to thy Sovereign? Finchinbrook abhorred thee. None had relation to thy loyal Uncle OLIVER, but abjured thee. Ol. Yet all this wrought nothing in me. I gloried much in your Death, but more at the Place of your Death. For my embosomed Sovereignty told me, it enlarged my Power, and abridged my fear: For what could he fear, who had the power to sacrifice without resistance his Prince's life at his own door? In which action, (the wonder of all ages) though Some might have opposed me, they could not have o'repowred me. So strongly had I won in upon the affections of the Soldiery; as my Commands gave them Laws: my Proposals were their Interests. Char. This was such an Interest as my Lenity could ne'er attain to. Ol. O CHARLES, you had never the knack on't: your Grandfather could have told you that Kingship was a acquaint kind of Craft, and that there were many ways to the wood, which stood with the expedience of a Prince to discover, before he came to be a prudent Governor. It was one of my Arts (neither did I lose myself in it) to mint Treason, purposely to make the ignorant admire my Clemency: wherein it was my glorious gloss to pretend Mercy in pardoning those whom I knew to be innocent. But in this juncto, wherein I seemed to sail as on a calm Sea; I could not walk so closely in the Clouds, but I might show the fierceness of my fury, and eagerness of my talons. A large Rubric Calender of the Innocent Blood I have shed, is hourly here presented to me. LOVE, GERRARD, VOWEL, etc. infinitely torment me; and of those, my ingratitude to Love for his friendly office and faithful service done to our Cause at UXBRIDGE. But there is no torture afflicts me more, than when I call to my unhappy memory, (for many things am I forced to remember, which I would gladly forget) that HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE, and those unpresidental proceed of my Obsequious Precedent LISLE: whose Label (for Libel I cannot call it, being so near truth) I shall mention, as it was brought me by Eridamus from the middle Region. A Precedent for Precedents. LISLE, let these Precedents of Judgement win thee, Lest vengeance raise such fatal Furies in thee, As that High-Court of Justice where thou sat Hung round with Scarlet, manifest thy State Of all most cursed, since thou hadst th' sense To act such Sins against thy Conscience. So strangely Names, from Natures disagree, As may appear by Sir GEORGE LISLE and thee. He shed his blood in zeal unto his King, Thou sheddest their guiltless blood who honoured Him. He lost his Being to support a Crown, Those who support it, thou hast thrown them down. Never sit more in a Judicial Court, Lest th' Court of Conscience impeach thee for't: And cry O'sace through all this Purple Isle, " No Crimson-Dyer may compare with Lisle. HEWYT'S affrighted Ghost shall startle thee, And ache thy guilt to all Posterity; And tell this Grand Convene, whereon relies Th' redress of those who suffer injuries, That if this Murder which for vengeance calls, Sleep still secure, the Sentence heavy falls O Those who by Discussion fully know it, And may revenge his Blood, yet will not do it. NOW, do not think, thou horrid man of sin, That Price, Prayer, Power shall a Connivance win; It were a lasting stain to Womanhood Who Wedlock love, to sell their husband's blood. Such satisfaction must not stand for pay Lest th' purchase style the field Akeldama. Eye for an Eye the ancient law decreed, Then for an Head what ransom but an Head? Yea, more than that should b required in reason, For his was loyal, thine a mint of treason. " Though Titus' head were like another man's, " 'Twas worth a thousand of Domitian's. Char. This struck home, NOL, so far as it went: but His pen should have given thee a touch of more butcheries committed by thy command, and that instrumental Precedent. Oli. O Sir, that had been needless; I have them all in red Capital Letters writ within me: and as they are houtly presented to me; so they hourly torture me. Your Capel, Lucas, Lisle, Slingsby, Ashton, with other numberless objects (such is the terror of an afflicted conscience) constantly affright me. Neither was it my meaning, but that others should by sentence of that Court, have speedily followed them. So as, there was nothing that enraged my spirit more than the hearing of Mordant and Bennet to be freed. That indulgence, though just enough, rankled ong within me, and begot in me a fatal distemper. For thirst of blood was grown in me so insatiate, as guilt and innocence fell together in the scale: and became equally liable to a censure. Upon my review of these, and my tyrannising in these, I cannot but acknowledge myself worthily branded with all infamy on earth, but justly suffering all torments here where I am eternally to remain: Yet being plunged in this depth of misery, me thinks, humanity should afford me more pity, then to Libel me. Neither would it so much grieve me, if they disgorged their poison in strong lines: but in base Ballad stuff to bring in my Ghst, calling upon my Son RICHARD; and he not to believe me to be his Father (as he might well, for never was NOL known so void of Sense) were unsufferable, if mine arm could reach so far as to punish it. Char. It seems then, that NOL will sooner lose his hair then his condition. Fury and revenge lodge in thine heart, wheresoever thou keep'st Garrison. Ol. O What other Music than Division can be heard in these quarters, where we are all enemies before we know one another! where we act revenge without ground: and practise hostility at first sight! Thus men divined; and this have I found That I should pass o'er the Stygian Lake, And as I had brewed, so might I bake. And have I not brewed bravely, when I thirst perpetually, and can find nothing to quench me?— O that this surly Governor here would take my Parole, how it would refresh me! Char. True NOL, But what security wouldst thou enter for thy return? What Bondsmen would untertake for thee? Ol. O none, none. I have forfeited the Bond of my fidelity so often, as none will credit me. O that the English Peerage had been endued with more valour; so might they have clipped my wings: and stayed me in my Career: the pursuit whereof rendered me in this most unhappy; in that I never felt what misfortune was, being ever accompanied with success and victory! and what has all this purchased me, save dishonour on earth; torture in my recede from earth: and a mark of infamy to the remainder of my scornful family, so long as they shall live upon earth? Now, was not this continued conquest a precious purchase? O how I am enforced to see, what my discontented eyes would gladly turn from! Methinks I am now smoothly contracting with Davy Lashley for foreslowing his March, or making him an easy enemy by his cool assistance: which chaffer or martial merchandise went on prosperously: for I found him by mine Agitators as ready to receive, as they were to offer. So as, though he were colourably taken Prisoner, he was privately a State Pensioner: living where he may be most secure; for in his own country, he cannot promise himself any safety. So despicable he is to those that know him: being rich in fortunes, but poor in friends. Such is the reward of his disloyalty, as he knows not whom to trust, nor with whom to consort in his times of discontent. Charles. Surely, NOL, thy calamity hath read to thee an excellent Lecture of Loyalty. Which timely perused and digested, had salved thine honour: and secured thee from those terrors and tortures which thou dost now suffer.— O NOL, hadst thou known how betwixt Finite and Infinite there is no proportion, thou wouldst never have given such reins to thy restless ambition! Ol. O Sir, but he that has his Heaven upon Earth, never takes time to think on any other Heaven than earth! This moves me though all too late, to recall to mind that momentany shadow of earthly felicity (as I formerly termed it) which I there partaked: and to compare it with the present condition of my remediless pitiless and endless misery; where I can neitehr expect release, not hope of mercy. And amidst these, to remember my Court Gamboils, music, exquisite wines and sociable humorists; and compare them with those Sulphur brimstone Carouses, and ugly fiends I consort with: into what a gulf of bitterness am I plunged? the fluentest tongues would appear mute in these expresses. Char. I wonder, NOL, how such an Head-piece, in comparison of whom, Machiavelli might be justly accounted a Novice, could retain, after so many successful battles and titular honours, so little sage in your magnetic sconce, as to exchange the specious splendour of an imperial Britanny, foir the hideous horror of an infernal Tartary. Ol. In answer, it was PROVIDENCE; a change not by my choice. But my hope was, before I descended to it, to make it mine own, and erect a New Court of justice in it, as I had formerly done in other countries. And being now removed, and taken napping before I was prepared; I wonder much how the Cardinal MAZARINE, that Arch-Engineer of all Division, and professed enemy to civil peace, should have his term of life so long continued, and mine so soon contracted! Should I relate to you shadowingly our secret counsels, association, with our mutual and intercursive Characterism, by way of intelligence, touching the taking in of Dunkirk and Mardike, our transactions in relation to Flanders; you would hold poor Nol a simple Sophister in the School of Machiavelisme, compared to the Cardinal: being of a prompt wit, and profound judgement. One so sociably wise, as his company would infinitely content me. And he demeans himself so as I hope, e'er long (if his Relations will give way) to see him here, and enjoy his company in this Region. Ch. If he should, NOL, he would not thank thee either for thy society, or that Courts hospitality. He holds himself well where he is: and would not change his lodging in Paris for all the small hope he has in Paradise: much less for Pluto's bustling Court, where there are no conferments of honour, nor projectments suitable to his humour: His Check roll there would be both too numerous, and too regardless: The Cardinal is a person of reserved State: and stands mainly on his punctilio. Ol. Howsoever, it would glad me much to see him; if it were but to chide him, for the he had of me, after my remove from him. Char. How; from your sworn Brother! Ol. Or else he forswore himself.— Yet no sooner had the report of my frantic death (for so they famed it) crossed the Sea, and sounded in his ear; then with winged speed he addressed his course to your sWiddow-Queen; telling her, that he had brought her the happiest tidings that ever befell her: for her greatest enemy she had in the world, was dead: which he expressed with such cheerfulness and alacrity, as if it infinitely concerned himself. Char. And so it did: for than he might hold himself the only wise man in Europe. Ol. Pray Sir, was not this done like a Brotherly Cardinal? But, indeed, my long experience of his pretended intimacy had schooled me sufficiently, if I had retained so much grace as to have made use of it: for there was never any exploir nor design tending to my disadvantage or dishonour, which I was not put upon by him, or his Beagles. Witness that unfortunate voyage to jamaica, wherein so many old Soldiers laid down their lives, finding graves where they could find no ground to fight. But that was nothing Soldiers might be recruited; but the vast charge which was in that dishonourable attempt expended, neither is, nor ever will be, I think, discharged. In which pitiful adventure, I appeal to mine attendants in ordinary and private assemblies, with what extemporary prayers, dissembling tears, and heartless sighs I wearied heaven as well as my hearers for the good success of those seafaring Soldiers: wherein I am persuaded, as the time was afterwards computed, that my devotion was liable to a Romish error, being offered long after they were masacred. So little available were all our Fasts and Humiliation to those distressed and dislaughtered Soldiers. The more I held forth to the people, the worse news heard the people of them. Other Ports and Holds too by his advice took I in; the holding whereof cost more, than the revenues or conveniences of those Places would defray. And one of the considerablest which I there left, will be shortly, I am pereswaded, by a Trustee of your betraying Nation, freely rendered: and for a money matter, by way of sale, just as they dealt with you, clearly acquitted and conveyed. Now, from whence came all these mercenary contracts, or bargains of sale, but from the Cardinal's Hat? which has found a Cap of Maintenance for those factious spirits of France, for many years together. Char. Vice having once got an habit is not quickly removed. Ambition when it rides on Cockhorse, scorns to be dismounted, till it be unhorsed. So fares it with that Statizing Prelate; who, though it be his securest way to fish in troubled waters, he must perish on dry land, when his pretending Favourites shall desert him; and the Queen's side leave him to himself. His unfeathered policy will not then save him.— But tell me NOL, why wouldst thou have that Cardinal translated? Ol. That he may more sensibly feel what I through his counsel and my own designs shall and have suffered. Char. No, NOL, that's not it. I smell thy drift; thou wouldst have the Cardinal removed, that by his descension thou might be made his Chaplain. Col. Not so Sir; though I have been in my time a stipendiary predicant; I would not stoop so low as become any such Machiavilian Deacon. I was lately the enjoyeer of your Royal Exchequer; having the State-purse at command: wherewith my necessities made me so bold, as by my vast expense occasioned from some desperate and unfortunate adventures, I have laid such an heap of stones at WALLINGFORD Courtgate, as will not be easily removed: six millions thick (the Commonwealth being already so much exhuasted) will not be so quickly discharged. This makes me grin and laugh beyond measure amidst my sufferings. Ch. And I will leave thee in that posture of malicious laughter.— Bid thee farewel, I will not; that salute were useless. Thine actions were such strangers to all goodness, as they have estranged thee from all hope of happiness. Rest in thy rest less condition, Elysium Charides, Hic Acharontam petit. hapless, helpless, hopeless.— Adieu, adve. Ol. Thus must I here remain ever dying, ever living, relinquished of all humane Society, reft of all visible comfort to Eternity.— Adieu, adve. FINIS.